Migrant small boats reach Britain across Channel seven days in a row for first time this year, pushing total arrivals under Labour past 68,000
Channel migrants have arrived in Britain seven days in a row for the first time this year.
There were 309 arrivals who crossed from northern France aboard four dinghies on Monday, pushing the total number of arrivals since Labour came to power past the 68,000 mark.
It means 1,200 migrants have reached British soil over seven days.
Until then the longest stretch of consecutive arrivals this year had been three days in mid-January.
The total number of arrivals under Labour now stands at 68,123.
Of those, 3,409 have come since the start of this year.
On Monday, two of the inflatables attempted to cross between Boulogne in France and Lydd on the Kent coast before they were intercepted by Border Force vessels Defender and Ranger.
They were all brought into the Port of Ramsgate in Kent.
Migrants boarded a dangerously-overloaded dinghy off Gravelines beach in northern France and headed for Britain last week
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'Shabana Mahmood has no control of our borders - 1,200 illegal immigrants in just seven days is a week of shame for Labour.
'There have been 68,000 crossings since the election - a 45 per cent increase.
'The gangs have not been smashed, the French are not intercepting boats and there is no deterrent.
'Shabana Mahmood is too weak to do what is needed - leave the European Convention on Human Rights and deport all illegal immigrants within a week of arrival. Then the crossings would quickly stop.'
Migrants were seen sprintging across the sand at Gravelines beach to board smugglers' dinghies on Tuesday last week
It comes after the Home Secretary, Ms Mahmood, announced that failed asylum seeker families will be offered up to £40,000 to leave Britain voluntarily.
The new pilot scheme, unveiled last week, was branded 'absurd' and ‘an insult to the British taxpayer’ by critics.
The Home Office has already invited 150 families with no right to be in this country to apply for the lump sums - £10,000 a head for up to four people - and it could be expanded to thousands more families if seemed successful by ministers.
It is significantly more generous than existing voluntary returns schemes, currently capped at £3,000.
Ms Mahmood sanctioned the huge pay-outs in a bid to save even larger sums currently being spent on keeping the families in migrant hotels and other types of accommodation.
It currently costs an average of £158,000 a year to support a family of failed asylum seekers in migrant hotels.
Labour scrapped the previous government's Rwanda scheme, which would have seen adult asylum seekers compulsorily sent to east Africa, as one of its first acts in office.
Officials said last week that the £10,000 per head sum could be increased - or lowered - depending on take-up of the pilot scheme.
Eligible families have had claims rejected by the Home Office and have then exhausted the appeals process in the courts.
Schemes offering migrants cash to go home were first introduced in 1999 and continued under the Conservative government.
