Number of Channel crossing arrivals ‘frustrating’, says border security chief

The UK’s border security chief tasked with tackling Channel crossings has said the number of arrivals by small boat to the UK is “frustrating” but that work to stop the smuggling route was “always going to take time”.

Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt, who has been in post for a year, rejected the idea it was a “fool’s errand” to go after smuggling gangs and told MPs he was convinced the plan in place “will deliver”.

Speaking to the Commons’ Home Affairs Committee on Thursday, Mr Hewitt said: “I more than anybody, find the fact that the numbers are where they are frustrating and really challenging, and this issue could not be more high profile.

“But I am convinced that the plan, the sort of cross spectrum plan that we have in place, is a plan that will deliver, but we need to we need to keep pushing and delivering that plan.”

His comments come as more than 36,000 people have made the dangerous journey so far this year, around a third higher than the same point in 2024.

But Mr Hewitt told the committee the Border Security Command, which leads a cross-government response to small boats, is bringing together a “range of attacks” to undermine the criminal business model but said “now that isn’t going to happen very quickly”.

He added: “I think there has previously been kind of views that that there is one thing, or one or two things that will provide the answer.

“I very firmly believe that that’s not the case.

“This is an established criminality, it’s an incredibly profitable criminality and there are increasingly numbers of people who are in a situation where they could see the potential to become migrants.

“I don’t think this was ever going to happen very quickly.”

But the border security chief told MPs officials believe they are starting to see an impact on what they are doing in how smugglers have shifted their methods to get people across the Channel.

“I think that is pointing to some of the interventions where we are making that more challenging in that respect. But this was always going to take time,” he said.

Earlier this year the French agreed to review its maritime rules which would allow officers to intervene in the water, in response to smugglers using “taxi boats” where migrants will get onto a boat already out at sea rather than boarding on the beaches.

Mr Hewitt admitted it is “frustrating” that it is has taken the time to be introduced and that he was in France a few weeks ago to “press the point” about how important using that tactic is for tackling taxi boats.

Elsewhere, the Border Security Commander told MPs that “we can’t stop” push factors such as conflict and repressive regimes but that that it can be understood what can be done to support where possible local leaders and organisations.

He added there are pull factors that “no one can control” such as English language and diaspora communities in the UK.

But he said: “What we absolutely have to do, I think, is ensure that there is nothing, there is as little as possible in our systems and our asylum systems that is making this particular place more attractive for someone than somewhere else.”

Asked about digital ID cards proposed by the Government to be used to tackle illegal working and deter migrants from coming to the UK, Mr Hewitt said it “potentially has advantage”.

He said: “There is no doubt that having an ability to make it significantly harder for somebody to work illegally is absolutely key.

“But the concept of the of a digital ID that makes it even harder for somebody to be in a position to try and work, I think, potentially has advantage.

“I think it’s going to be really important and and I know that there is a consultation process that’s going to be begun to to work through how that, how that could work and add value to the work that we’re doing.”