The Home Secretary has travelled to Italy for talks on irregular migration this weekend as hundreds of people continue to cross the Channel in small boats.
Yvette Cooper met her counterpart in Rome, Matteo Piandetosi, at the end of a week of diplomacy on border control.
She was also expected to attend the Atreju festival, an annual event organised by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, speaking alongside Mr Piandetosi on tackling migration across Europe.
Previous speakers at the event have included former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban and, in 2023, Rishi Sunak.
Ms Cooper’s trip to Rome comes as the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats this year exceeded 34,500, a 19% increase on the same point in 2023.
Some 609 people made the journey on Thursday, making it the busiest December day for crossings on record. Another 298 migrants made the journey on Friday, according to provisional Government figures.
The visit also follows a meeting of the so-called Calais Group in London, where ministers and police from the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands agreed a plan to tackle people smuggling gangs in 2025.
Separately, the UK and Germany set out a joint plan earlier in the week on how to tackle people smugglers, with Berlin pledging to make it a clear criminal offence to “facilitate the smuggling of migrants to the UK”.
Ministers have committed to reducing the number of crossings by “smashing the gangs” operating the cross-Channel route.
A Home Office readout of Ms Cooper’s bilateral talks with Mr Piantedosi said the two ministers had discussed “the importance of taking an end to end approach” in tackling irregular migration.
This includes “looking at the entire route people take, including the challenges of the Western Balkans route used by thousands of migrants who end up in Europe or the UK illegally, and driving assisted voluntary returns before people make their way into Europe”, it said.
“The leaders agreed to follow up with commitment made by both prime ministers in September to ‘follow the money’ and tackle illicit finance to drive international action against the source of gangs.
“They spoke about doing what they can to stop people making long and dangerous journeys by better informing them of the dangers of crossing the Mediterranean and the Channel, and working with delivery partners, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and International Organisation for Migration.
“They also jointly recognised the welcome fall of the Assad regime.”
