The home secretary, Sajid Javid, is cutting short a family holiday to deal with the growing number of migrants trying to cross the Channel by boat, the immigration minister, Caroline Nokes, has said.

Javid has faced calls to deploy Royal Navy vessels after he declared the surge in people attempting to cross the channel by boat a “major incident” on Friday. He has appointed a gold commander to deal with the growing crisis and asked for an urgent call with his French counterparts.

Sajid Javid: Channel migrant crossings 'a major incident' Read more

Speaking during a visit to Dover on Saturday, Nokes said: “I can’t comment on his [Javid’s] whereabouts for security reasons, but he is on his way back and he will be at his desk on Monday. He is taking control of the situation and I am in regular contact with him, and we had a conference call just yesterday.”

On Saturday, there were calls from some MPs for the Royal Navy to be sent in or for Border Force cutters to be brought back from the Mediterranean to target traffickers.

The MP John Woodcock, a member of the Commons home affairs committee, told the Sun: “The public is losing confidence in the struggling Border Force. It’s time to stop the rot by sending in the Royal Navy. If the civilian force can’t cope, the navy must stop this crisis becoming a catastrophe.”

Charlie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, said it would be better to bring Border Force cutters back from the Mediterranean, where they are taking part in search-and-rescue operations.

“Border Force officials are trained to protect borders rather more than the Royal Navy,” Elphicke told Sky News. “The navy are very important and very good, but they do other things and border protection is not their key thing.”

He called on the French authorities to “match the home secretary’s determination” by stepping up action on their side of the Channel to curtail trafficking routes and prevent people attempting dangerous crossings.

However, Nokes said: “It is feasible that were we to put additional craft [out] they might act as a magnet – encouraging people to make a perilous crossing.

“What we want to make sure is that we continue to work with the French so that people are prevented from leaving beaches in northern France; to make sure we are providing joint operations both in terms of intelligence [and] policing; and indeed when people are out on the water assisting the French response.”

She rejected suggestions not enough was being done to tackle smugglers, saying there was an “enormous intelligence-led operation to make sure that arrests are made in France”. She continued: “Where people’s lives are at risk, people are rescued where necessary.”





A union representing Border Force staff said it was “very difficult to know” what the French authorities were doing to prevent people-smuggling from migrant camps in Calais.

“We are being told that those touting for these crossings are absolutely open about it,” Lucy Moreton, of the immigration services union, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday.

“They are around and about in the camps, they are in the cafes in those areas of Calais. They are very clear, very open, touting for crossings that night. If it’s that obvious to journalists and staff in those areas, then presumably it is obvious to the French authorities too.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The immigration minister. Caroline Nokes, speaks with Border Force officers and the HM Coastguard in Dover on 29 December 2018. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Moreton said the two cutters available to Border Force staff patrolling the Channel were “woefully inadequate” but increasing their number would take considerable time.

Channel migrant crossings: who is coming and why? Read more

The Home Office has not given official figures about how many migrants have crossed the Channel over the past few months, but the Guardian understands that between January and November 2018, at least 250 migrants were intercepted in the Channel. This includes 65 people, mainly Iranians, in the last three weeks of November alone.

Around 82 migrants have been detained crossing the Channel since Christmas Day, with a further 12 men from Syria and Iran intercepted at the end of last week.

Ingrid Parrot, the spokeswoman for the French maritime prefecture for the English Channel, told the Today programme: “Before 2018, we didn’t have smugglers. But now we have smugglers on the French coast and it is really a network.

“Before that it was not a network, it was individual migrants who were trying to cross. Now it’s a network, a criminal organisation.”

She said French authorities exchanged “a lot” of information with UK counterparts about smuggling operations, adding: “When migrants call us, we call MRCC (Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre) at Dover and Border Force to co-operate at sea to help these people, because we really fear finding bodies on the beach.”

Charities said the spike in numbers could be due to the difficult conditions in the camps in France, and a growing sense of “now or never” as Brexit loomed.

Since the beginning of the year migrants have been crossing the Channel on small boats but charities agree it is a relatively new route for those desperate to reach the UK.

Caroline Gregory, who works with Calais Action, which has been supporting migrants in northern France for the past three years, said migrants often attempted to hide themselves on lorries and vans crossing the Channel, a very dangerous method.