Channel migrants reaching 50,000 under Labour is ‘unacceptable’, education minister says
We have some more comments from Jacqui Smith, an education minister who served as home secretary for two years during Gordon Brown’s premiership.
She said it is “unacceptable” that 50,000 migrants are set to have crossed the Channel since Labour came to power last year.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, she said: “It is an unacceptable number of people. It sort of demonstrates the way over the last six or seven years that the criminal gangs have got an absolute foothold in the tragic trafficking of people across the Channel.”
Smith added:
Our borders bill, which is currently going through parliament, will also enable there to be even stronger terrorist style powers to help us to challenge the gangs and the criminals who are profiting from people’s distress and who are behind this terrible trade …
It’s concerning if people think we don’t have a grip on our borders, as we’ve seen over recent years. And it’s concerning because this is a terrible trade in which people die and are exploited for profit, and that’s why the practical steps that we’ve taken in terms of the deal with the French, in terms of more powers for our Border Force, in terms of more people to be able to make the sort of arrests that I’ve been talking about, in terms of the doubling of the asylum claims that we’ve been able to process, because in the end, what will put people off is understanding that if you get to the UK decisions will be made quickly about you.
And if you don’t have a right to be here, you will be returned and we’re already seeing that with the French scheme.
The government said last week that the new “one in, one out” returns deal with France was up and running.
The deal will allow the UK to return one person who has entered the country by irregular means in return for taking someone in France whose claim for asylum in the UK is expected to have a greater chance of success.
But Home Office sources told the Guardian’s Home affairs editor, Rajeev Syal, it will only apply to about 50 asylum seekers at first.
Key events
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she would be able to reduce the number of migrants crossing the Channel to zero “quickly”, if she was in power.
Asked directly, she told reporters in the Isle of Wight: “I think that we can … it wouldn’t happen straight away, but it would happen quickly.
“My team are now looking at what we can do in terms of detention centres, but stopping people from coming here in the first place – if they think they’re going to be sent to Rwanda and not get here, get a free hotel, get benefits, then they won’t come here.”
Northern Ireland is “absolutely crucial” for the UK’s growth prospects, the chancellor has said during a visit to Belfast.
Rachel Reeves made her first trip to the province as chancellor and was asked whether she considers Northern Ireland to be an “economic basket case”.
As part of her trip, Reeves visited the filmmaking facilities at Studio Ulster and also paid tribute to Northern Ireland’s defence sector.
Studio Ulster, which sits on the shores of Belfast Lough, was officially opened in June in what have been termed the world’s most advanced virtual production facilities spanning 75,000 square feet.
Speaking at the studios, Reeves said: “Northern Ireland is absolutely crucial for the United Kingdom, including for our growth prospects.
“We’ve got here, at Studio Ulster, not just the best facilities in the UK, but the best facilities in the world, for a part of our economy that is globally growing at such a fast rate.
“This is the best place in the world to make those investments, to start a business, to grow a business, whether that’s in video games, or TV, or film.
“That’s really exciting and we benefit hugely from the thriving creative industry sector in Northern Ireland.”
Sky News is reporting that the GMB union has written to the environment minister, Steve Reed, asking for an urgent meeting to discuss the future of Thames Water, which is on the verge of collapse as it struggles under a £17bn debt pile.
Sky News reports that GMB, which is one of the UK’s biggest trade unions, wants assurances for its members working at Thames Water, including pension guarantees.
Thames Water is the UK’s largest water and waste company. It serves about a quarter of the UK’s population, mostly in London and across parts of southern England, and employs about 8,000 people.
The company is scrambling to stabilise its finances and agree a rescue plan funded by its creditors to avoid the prospect of temporary nationalisation.
It is struggling to fix leaks, stop sewage spills and is in desperate need of investment to upgrade its outdated infrastructure.
Thames Water: advisers appointed to plan for company’s potential collapse
Helena Horton
Helena Horton is an environment reporter for the Guardian
UK ministers have appointed insolvency advisers to make contingency plans for the potential collapse of Thames Water.
