UK and France in last-minute talks to renew small boats deal

The UK is locked in last-minute talks with France over the renewal of a deal to pay for beach patrols to intercept small boats in the English Channel.

Under a 2023 agreement signed by then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the UK has paid £476m to France for extra patrols to disrupt smuggling gangs.

That agreement expires at midnight.

The UK government has been pushing for ways to ensure France carries out more interceptions as part of a new deal.

But the French authorities are reported by The Guardian to be concerned that UK demands could put the lives of asylum seekers at greater risk.

The BBC understands if no deal is reached by midnight, talks between the UK and France will continue and the policing operation on the French side will also carry on.

When it was announced in 2023, the previous Conservative government said the £476m package would fund a new detention centre in France and hundreds of extra law enforcement officers on France's northern shores.

France agreed to make an unspecified "substantial and continuing" contribution.

Crossings in the Channel have increased over the past three years, with 41,472 people arriving in the UK by small boat in 2025 and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is under pressure to bring numbers down.

Mahmood is understood to be pushing for the new arrangement to include performance-related clauses that would link funding to the proportion of boats intercepted by the French, as first reported by the Times.

On Monday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the UK was having "good discussions" with France over a new deal.

In August 2025, the Labour government signed a separate "on-in-one out" deal with France, which allows the UK to return some small boat arrivals to France while admitting an equivalent number of migrants from France who have not attempted to come to the UK.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "France is our most important migration partner and together our joint work is bearing down on small boat crossings.

"We have prevented over 40,000 crossing attempts by illegal migrants since this government took office. Our landmark deal means illegal migrants who arrive on small boats are being sent back to France."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the UK needed to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to stop small boat crossings.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference at Heathrow Airport, he said a renewed deal "wouldn't make any difference".

"Even if the French do stop boats from crossing, the same people come back the next time there is a calm day," he added.

He said a Reform UK government would order the Royal Navy to tow small boats back to northern France, which he claimed would be possible if the UK pulled out of the ECHR.