Immigration minister Robert Jenrick distanced himself from Suella Braverman’s claim of an “invasion” (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
(Picture: PA Archive)The small boats crisis is poised to worsen with more than 50,000 migrants crossing the Channel this year, a Home Office minister admitted on Tuesday — as he warned against “demonising” people making the perilous journey.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said that because November has historically been a record month for Channel crossings, the Government was preparing for the current total of around 40,000 arrivals to rise significantly before the year ends.
He said the anticipated new surge could take the overall number of migrants coming in small boats this year to 50,000 or even “significantly higher” — around double the record of 28,526 in 2021 — to place further pressure on an already “overwhelmed” asylum system.
He said that “radical options” for tackling the crisis would have to be considered over the coming months, alongside efforts to procure more hotel accommodation to ease the current overcrowding at the Manston reception centre in Kent, where inspectors have warned of intolerable and unlawful conditions.
But Mr Jenrick distanced himself from embattled Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s claim of an “invasion” by insisting that it was important not to “demonise” migrants while tackling the crisis.
He said that instead it was necessary to “choose terminology wisely” and, in a reference to the risk of triggering a repeat of the weekend petrol bomb attack on a migrant site in Dover, warned that “we don’t want to see incidents like the one that occurred in Dover happen again.”
“In a job like mine you have to choose your words very carefully,” Mr Jenrick added. “I would never demonise people coming to this country in pursuit of a better life. I understand and appreciate our obligation to refugees.”
Mr Jenrick said Ms Braverman’s “invasion” claim, made on Monday during an appearance before MPs on the asylum crisis and her email breaches of the ministerial code, had been an attempt to describe the “sheer scale of the challenge” caused by the record number of arrivals.
“We might find because November has historically been a month in which a record number of individuals have crossed the Channel that we end this year with 50,000 people having made this perilous journey and that is causing our system to be overwhelmed,” he said.
“It is putting huge pressure on our asylum system, on social housing, on hotel accommodation.. and we have to grip this challenge.”
He added: “This is a crisis. We will need to look at some more radical options to ensure that our laws are appropriate, that economic migrants are returned swiftly, and that we deter people from coming.”
Mr Jenrick said that Albanians, who in recent months have accounted for the large proportion of arrivals, were often economic migrants who needed to be returned and warned that the problems at Manston and elsewhere would continue unless the volume of arrivals fell.
“The root cause of the problem is the sheer number of people choosing to make that dangerous journey and putting immense pressure on our system because people don’t design a system for 50,000 people plus to cross the Channel illegally every year,” he said.
Mr Jenrick’s comments came as the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, said he would be “horrified” if inmates at the country’s jails faced the same conditions as the migrants at Manston. He said the reception centre, where migrants including children are being held for longer than the legally permitted 24 hours and sleeping on rubber mats in accommodation without flushing toilets, had been functioning reasonably until recent weeks but ministers now needed to “get a grip”.
Meanwhile, Labour turned on Ms Braverman, accusing her of using “incendiary language” that risked provoking violence against migrants. Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell said: “I think the language that she used yesterday in the House of Commons was deeply irresponsible, coming just 24 hours after we saw a firebomb attack on a migrant centre in Kent. This will put our security services, our police, local communities at higher risk. It will put them on high alert.”
