Suspected people smugglers face phone and travel ban

More than 36,000 people arrived in Britain by small boats in 2024, figures show

Suspected people smugglers will face travel bans, social media blackouts and phone restrictions under new laws, the government has announced.

Ministers plan to introduce "interim" Serious Crime Prevention Orders (SCPOs) to place immediate restrictions on suspects' activity while a full order is considered by the courts.

It comes after figures showed the number of migrants arriving by crossing the English Channel in small boats last year was up by a quarter - more than 7,000 - on 2023.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said stronger powers were needed to tackle the "vile gang networks" – but shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the measures were "laughable" and would not act as a deterrent.

Under the proposals announced by the Home Office, suspects could be banned from using a laptop or mobile phone, accessing social media networks, associating with certain people, or accessing their finances.

SCPOs can already be sought to curb the movement of people involved in organised immigration crime.

However, the government said the measures were not being used to their full effect and it planned to introduce the new "interim" orders.

Police, the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement bodies would be able to apply directly to the High Court for these orders without going through the Crown Prosecution Service, the Home Office said.

Breaching an interim order could lead to up to five years in prison.

The changes will be included in the government's Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is expected to be introduced to parliament in the coming weeks.

Cooper said: "Dangerous, criminal people-smugglers are profiting from undermining our border security and putting lives at risk.

"They cannot be allowed to get away with it.

"We will give law enforcement stronger powers they need to pursue and stop more of these vile gang networks."

• How many people cross the Channel in small boats?

Philp called the measures "laughable" and said the government should reinstate the scrapped Rwanda scheme, which originated under the Conservatives and planned to send some asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda.

He said: "Labour have a cheek claiming to be tough on people-smuggling gangs - they voted against higher sentences for these very same smuggling gangs in the last parliament."

He added that "what would have stopped the boats would have been a removals deterrent - but Labour cancelled Rwanda before it even started".

Meanwhile, Sir David Davis, the former Conservative cabinet minister, called the measures announced by the Labour government "unnecessarily draconian".

He told The Times: "We'll have to go through the fine text but there's a reason for the process for charging and arrest being properly sequenced before you can do other things and that's to protect the liberty of ordinary law-abiding people."

It comes after the English Channel saw its deadliest year on record last year.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a UN agency which tracks the number of people who die crossing the Channel, told BBC News that 78 people died attempting to make the journey.

The latest incident on 29 December saw three people die attempting to cross the Channel in a small boat, the French coastguard said.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has vowed to tackle ''dangerous" people smugglers

The Refugee Council said small boats being used to cross the Channel were "increasingly unseaworthy", with more people travelling on each vessel.

"The change is almost certainly a result of UK and French government attempts to disrupt the criminal gangs who profit from the dangerous journeys and the focus on enforcement as the principal way of doing this," the charity said.

Provisional Home Office numbers released on New Year's Day showed that 36,816 people arrived in Britain by small boats in 2024, a quarter more than in 2023 (29,437).

People from Afghanistan accounted for the single largest group of arrivals in the first nine months of 2024, making up 17% of the total number who had arrived by the end of September.

Iranians were the second-largest group (13%), followed by Vietnamese and Syrians (both on 12%).

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer previously said his government "inherited a very bad position" with record numbers of migrants in the first half of last year "because the entire focus until we had the election was on a gimmick, the Rwanda gimmick, and not enough attention was on taking down the gangs that are running this vile trade".