The company, which supplies 16 million customers, has been racing to pull together a deal to avoid financial collapse.
In a development first reported by Sky News, Steve Reed, the environment secretary, has signed off the appointment of FTI Consulting to advise on plans for Thames Water to be placed into a special administration regime (SAR).
The appointment indicates that FTI is the frontrunner to act as administrator if the government enacted an SAR, although a court would ultimately approve such a step.
The government has been trying to avoid such an outcome, with the Treasury threatening that a potential £4bn bill from the SAR could be forced on to Reed’s department.
This process would ensure that the taps stayed on for customers but would heap immediate costs on to the government.
You can read the full story here:
Badenoch accuses Labour of creating ‘an economic doom-spiral’
Responding to the latest unemployment figures, Kemi Badenoch accused the government of creating “an economic doom-spiral”.
Speaking to reporters on the Isle of Wight, the Conservative party leader said:
Labour has presided over unemployment rising every single month since they came into office.
Unemployment is up, growth is down, inflation is up, cost of living is putting a real squeeze on people’s pockets.
And it’s because of Rachel Reeves’s budget last year. I’m very worried about what’s going to come in the next budget.
We’re seeing tax rises, even taxes on pensions, as potential solutions. This is an economic doom-spiral that Labour is creating. They do not have a proper economic plan.
We’re urging them to not look at tax rises, they need to look at getting people back into work, they need to cut welfare. That’s what we need.
When Labour came into power last July, it inherited years of weak productivity growth, coupled with the effects of a pandemic, a cost of living crisis and the legacy of the severe austerity measures imposed by the coalition government in the 2010s.
Stability has returned to the economy, Rachel Reeves says
Rachel Reeves has been taking questions from journalists in Belfast. She says Northern Ireland is “absolutely crucial” for the UK’s growth prospects, pointing to the nation’s strong TV, film and video game industries.
The chancellor claimed stability has returned to the UK’s economy despite mounting concerns about its ability to respond to shocks amid global uncertainty from Donald Trump’s trade war. Job losses are rising, fewer employers are advertising for staff and inflation remains high.
Speaking to reporters in Belfast, Reeves said:
If you look at the growth numbers in the first quarter of this year, we were the fastest growing economy in the whole of the G7. Whilst the US economy shrunk in the first quarter of this year, the UK economy grew.
We’ll get data for the second quarter of this year later this week. But we are creating more jobs, 384,000 additional jobs compared with a year ago, wages are rising at a faster rate than inflation, putting more money in people’s pockets.
Is there more to do? Absolutely, there is. I want people in all parts of the UK to feel the benefits of that job creation of those new opportunities in sectors from defence to creative industries to life sciences and financial services …
There is more to do, but in the first year, we’ve managed to return stability to the economy, we’re growing the economy and reducing costs, particularly mortgage costs for hard-pressed families.
Universal Credit claimants hit record high of eight million people
The Department for Work and Pensions has just released figures showing the number of people claiming universal credit (UC) has hit a record high of eight million.
Claimants jumped by more than a million in a year – from 6.9 million people last July.
The latest figure of 8 million for July 2025 is the highest level it has been since UC was introduced in 2013.
The steep rise in the past year has been driven almost entirely by people who are not required to work, with 3.7 million in this category in July – a rise of 39% or 1 million since the same time in 2024.
Universal credit is a single benefit payment for working-age people. It is there to help with living costs and is available for people in work who are on low incomes, as well as those who are out of work or cannot work.
As part of the universal credit bill, which recently cleared the Lords, the basic universal credit standard allowance will rise at least in line with inflation until 2029/30.
But the health part of the benefit would be reduced for new claimants after April 2026, unless they had a severe or terminal condition, and the rate would be frozen until 2030.
The ONS’ director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said:
Taken together, these latest figures point to a continued cooling of the labour market.
The number of employees on payroll has now fallen in 10 of the last 12 months, with these falls concentrated in hospitality and retail.
Job vacancies, likewise, have continued to fall, also driven by fewer opportunities in these industries.
UK unemployment remains at four year high as job vacancies shrink
The UK’s unemployment rate remained at a four-year high in the latest quarter as job vacancies declined again, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday.
