Education Secretary hints people smugglers' changing routes to blame for second unintercepted channel crossing in 24 hours
It comes after a urgent government review was ordered after a second migrant boat in two days arrived to UK shores
People smugglers altering their routes for migrants crossing the English Channel could be to blame for second uninterrupted channel in 24 hours, a government minister has said.
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The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood ordered a review on Wednesday after Border Force failed to intercept a second migrant boat in two days before it reached the Kent coast.
That followed a dinghy that made it to shore at Folkestone on Monday morning, becoming the first undetected landing for a year.
Speaking to LBC, Education Secretary Lucy Powell defended the government's approach to stopping the boats but suggested the dinghies were coming from a new part of France.
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She said: "We've absolutely got to have the same kind of stringent approach, no matter which part of the coast these boats are coming.
"We have seen a significant reduction in the number of people coming across the Channel in small boats, a significant reduction that doesn't get talked about very much.
"Under Shabana Mahmood's watch as Home Secretary, she is determined to continue that reduction so that we can really tackle this issue."
Some 17,480 migrants have arrived after crossing the Channel by boat so far this year, including 5,011 since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister.
The total so far for 2026 is down 46% on the same point last year.
A Government spokesperson said on Wednesday: "Border Security Command officers alongside Kent police have been responding to an incident in Dover.
"Twenty-one individuals have already been detained under a swift enforcement response. There is a thorough investigation ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further."
Before Monday, no small boat arrivals to the UK coast without an escort had been officially recorded since September 6 2025.
However, also speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast on Thursday, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said public confidence in the government is "very low".
He said: "Our borders clearly are not secure because so far this year nearly 20,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the Channel and entered the United Kingdom.
"This week alone, we think some hundreds either have crossed or are crossing, including two boats, which weren't even detected. They just showed up on the shore.
"It is possible there have been others, and we also saw a dinghy make the longest ever crossing from somewhere in Normandy, near one of the D-Day beaches in fact, all the way to the vicinity of the Isle of Wight in a 30-hour crossing.
"I think that dinghy contained about 60 illegal immigrants. So taken as a whole, if you have 18,000, nearly 20,000 illegal immigrants entering the country so far this year, almost all young men, no, the government doesn't have control of our borders."