The interior minister will sign the agreement with French interior minister Gerald Darmanin on Monday morning. According to the Financial Times, the deal will significantly increase the 200 French officers and volunteers operating on the English Channel beaches and encourage France to target a higher percentage of migrants who are prevented from leaving. A government insider confirmed the deal had been reached, the paper said, which is to include an increase in payments from London to Paris and a closer relationship between the two countries’ border police teams. The insider described the deal as “a good step forward”, telling the paper: “It should be followed up with a further broader agreement in the future.” Read more: Traffickers turn to new and more dangerous ways to smuggle people across the Channel Image: Migrants use a new taxi service in Calais as they try to cross the English Channel The UK and France have been in talks for several months to renew longstanding agreements to police the English Channel. French diplomatic officials said the new deal between the UK and France would be announced on Monday. The Financial Times reports that the annual amount the UK pays to France is expected to rise to €72m (£63m) in 2022 to 2023, from €62.7m (£54.8m) in 2021 to in 2022. The UK government has sent a total of €200m (£174.8m) to Paris to police the border since 2018, while France spends around €250m (£218.6m) each year to deal with all of matters relating to the British frontier. French officials said the number of officers on patrol to stop small boat crossings would rise from 200 to 300 by mid-2023 under the new deal, the paper said, with the UK covering additional monitoring costs. He added that the deal also plans to strengthen a French operations centre, while British Border Force officers will be present as observers for the first time, respecting French sovereignty. On Friday, Foreign Secretary James Cleverley and his French counterpart Catherine Colonna issued a statement stressing the “urgent need to tackle all forms of illegal immigration”. Use Chrome browser for more accessible video player 0:34 Migrants seen boarding a boat in Calais 40,000 pass through the UK So far this year, around 40,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats, up from 28,526 last year, putting pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. A total of 972 people made the crossing on 22 boats on Saturday, bringing the total who have made the journey so far in 2022 to 40,885. Border Force officials were seen bringing groups of people ashore in Dover on Saturday, marking the first arrivals this month after a spell of bad weather. In recent years there has been a sharp increase in the number of people arriving in the UK on small boats from France. About 299 were detected in 2018, followed by 1,843 in 2019 and 8,466 in 2020, official figures show. Meanwhile, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta have complained that they have been forced to bear the brunt of migrants crossing the Mediterranean and have called for changes in European Union policy. The four southern European states said in a joint statement that responsibility should be shared more widely across the bloc for sheltering people rescued by charity ships. Image: A young child is taken from a Border Force boat after arriving in Dover, Kent Thousands will be vaccinated at the migrant center in Manston In the UK, health authorities said thousands of migrants passing through the Manston processing center would be vaccinated against diphtheria after dozens of cases of the highly contagious disease were confirmed in England. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said it was working with the Home Office to vaccinate migrants at the centre, after it was revealed on Friday that 39 cases of diphtheria had been identified in asylum seekers in England in 2022 by 10 November. The UKHSA warned that accommodation should be considered “high risk for infectious diseases”. The agency said that in many cases the disease had been contracted abroad and brought to the UK and stressed the need to take steps to “minimise the risk of further transmission”.
