Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress she has made on tackling people-smuggling gangs.

Stopping small boat crossings is a priority for this government, unlike the benches opposite who have opposed every measure we’ve come forward with to tackle the gangs.

We share information about criminality relating to small boat crossings between international agencies in particular with the French known as the Joint Intelligence Cell.

Since the establishment in July 2020 of the Joint Intelligence Cell, 59 organised criminal groups involved in small boats crossings in France have been dismantled and nearly 400 arrests made in 2022.