Labour is set to publish its plan to tackle migration next week – as the number of people who have crossed the Channel under Sir Keir Starmer is understood to have hit a new milestone.

In the early hours of this morning, Sky News understands two small boats were picked up in the Channel with dozens of migrants on board, taking the number of crossings since July to more than 20,000.

These are the first crossings since 16 November.

Before then, 19,988 crossings had been recorded since Labour won the election on 4 July.

The total for the year, not including last night, is 33,562, according to official figures.

Government minister Pat McFadden told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the UK “will always need migration” but that has to be balanced with training the British workforce so “you’re not over reliant on immigration”.

He said Labour would not be setting net migration targets but will publish a plan this coming week to reduce both legal and illegal migration.

The UK’s net migration – the difference between people coming to live in and leaving the UK – for last year (the year up to June 2023) was revised up this week to 906,000, making it the new highest year on record.

The latest figures, in the year to June 2024, found net migration had fallen by 20% from the previous year to an estimated 728,000.

Mr McFadden said: “Numerical targets on migration have not had a happy history in recent years.

“You might remember David Cameron saying that he wanted to reduce it to the tens of thousands.”

He added: “Fear not, the document that we’re going to publish will talk about migration, both legal and illegal.

“We’ve set up a new, secure border command, which we said we would at the election.

“We have got a new returns agreement with Iraq. We’ve increased the number of returns. We’ve published our Welfare To Work paper.”

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Conservative shadow minister Victoria Atkins said leader Kemi Badenoch had acknowledged this week net migration was “too high” under the Tories.

But she told Trevor Phillips it was because of them the numbers had fallen by 20% this year.

Ms Atkins criticised Labour for failing to have a cap on immigration and admitted the Conservatives did not yet have a solid plan for a cap, but would be setting it out soon.