The data showed that UK unemployment edged higher in the three months to June but the official jobless rate was unchanged at 4.7%, a four-year high.
It came as UK job vacancies tumbled by 44,000 over the three months to July to 718,000 – the lowest number of job openings since April 2021.
The ONS said its research “suggests some firms may not be recruiting new workers or replacing workers who have left”.
Meanwhile, average earnings growth, excluding bonuses, remained at 5% for the period to June. You can read more on all these figures here.
David Lammy faces possible legal action over Foreign Office secondments
Rajeev Syal
Rajeev Syal is home affairs editor of the Guardian
David Lammy is facing possible legal action over a plan to invite staff from the oil firm Shell and the defence firm BAE Systems to work inside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
A pre-action letter seen by the Guardian warns the foreign secretary that the scheme leaves the government open to allegations of a conflict of interest and creates the potential for “improper influence”.
The scheme, which was first mooted by Lammy in March, is supposed to embed FCDO staff in firms to gain commercial experience while inviting private-sector staff to take placements in government.
The Corner House, an environmental organisation, has raised concerns about alleged issues of compliance with human rights and other legal obligations. Leigh Day, the solicitors firm, has written to the FCDO warning that it may bring court proceedings on behalf of The Corner House.
A legal letter seen by the Guardian claims that the scheme could be illegal and in breach of the civil service code.
The letter, addressed to Lammy, has highlighted:
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An alleged lack of transparency as to how the proposed scheme will operate.
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The potential for improper influence by representatives of Shell and BAE Systems on UK government practices, including in relation to foreign policy.
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The potential for conflicts of interest.
You can read the full story here:
Channel migrants reaching 50,000 under Labour is ‘unacceptable’, education minister says
We have some more comments from Jacqui Smith, an education minister who served as home secretary for two years during Gordon Brown’s premiership.
She said it is “unacceptable” that 50,000 migrants are set to have crossed the Channel since Labour came to power last year.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, she said: “It is an unacceptable number of people. It sort of demonstrates the way over the last six or seven years that the criminal gangs have got an absolute foothold in the tragic trafficking of people across the Channel.”
Smith added:
Our borders bill, which is currently going through parliament, will also enable there to be even stronger terrorist style powers to help us to challenge the gangs and the criminals who are profiting from people’s distress and who are behind this terrible trade …
It’s concerning if people think we don’t have a grip on our borders, as we’ve seen over recent years. And it’s concerning because this is a terrible trade in which people die and are exploited for profit, and that’s why the practical steps that we’ve taken in terms of the deal with the French, in terms of more powers for our Border Force, in terms of more people to be able to make the sort of arrests that I’ve been talking about, in terms of the doubling of the asylum claims that we’ve been able to process, because in the end, what will put people off is understanding that if you get to the UK decisions will be made quickly about you.
And if you don’t have a right to be here, you will be returned and we’re already seeing that with the French scheme.
The government said last week that the new “one in, one out” returns deal with France was up and running.
The deal will allow the UK to return one person who has entered the country by irregular means in return for taking someone in France whose claim for asylum in the UK is expected to have a greater chance of success.
But Home Office sources told the Guardian’s Home affairs editor, Rajeev Syal, it will only apply to about 50 asylum seekers at first.
Several assertions made by senior politicians about immigration have been disputed or debunked in recent days and weeks. My colleagues Eleni Courea, Adam Bychawski and Jessica Elgot have debunked a few of them in this explainer. Here is one example:
Conservative Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said on Radio 4’s Today programme last Monday that 40% of sexual crimes in London last year were committed by foreign nationals.
The claim was sourced from the Centre for Migration Control (CMC), a thinktank and blog that describes its purpose as “controlling and reducing migration to Britain”. It is run by the Reform UK activist Robert Bates …
CMC’s claims come from the Metropolitan police’s response to a freedom of information request. The Met issued a breakdown of the number of people who had been proceeded against – ie brought before a court – for sexual offences by nationality. This does not mean they have been found guilty of committing the offence as Jenrick said. For example, there were 14,242 defendants brought to court for sexual offences at magistrates courts in England and Wales in 2024, but 8,098 convictions, according to Ministry of Justice statistics.
