Suspected people smugglers will face travel bans, social media blackouts and phone restrictions under new laws, the government has announced.
Ministers plan to introduce “interim” Serious Crime Prevention Orders (SCPOs) to impose immediate restrictions on suspects’ activity while the courts consider a full order.
It comes after figures showed the number of migrants arriving across the Channel in small boats last year rose by a quarter (more than 7,000) compared to 2023.
Inside minister Yvette Cooper said stronger powers were needed to tackle “vile gang networks” but shadow Inside secretary Chris Philp said the measures were “laughable” and would not act as a deterrent.
Under proposals announced by the Ministry of Inside, suspects could be banned from using a laptop or mobile phone, accessing social media, associating with certain people or accessing their finances.
SCPOs can now be sought to stop the movement of people involved in organized immigration crime. However, the government said the measures were not being used to their full effect and plans to introduce new “interim” orders.
Police, the National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies could apply for these orders directly to the High Court without going through the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Inside Ministry said.
Failure to comply with an interim order could lead to up to five years in prison.
The changes will be included in the government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is expected to be introduced to parliament in the coming weeks.
Cooper said: “Dangerous criminal human traffickers are profiting from undermining our border security and putting lives at risk.
“They cannot be allowed to get away with this.
“We will give law enforcement the stronger powers they need to pursue and stop more of these vile gang networks.”
Philp called the measures “laughable” and said the government should reinstate the scrapped Rwanda scheme, which originated under the Conservatives and planned to send some UK asylum seekers to Rwanda.
He said: “Labour has the gall to claim they are tough on smuggling gangs – they voted against higher sentences for these same smuggling gangs in the last parliament.”
He added that “what would have stopped the boats would have been a deterrent to the moves, but Labor canceled Rwanda before it even started.”
Meanwhile, Sir David Davis, a former Conservative cabinet minister, called the measures announced by the Labor government “unnecessarily draconian”.
It comes after the English Channel saw Last year was the deadliest year on record. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a UN agency that tracks the number of people who die crossing the Channel, said 77 people died trying to make the journey.
In the last incident that occurred on December 29 Three people die trying to cross the English Channel on a small boat, the French coast guard said.
The Refugee Council said the small boats used to cross the Channel were “increasingly unseaworthy”, with more and more people on each boat.
“The change is almost certainly the result of the British and French governments’ attempts to disrupt criminal gangs that profit from dangerous travel and a focus on law enforcement as the primary way of doing so,” the charity said. .
Provisional numbers from the Ministry of Inside released on new year’s day showed that 36,816 people arrived in Britain on small boats in 2024, a quarter more than in 2023 (29,437).
People from Afghanistan represented the largest group of arrivals in the first nine months of 2024, representing 17% of the total number of people who had arrived by the end of September. Iranians were the second largest group (13%), followed by Vietnamese and Syrians (12%).
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer previously said his government “inherited a very bad position” with record numbers of migrants in the first half of last year “because all the focus until we had the election was on one trick, the Rwanda trick, and there was not enough “Attention was focused on taking down the gangs that run this vile trade.”
