UK and France strike new £662m small boats deal

The new £662m deal includes riot-trained police to be sent to beaches in France, drones worth millions, two helicopters, and a new camera system to track smugglers and migrants. The UK could redirect about £100m of funding after a year if French authorities do not stop enough crossings. The package involves nearly 1,100 officers in northern France, and France will supply a new vessel and more than 20 maritime officers to target taxi boats. About £501m will be spent on enforcement on beaches, with an additional £160m potentially available if the tactics succeed. Politically, Conservative MP Chris Philp described the deal as 'half a billion pounds of our money with no conditions at all'; Reform UK urged detaining and deporting all illegal migrants and called for a sovereign deterrent; Liberal Democrats urged a large-scale returns agreement; the Refugee Council warned policing alone won't deter vulnerable people. Some politicians also argued the UK should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights to stop the crossings.

On Saturday, 602 migrants arrived in Dover on nine boats, bringing the total number of arrivals so far in 2026 to more than 6,000.

In the last two months, French authorities stopped six migrant boats, returned all migrants to France, and five smugglers were sentenced to prison and deportation.

As of February 2026, under the returns scheme, 305 people had been returned to France and 367 had arrived in the UK.

The Labour government concluded a separate 'one-in-one-out' deal with France allowing the UK to return some small boat arrivals to France while admitting an equivalent number of migrants from France who have not attempted to come to the UK.

A previous UK-France deal signed in 2023 involved about £476m in UK funding for extra patrols to disrupt migrant smuggling, with around 700 law enforcement officers patrolling beaches in northern France; the arrangement was expected to expire in May 2026.