Britain makes deal with Turkey to crack down on human trafficking across EU

When asked about the supply chain that fuels small boat crossings, Sunak said: "We know that the export of small boats across parts of the European continent is a vital element of the smuggling gangs’ tactics. And that's why specifically we are stepping up joint operations with Turkey."

The Prime Minister said he had raised this issue when he spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "so that we can tackle organized immigration crime and specifically disrupt the supply chain of both parts that are used for these dangerous crossings."

A total of 872 migrants were detected crossing the English Channel in 15 small boats last Saturday. This is the highest number recorded on a single day in 2023 so far, according to the Home Office.

The previous day record was seen on August 10, when 756 migrants were detected crossing the Channel.

The backlog of asylum seeker cases in the UK reached a record high at the end of June 2023, with 175,457 people waiting for a decision on their asylum application.

This represents a 44 percent increase from June 2022, according to official figures.

Today it was revealed that the Government's new Illegal Migration Act, which is aimed at stopping the boats, may mean those arriving in small boats are no longer deemed to be asylum seekers.

This means they are no longer eligible for Overseas Development Assistance.

The Government would therefore have to fund the cost of these asylum seekers through the rest of the budget, rather than digging into the foreign aid budget.

In 2022, the Home Office spent £2.4bn of the foreign aid budget on asylum seekers, most of which went towards paying for hotels for asylum seekers.

Responding to the report, the Home Office said: "The Illegal Migration Act will mean that people who come to the UK illegally will not have a right to stay," a government spokesperson said.

"Instead they will be liable to be returned either to their home country or relocated to a safe third country, breaking the business model of people smugglers and stopping the unprecedented strain on our asylum system."

Dr Tamsyn Barton, the watchdog's chief commissioner, said: "Our analysis of the aid rules suggests that the Illegal Migration Act, if fully implemented, could close off the main source of funding the government is using to house asylum seekers."

She claimed using the aid budget on hotel costs - rather than sending it to people in their home countries - was "inequitable as well as inefficient".

Speaking about the findings, Sarah Champion, the Chairwoman of the Commons International Development Committee and Labour MP, claimed the Government had scored a "spectacular own goal"..

She said: "Spending billions of our greatly reduced foreign aid budget in the UK - the bulk of it on hotels for the tens of thousands of people awaiting an asylum decision in a horribly backlogged system - was always counter-productive.

"Spending in this manner was against the spirit of the ODA [Overseas Development Assistance] rules and now it seems with the Illegal Migration Act, the government has made its policy in breach of those same rules."

Champion said the aid budget should now be spent on "tackling the reasons people flee their homes, not deal with the consequences"