Immigration Controls: Boats
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats have been found carrying (a) drugs and (b) weapons upon arrival in the UK in the last year.
Answered by Dame Angela Eagle
All migrants arriving by small boats are subject to physical searches upon arrival, and clothing is removed and replaced as part of initial reception processing.
Some small weapons – for example, knives – have occasionally been seized as a result of those searches over the past seven years, but we have no record of any attempts to struggle illicit drugs into the UK via this route or any firearms.
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