France is set to receive a further £660 million from the UK under a new agreement aimed at reducing small boat crossings in the English Channel — taking total British payments since the crisis began to more than £1.3 billion.
The deal, agreed by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, includes £500 million for expanded policing and surveillance operations in northern France, alongside a further £160 million to test new enforcement tactics against people smuggling networks.
The package will fund increased patrols, new interception vessels, helicopters, drones and enhanced coastal surveillance systems, as well as a major uplift in French personnel deployed along key embarkation points.
However, the agreement has triggered sharp political criticism, with opponents arguing that repeated payments have failed to deliver meaningful results.
Critics point to official figures showing that interception rates have fallen even as the cost of cooperation has risen. France is now stopping roughly a third of attempted Channel crossings, down from around half under earlier arrangements.
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, said the deal “hands over half a billion pounds of our money with no conditions at all”, arguing that crossings continue to rise despite years of funding.
Reform UK’s immigration spokesman Zia Yusuf described the latest package as an “astonishing migrant payday”, saying taxpayers were funding a system that was “already failing”.
The Home Office has said the agreement will support the deployment of nearly 1,100 French police, intelligence and military personnel in northern France — a significant increase on previous arrangements.
Officials have also suggested that part of the funding could be withheld if performance targets are not met, with £100 million potentially being redirected if interception rates fail to improve.
Despite successive agreements under both Conservative and Labour governments, the number of small boat crossings has continued to rise. More than 41,000 migrants crossed the Channel last year, up from 36,566 the year before.
The new funding deal follows earlier agreements worth hundreds of millions of pounds signed under former prime minister Rishi Sunak and previous administrations, as governments on both sides of the Channel struggle to curb the flow of arrivals.
With summer approaching, officials expect renewed pressure on the system — and growing scrutiny over whether the latest injection of funding will make any measurable difference.
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