Eight boats carry 186 migrants across English Channel

Eight boats carrying 186 migrants crossed the English Channel on Tuesday.

French authorities stopped a further 96 people from making the journey, the Home Office said.

More than 2,400 people have reached the UK by boat in 2021 - an increase of more than 1,000 compared to the same period last year.

The government aims to make the route "unviable" and is planning to make it more difficult for asylum seekers who arrive by boat to remain in the UK.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said: "Access to the UK's asylum system should be based on need, not the ability to pay people smugglers."

The UN's refugee agency has said the proposals would create a "discriminatory two-tier asylum system, undermining the 1951 Refugee Convention".

It said the government should "look at the context" and while there had been a rise in migrants arriving by boat, it was not a "mass-influx".

"The UK has modest numbers of asylum-seekers relative to European peers, and UK claims have been declining," it said.

Last year, France received 95,600 asylum applications, with 122,170 in Germany and 88,530 in Spain.

There were 29,456 applications in the UK in 2020, a decrease of 18% compared to 2019.

The Home Office does not provide figures on how asylum seekers arrive in the UK, but it told inspectors in 2019 that "clandestine entry" - which includes arriving by boat or lorry - was "the most common method of entry for asylum seekers".