Labour is pressing ahead with the previous government’s plan to reopen two immigration centres in a bid to achieve the highest rate of removals since 2018.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said detention capacity will be increased with the provision of 290 beds across Campsfield House and Haslar.
The former, in Oxfordshire, closed in 2019 while the latter in Gospar, Hampshire, shut in 2015.
In 2022, the then Conservative government said it would re-open both facilities to increase detention capacity by 1,000 at any given time, at the cost of £339m.
There has been strong local opposition to the plans, with critics pointing out that Campsfield House closed following years of problems including hunger strikes, self harm and suicides.
A Home Office source said they take the welfare and safety of people in their care “very seriously” and removals will be carried out “with dignity and respect”.
Sky News understands that the long-term intention is for 1,000 beds to be made available across the two sites, but 290 are part of the first phase of development and building work.
According to the Home Office, ministers have set their sights on achieving over the next six months “the highest rate of removals of those with no right to be here, including failed asylum seekers” since 2018.
Staff will be redeployed to help drive an increase in returns, which the government said had dropped by 40% since 2010.
The measure is part of a wider effort to get a grip on the UK’s immigration and asylum system.
Labour promised in its election-winning manifesto to create a new Border Security Command to tackle people-smuggling gangs bringing migrants across the Channel, using money diverted from the now-scrapped Rwanda scheme.
The Tories spent around £700m on the plan but not a single asylum seeker was sent there under it because of legal setbacks, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declaring it “dead and buried” days after taking office.
Voters will only put up with Labour’s blame game for so long
A “costly con” and a “political gimmick”: Labour’s verdict on the Tories’ Rwanda plan. Sound familiar?
This blame game is getting rather repetitive. Earlier this week Sir Keir Starmer slammed a “terrible inheritance” left by the Tories on prisons.
Now Labour is claiming a “dire inheritance” on border security.
Let’s not forget, either, Rachel Reeves’ claims of a “black hole” in the nation’s finances and Wes Streeting declaring “the NHS is broken”.
Okay, we get the message.
But the battle to “stop the boats” is potentially the toughest political fight Sir Keir will face against whoever becomes the new Tory leader.
Yvette Cooper is vowing to “clean up the mess the Tories made”, accusing the Tories of incompetence and a “staggering waste of taxpayers’ money”.
Yet facing such a daunting challenge, the new government – understandably – admits there are “no quick fixes” on border security and asylum.
But voters will only put up with Labour’s blame game for so long. On stopping the boats, possibly more than on any other issue, they want results.
As well as the extra beds, 100 new specialist intelligence officers will be brought into the National Crime Agency (NCA), the UK-wide body which has around 70 active investigations into people smuggling and trafficking groups.
This comes on top of the 50% uplift in the number of NCA officers stationed in Europol.
In addition, a new illegal working programme will be rolled out to investigate and target bosses who illegally employ people with no right to remain.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:17
What Brits think of immigration
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday night, junior home office minister Seema Malhotra was unable to say when the approach would have an impact on small boat crossings, or whether scrapping the Rwanda plan would be enough to fund the measures.
Home Office figures showed 206 migrants crossed the English Channel in three boats on Monday, which has taken the 2024 provisional total of people to have crossed to 19,294.
This is a 10% increase on the figure recorded at this point last year, which was 17,620.
Immigration now tops the list of issues that Britons consider most important – for the first time since 2016 – according to a new poll by Ipsos released on Friday.
A Labour source said the Tories left behind a “dire inheritance” on border security and there are “no quick fixes”.
Follow Sky News on WhatsApp
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Ms Cooper said: “We are taking strong and clear steps to boost our border security and ensure the rules are respected and enforced.
“Our new Border Security Command is already gearing up, with new staff being urgently recruited and additional staff already stationed across Europe.
“They will work with European enforcement agencies to find every route into smashing the criminal smuggling gangs organising dangerous boat crossings which undermine our border security and put lives at risk.
“And by increasing enforcement capabilities and returns, we will establish a system that is better controlled and managed, in place of the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long.”
The threat of physical attacks by Iran on people living in the UK has increased “significantly” since 2022, according to a new report by parliament’s intelligence watchdog.
Iran poses a “wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat” to the UK, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee.
It also said Iran’s intelligence services were “willing and able – often through third party agents – to attempt assassination within the UK, and kidnap from the UK”.
Image: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pic: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/West Asia News Agency/Reuters
The report said there have been 15 murder or kidnap attempts against British citizens or UK-based individuals since the beginning of 2022 and August 2023.
Sky News has approached the Iranian embassy for a comment.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:30
Millions of Iranians unite in mourning
The report authors add: “Whilst Iran’s activity appears to be less strategic and on a smaller scale than Russia and China, Iran poses a wide-ranging threat to UK national security, which should not be underestimated: it is persistent and crucially – unpredictable.”
The committee also says that while the threat is often focused on dissidents and other opponents to the regime, there is also an increased threat to Jewish and Israeli interests in the UK.
More on Iran
Related Topics:
The report warns that while Iran has not developed a nuclear weapon, it has taken steps towards that goal.
It found that Iran had been “broadly compliant” with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aimed at limiting its nuclear ambitions.
But since Donald Trump withdrew from that deal in 2018, the report said the nuclear threat had increased and Tehran “had the capability to arm in a relatively short period”.
The UK government is also accused of “fire-fighting” rather than developing a real understanding of Iran.
Image: Iran’s president oversees a parade in Tehran in April showing off the country’s military hardware. Pic: West Asia News Agency/Reuters
Image: Missiles are paraded through the capital during the recent National Army Day ceremony. Pic: West Asia News Agency/Reuters
The report says: “The government’s policy on Iran has suffered from a focus on crisis management, driven by concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme, to the exclusion of other issues.
