Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to establish a system for recording deaths and serious injuries at the UK-France border; and why mortality data at that border is not routinely published.

The Home Office maintains a record of reported fatalities that have occurred as a result of attempts to make dangerous, illegal, and unnecessary crossings of the Channel by migrants in small boats. Most of these fatalities have taken place in French Territorial Waters, and so it would not be appropriate for UK authorities to publish information about fatal incidents occurring outside the UK's jurisdiction.

Those fatal incidents that have taken place in UK TTW are subject to UK coronial and official inquiry processes, and their reports are a matter of public record.

Serious injuries are extremely rare along the UK-France border and following interceptions by Border Force (canalised entry) and BSC (includes all Maritime interception, welfare receptions, initial interviewing and immigration processing on land), but there has always been violence and inhumane treatment perpetrated by people smuggling gangs across Europe and beyond. The UK and international partners are resolved on disrupting and dismantling these gangs.