The hot weather is drawing hundreds of migrants to make the perilous crossing from France to the UK in small boats.
After nearly two weeks without any arrivals, 394 people arrived in the UK in six small vessels on Friday, May 22, on what was the warmest day of the year up until that point.
The Home Office has now revealed that a further 287 migrants made the cross-Channel journey on Saturday, May 23, when an even higher temperature of 30.5C was recorded in Kent.
It comes as UK net migration dropped to an estimated 171,000 last year, the lowest level since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The figures for the 12 months to December, published on Thursday, were down 48% compared with the previous year (331,000), according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It is the first time the estimate, which is the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving the country, has fallen below 200,000 since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick welcomed the fall in migration figures but said the numbers need to come down “much more”.
Mr Jenrick, who served as immigration minister for the Conservative Party before he defected to Reform, told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “These numbers are still very high.
“I welcome the fact it’s coming down absolutely.
“I secured the very changes that are making this, announced them, and then resigned because they weren’t enough.
“I want the numbers to come down much more.
“At Reform we don’t want hundreds of thousands of people coming into the country, we want net emigration – that means more people leaving every year than are coming in.”
The Reform Treasury spokesman also said the latest statistics showed a “massive problem with emigration of bright young people”.
“These are people leaving the country who don’t think there’s any hope, and that is what Reform is going to change,” Mr Jenrick added.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the figures show his Government is “delivering” on his promise to “restore control to our borders”.
On Sunday, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones told Sky News: “We’ve made a lot of progress.
“There’s absolutely more to do, there’s no question about that.”
Mr Jones said around 60,000 unsuccessful asylum seekers have been removed or deported and the number of boats bringing people to the UK has fallen so far this year.
“But we’ve got to do more with our French partners and others, including tackling these criminal gangs, to make sure that that is a continued trajectory”, he added.
