Home Secretary Yvette Cooper hopes to introduce new laws cracking down on people traffickers within weeks after new figures showed 1,163 migrants crossed the Channel over just three days during the Christmas period.

There were 305 small boat arrivals on Friday, in addition to 451 on Christmas Day and 407 on Boxing Day.

Conservatives have stepped up criticism of the Government’s decision to abolish the policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda, which they say would have removed the incentive to come to the UK unlawfully.

Labour is placing its hopes in a planned new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which will give law enforcement agencies what the Government calls “intrusive state powers” to investigate and prosecute organised criminal gangs selling migrants passage across the Channel. The measures will be based on existing anti-terror legislation.

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The Bill is due to be introduced to Parliament “in the coming weeks”, sources said.

Ms Cooper has also visited Iraq to speak to authorities there about cracking down on Kurdish Iraqi gangs operating in France and Germany which are heavily involved in cross-Channel trafficking.

More than 150,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats in the last seven years, more than the population of Blackpool, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “The Government must urgently restore a Rwanda style removals deterrent.”

Labour fears that failure to tackle small boats will provide ammunition to Reform UK, which came second in a range of Labour-held seats across the north and Midlands in the 2024 general election including Amber Valley in Derbyshire, Hull East, Bradford South, Rotherham, North Durham and Sunderland Central.

Home Office spending on asylum accommodation and support has shot up from £739 million in 2019-20 to £4.7 billion in 2023-4.