Home Office could withhold £160m from France if police fail to stop small boats

France risks losing £160m in UK funding if it fails to do enough to halt Channel crossings under a “payment-by-results” deal agreed earlier this year. It comes after the busiest day for small boat arrivals in 2026 was recorded on Wednesday and four more people died attempting the crossing. Under the agreement, signed by the Home Secretary in April, £500m was committed to boost enforcement on French beaches, with a further £160m contingent on France succeeding in cutting migrant numbers. It was the first time UK funding to France on Channel crossings has been tied to results in this way, and if the new tactics fail to stop enough boats the £160m top-up will stop after one year. Shorts The scheme funded a 40 per cent increase in law enforcement, intelligence and military officers on French beaches, taking the total to nearly 1,100 personnel, alongside a new 50-officer riot police unit, an expanded intelligence and judicial police team, drone surveillance, two helicopters and additional maritime officers targeting “taxi boats”. The pressure on France to show results was underlined on Wednesday, when 752 people arrived in the UK in nine boats – the highest number of crossings in a single day so far this year, according to the Home Office. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp was filmed on Hardelot beach, south of Boulogne, this week being told by a French police officer that they had been given orders not to stop migrants attempting to leave in small boats. He told The i Paper: “A French gendarme on the beach admitted to me that he had orders not to intervene to stop the immigrants. “The £160m top-up should be revoked now and not left to run for another year while the boats keep coming and people keep dying. “The Belgians successfully and safely intervene to stop crossings in exactly the same circumstances. The French should too – and if they refuse Andy Burnham should stop paying any more money. This will be an early test of his leadership.” The Prime Minister said the UK had made “significant progress” on cutting the number of crossings – total arrivals for the year are around 42 per cent lower than the figure recorded at the same point last year. The Home Office said the reduction was not solely due to weather conditions but also reflected co-operation with French authorities to prevent crossings through increased enforcement on beaches and the seizure of boats, supported by the £662m agreement signed in April. Asked by reporters about Donald Trump’s remark that the UK had a “huge immigration problem”, Burnham said there was much still to do “to get those numbers right down”. The 752 arrivals recorded on Wednesday exceeded the previous daily high for the year, which was 710 in June. This brings the provisional total for the year to 14,128 arrivals. Overnight into Thursday, four people died attempting the crossing. A man thought to be in his thirties or forties died after a boat capsized off Hardelot on France’s northern coast at around 11.30pm local time on Wednesday. Six others, including a one-year-old child, were injured. French officials said the vessel was a “taxi boat”, used to collect paying passengers already waiting in the water. Security forces intervened and an investigation has been launched. Eight hours later, three people were found dead aboard a boat that had launched from Dunkirk, around 100km up the coast. The French coastguard said the vessel was spotted near a breakwater at 6am local time and rescuers found three people unconscious aboard. Their deaths were later confirmed by emergency personnel. A UK Government spokesperson said: “Every death in the Channel is a tragedy and a stark reminder of the dangers posed by criminal gangs exploiting vulnerable people for profit.” According to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, 162 people died while attempting to cross the English Channel between 2018 and 2025. Since 2020, small-boat crossings have become the most common method by which people are detected entering the UK illegally.