Undocumented Migrants: English Channel
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people who illegally crossed the English Channel were brought ashore by (a) Border Force, (b) the Royal Navy and (c) Royal National Lifeboat Institution since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Alex Norris
Information of this kind is only readily available for whole calendar years and the current year to date, rather than the part year commencing 5 July 2024 when the present Government came into office. The specific information requested could therefore only be obtained at a disproportionate cost as it would require a manual trawl of case records to retrieve.
The Royal Navy does not, and has never, rescued migrants from small boats. The vast majority of rescues of migrants in small boats in the Channel have been made by Border Force vessels, including during the period when MOD had primacy for the operational response to Channel crossings in 2022-23. The split between Border Force rescues and those made by RNLI in the years 2023, 2024, and to date in 2025 is:
| % of Migrants recovered on RNLI Vessels | % of Migrants recovered on BF Vessels |
2025 | 6% | 94% |
2024 | 7% | 93% |
2023 | 8% | 92% |
It should be noted that these figures come from management information, and should be viewed as indicative only and not assured data.
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