“As one of our expert witnesses told the committee: ‘Strategy is not a word that I think has crossed the lips of policy makers for a while, certainly not in relation to Iran’.”
The committee concluded its evidence-taking in August 2023, the result of two years of work, but the report authors say their conclusions “remain relevant”.
But the report authors questioned whether UK sanctions against individuals would “in practice deliver behavioural change. Or in fact unhelpfully push Iran towards China”.
The committee also said the British government should consider proscribing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), although some argue it would limit the UK’s ability to talk to and influence Iran.
Responding to the report, a UK government spokesperson said: “The government will take action wherever necessary to protect national security, which is a foundation of our plan for change.
“We have already placed Iran on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme and introduced further sanctions against individuals and entities linked to Iran, bringing the total number of sanctions to 450.”
British security services say Tehran uses criminal proxies to carry out its work in Britain.
In December, two Romanians were charged after a journalist working for a Persian language media organisation in London was stabbed in the leg. In May, three Iranian men appeared in court charged with assisting Iran’s foreign intelligence service and plotting violence against journalists.
Earlier this year, the UK government said it would require the Iranian state to register everything it does to exert political influence in the UK, because of what it called increasingly aggressive activity.
The first thing you notice when immigration officers stop a possible illegal moped delivery driver is the speed in which the suspect quickly taps on their mobile.
“We’re in their WhatsApp groups – they’ll be telling thousands now that we’re here… so our cover is blown,” the lead immigration officer tells me.
“It’s like a constant game of cat and mouse.”
Twelve Immigration Enforcement officers, part of the Home Office, are joining colleagues from Avon and Somerset Police in a crackdown on road offences and migrants working illegally.
The West of England and Wales has seen the highest number of arrests over the last year for illegal workers outside of London.
“It is a problem… we’re tackling it,” Murad Mohammed, from Immigration Enforcement, says. He covers all the devolved nations.
“This is just one of the operations going on around the country, every day of the week, every month of the year.”
Image: Murad Mohammed, from Immigration Enforcement, says his team are attempting to tackle the issue
Just outside the Cabot Circus shopping complex, we stop a young Albanian man who arrived in the UK on the back of a truck.
He’s on an expensive and fast-looking e-bike, with a new-looking Just Eat delivery bag.
He says he just uses it for “groceries” – but the officer isn’t buying it. He’s arrested, but then bailed instantly.
We don’t know the specifics of his case, but one officer tells me this suspected offence won’t count against his asylum claim.
Such is the scale of the problem – the backlog, loopholes and the complexity of cases – that trying to keep on top of it feels impossible.
This is one of many raids happening across the UK as part of what the government says is a “blitz” targeting illegal working hotspots.
Angela Eagle, the border security and asylum minister, joins the team for an hour at one of Bristol’sretail parks, scattered with fast food chains and, therefore, delivery bikes.
Image: Border security and asylum minister, Angela Eagle, speaks to Sky News
She says arrests for illegal working are up over the last year by 51% from the year before, to more than 7,000.
“If we find you working, you can lose access to the hotel or the support you have [been] given under false pretences,” she said.
“We are cracking down on that abuse, and we intend to keep doing so.”
There are reports that asylum seekers can rent legitimate delivery-driver accounts within hours of arriving in the country – skipping employment legality checks.
Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat all told Sky News they’re continuing to strengthen the technology they use to remove anyone working illegally.
But a new Border Security Bill, working its way through Parliament, could see companies fined £60,000 for each illegal worker discovered, director disqualifications and potential prison sentences of up to five years.
“I had them all in to see me last week and I told them in no uncertain terms that we take a very tough line on this kind of abuse and they’ve got to change their systems so they can drive it out and off their platforms,” the minister tells me.
For some of those who arrive, a bike and a phone provide a way to repay debts to gang masters.
There were eight arrests today in Bristol, one or two taken into custody, but it was 12 hours of hard work by a dozen immigration officers and the support of the police.
As two mopeds are pushed onto a low-loader, you can’t help but feel, despite the best intentions, that at the moment, this is a losing battle.
We see the boat from a distance – the orange of the life jackets reflected in the rising sun.
And as we draw closer, we can make out dozens of people crowded on board as it sets off from the shore, from a beach near Dunkirk.
There is no sign of any police activity on the shore, and there are no police vessels in the water.
Instead, the migrants crammed into an inflatable dinghy are being watched by us, on board a private boat, and the looming figure of the Minck, a French search and rescue ship that soon arrives.
Image: Minck, a French search and rescue ship, shadows the boat
The dinghy meanders. It’s not heading towards Britain but rather hugging the coast.
A few of the passengers wave at us cheerfully, but then the boat starts to head back towards the shore.
Image: Sky’s Adam Parsons at the scene
As it nears a different beach, we see a police vehicle – a dune buggy – heading down to meet it.
Normal practice is for French police officers to slice through the material of any of these small boats that end up back on shore.
Two police officers get out of the buggy and wait. A police helicopter arrives and circles above, performing a tight circle over the heads of the migrants.
The police think they might be about to go back on to the beach; in fact, these passengers know that most of them are staying put.
Follow The World
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The boat stops a short distance from the shore and four people jump out. As they wade towards the beach, the boat turns and starts to head back out to sea.
We see the two police officers approach these four men and have a brief conversation.
They don’t appear to check the bags they are carrying and, if they do question them about why they left the boat, it is the most cursory of conversations.
In reality, these people probably don’t speak French but they were almost certainly involved in arranging this crossing, which is against the law. But all four walk away, disappearing into the dunes at the back of the beach.