The first three months of this year have seen the highest number of small boat arrivals ever at 4,644, according to provisional Home Office figures.
Not by very much. The number for the first three months of 2022 was 4,548 – 96 fewer.
A few days of poorer weather could have swung it the other way, but the point is it’s moving in the wrong direction for a prime minister who promised to “stop the boats”.
If you promise to reduce the numbers as one of your key pledges, then you get blamed for every failure to do so.
Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who resigned from the government last year, described his party’s immigration policy in a tweet as “the triumph of hope over experience”.
As Tories head off on the local election campaign trail in glum spirits, the message from Downing Street is that this “migration emergency” can only be solved by getting flights to Rwanda.
“It’s a mess,” one former cabinet minister tells me. “Voters raise small boats all the time and they know there’s no deterrent.
Advertisement
“Number 10 seem to think if they just keep saying the numbers will go down, maybe they will.”
Plenty of initiatives have been launched, as the Home Office points out, but MPs question whether they are effective.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:53
‘When will you stop the boats?’
A year ago, Rishi Sunak agreed a deal with France worth £500m to step up patrols on their side of the Channel and fund a new detention centre, with the prime minister hailing it as progress in his small boats fight.
Despite a flurry of efforts in government to reduce the backlog of asylum claims and close migrant hotels in favour of bigger sites such as former military bases, it was revealed last week this may cost even more money.
The numbers are already eye-watering. The National Audit Office noted that in the year to March 2024, the Home Office expects to spend £4.7bn on asylum support, including £3.1bn on hotels.
Immigration is not the top issue for most voters, with the cost of living and the NHS regularly leading lists of their concerns, but it lurks in third place.
For Conservative voters, concern at the government’s handling of immigration, or mishandling, has been rising steadily.
With the additional challenge from the Reform Party, which wants stronger border controls, the prime minister heads into local elections with another of his five pledges looking very shaky.
“Every morning I wake up and there is a small part of me that thinks, ‘Is today the day I’m going to be diagnosed with some sort of cancer?'”
This is the question Susan Lee asks herself every day. It is part of the mental anguish of living with Hepatitis C.
Susan was born with Von Willebrand disease.
As a child, her blood clotting disorder was treated with a product called Factor 8. It was supposed to revolutionise treatment for haemophiliacs.
Instead the American product farmed from prisoners and drug addicts was infected with HIV and Hepatitis. It was never screened or treated before being injected into the veins of patients.
The risks were known. Susan’s father raised concerns.
“I remember specifically on one occasion he went into the consulting room and spoke to my consultant,” says Susan.
More on Health
Related Topics:
“[He] said, ‘I’m very worried about this, and I want you to let me know if Susan has or will receive any American blood products’.
“And he said to my father, ‘Absolutely not’.”
However, at 14, Susan discovered she had been infected with Hepatitis C, like thousands of other patients in the worst NHS treatment scandal in history.
Susan believes patients like her were exposed to great risk and potential death to increase profits for the companies that were producing these blood products.
“I think unfortunately it always comes down to cost implications. And we know that American blood products were cheaper from those big pharmaceutical companies.
“We know there were other treatment options available. There were German products that were out there and could have been used, but at a higher price point, and they were not chosen.”
The Hepatitis C infection has had a devasting impact on every part of Susan’s life. She has had to give up her career as a barrister.
“It’s been a really, really difficult time for us as a family. And it’s intergenerational because we were given these products to take home, my parents were taught how to inject. My mother has a huge feeling of guilt surrounding that,” she says.
“Three weeks ago, she sat me down and said, ‘I’m so terribly sorry.’
“I said, ‘You’ve got absolutely nothing to be sorry for. It was nothing to do with you. You did your best’.
“Also my children, from having witnessed the times that I was really, really sick, you know, my daughters asking me, ‘Mummy, why can’t you run in the school races and for sports day?’
“Because I could barely lift my head off the pillow to get out of bed to be there.”
Later this morning, Susan and the thousands of other victims of the infected blood scandal will get answers to the decades-long search for the truth.
At Westminster’s Methodist’s Central Hall just after midday, Sir Brian Langstaff will deliver his report into the infected blood scandal. It is expected to be damning.
Des Collins, senior partner of Collins Solicitors which represents 1,500 victims and their families, said the inquiry chair is likely to hold many people accountable.
Spreaker
This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.
“If you are going to point the finger at someone, you’ve got to give them notice and it’s that notice process which has delayed [the report] probably for the last six months. So a lot of people will have the finger pointed at them.
“They will be held accountable for each individual part of the scandal, which is appropriate insofar as their involvement is concerned.
“I don’t think we’re going to get the finger pointed at one person saying, ‘You are responsible for the whole thing,’ because there are so many people involved in it and they’re all making individual decisions.”
The significance of this moment cannot be overstated.
The great hall will be full of people infected with deadly diseases in secret trials, bereaved parents who saw their children die and all of the others affected by this preventable tragedy.
The atmosphere will be charged with emotion, anger and hopefully relief.
The delay in delivering justice has compounded the grief and anguish felt by so many. After being lied to and ignored for decades, they finally have their day.
This report must mark the beginning of the end of this shameful scandal.
Sky News will have full coverage of the infected blood report on TV, online and on the Sky News app today
“Losing Gary, my soul mate, was beyond painful,” says Kathryn Croucher, whose husband died aged 42 in 2010.
“Every day was a struggle dealing with the knowledge he was HIV and Hepatitis C positive.”
“Mum always said she was given a death sentence,” recalls Ronan Fitzgerald. His mother, Jane, died aged 54 after being infected with Hepatitis C when she was 16. “It was a ticking time bomb.”
Sky News will have full coverage of the infected blood report on TV, online and on the Sky News app today.
More than 30,000 Britons were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
Around 3,000 people have died as a result of the scandal, while many more still live under the shadow of health problems, debilitating treatments and stigma. Now, the findings of a public inquiry, first announced in 2017, will finally be published.
These are 100 faces of infected blood victims that either they, or their families, have shared with Sky News.
“I’m never drinking tap water again,” Kayley Lewis says.
“My symptoms have made me lose a stone in two weeks.”
Ms Lewis and her two children have been suffering from diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach cramps for over a fortnight – since South West Water found small traces of the parasite cryptosporidium in the Hillhead reservoir.
“I can’t trust them [South West Water] again.
“I might start using tap water for dishes… but definitely never to drink. Ever.
“I’ve been completely put off now… especially because of how poorly it makes you feel.
“I just don’t think I could ever try and risk going back to that.”
At least 46 people are confirmed to have the disease, while as many as 70 other cases of diarrhoea and vomiting are also under investigation, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.
South West Water (SWW) has repeatedly apologised – telling Sky News today that they are working “around the clock” to get all households back to using safe water again.
Advertisement
This could be as early as this Wednesday, drought and resilience director at SWW David Harris told me.
“We’re looking at somewhere between mid to late next week before we’ll be in a position to be able to responsibly lift that boil water notice.”
So far, 14,500 households in the Alston supply area can drink their tap water without boiling it first – as advised by SWW.
However, some 2,500 homes in Hillhead, upper parts of Brixham and Kingswear have been told to continue boiling – and cooling – their water supplies before drinking it.
Steve Price, who runs the Station Guest House B&B near Brixham, said he lost a couple of thousand pounds in bookings due to – understandably – paranoid customers.
“Losses we anticipate are roughly around £2000 from people that have cancelled and directly stated that the cancellation was due to the water situation.
“So we would anticipate that at the bare minimum as compensation.”