“Some of the data we’re seeing is very striking,” Jenrick also said. “Afghans and Eritrean nationals are 20 times more likely to be convicted of a sexual crime than a British national.” The statistic about Afghans has been repeated by Reform UK’s chair, Zia Yusuf.
This is a muddled figure that also came from the CMC, after it submitted freedom of information requests to the MoJ. It is based on population statistics from 2021 but data on offences covering the years between 2021 and 2023.
That means the statistic is likely to be based on a significant underestimate of the number of Afghan and Eritrean nationals in the UK – meaning the comparison with British rates is unlikely to be 20 times as high. Immigration to the UK from Afghanistan has risen significantly since 2021 because of the Taliban’s return to power, while Eritrean migration has also risen due to wars in Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia.
Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby, Sarah Pochin, told journalists yesterday that women are at risk of sexual assault and rape from small boats migrants.
During a press conference for Women for Reform, she accused illegal migrants from “predominantly Muslim” countries of having a “medieval view of women’s rights fundamentally alien to our own western values”.
Jacqui Smith, an education minister, told LBC this morning that Reform is wrong to single out small boat migrants as a threat to women’s safety.
Smith, a former home secretary, said:
No I don’t think they’re right to single those people out. They’re a problem for all the reasons that we’ve talked about. But I think that there are unfortunately … too many largely men who are responsible for violence against women, of all types.
That’s why we need to take the sort of action that this government is taking, and that’s why I hope Reform will change their position and support us in the tough legislation that we’re bringing forward to tackle that violence.
And also, of course, to ensure that we have more police on our streets, which we’re beginning to deliver, reinvigorating our neighbourhood policing teams, making sure we have the criminal justice system that will be on the side of victims and help to reduce this problem.
As we mentioned in the opening post, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, suggested on a walkabout in Essex yesterday that “camps” should be set up for asylum seekers while their applications to remain in the UK are assessed.
Badenoch, who met anti-migrant protesters and local people in Epping high street on Monday, did not say how this would work in practice.
Matt Vickers, the shadow Home Office minister, was asked about Badenoch’s comments on Sky News this morning.
He said the only way to solve the problem is to “end the pull factors” attracting people to come to Britain illegally and to ensure those who do arrive illegally are not allowed to stay.
Vickers said:
Kemi went down to Epping. She met the families, the community, people who are affected by these people, who daren’t send their kids down the park or let them play in the street.
Women who were worried about going home late at night in the dark, people who are really affected by these huge groups of lone men hanging around town centres in public spaces. She’s also seen the impact on businesses.
If you take away those 300 hotel rooms, the businesses that rely on that tourism all of a sudden do not have any business.
Test for Labour as figures likely to show over 50,000 migrants have crossed Channel since last July
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics.
The number of people who have crossed the Channel on small boats since Labour took office last summer will probably pass 50,000 later today when official figures are released.
Official figures from Monday suggested 49,797 had crossed in small boats from northern France since 5 July 2024.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, is under considerable pressure to reduce the number of people arriving on small boats across the Channel, with his promise to “smash the gangs” clearly not working,
The government has set out its plan to close asylum hotels by the end of the parliament and Starmer announced a “one in, one out” returns deal with France last month.
But there is a rising political urgency around the issue as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party continues to lead polls after attacks on Labour for failing to curb irregular migration.
Reform politicians have recently been linking sexual offences to immigration as part of the party’s “Britain is lawless” campaign, full of disputed claims.
Kemi Badenoch suggested yesterday that asylum seekers should be housed in camps which could be policed, instead of in hotels, as they currently are. We should get more detail about this proposal later today. Here is what else is on the agenda:
09.30am: New welfare statistics, including the number of universal credit claimants, will be published by the Department for Work and Pensions.
10.45am:The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is likely to face questions from journalists about the latest ONS employment data when she speaks to regional media.
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, will be speaking to regional media and LBC today.
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