“If he had checked the facts recently, he would have seen that small boat crossings are coming down under this Government. When he was immigration minister, what did they do? They went up and up.”
In response to a question from Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick MP in Parliament earlier this month, the Prime Minister Andy Burnham claimed that small boat crossings “went up and up” while Mr Jenrick was immigration minister.
In fact, the opposite is true. Both the number of migrants arriving by small boats and the number of small boats crossing fell while Mr Jenrick was immigration minister.
Because the number of crossings is typically higher in the summer months than in winter months, we’ve produced rolling 12-month totals based on government data to look at how the scale of crossings has changed over time.
Mr Jenrick became immigration minister under then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in October 2022, and resigned in December 2023. The rolling 12-month totals for both the number of migrants arriving via small boat and the number of boats crossing in October 2022 are the highest on record, and both fell considerably across Mr Jenrick’s time in office.
If you look simply at the monthly figures, rather than rolling 12-month totals, they don’t support Mr Burnham’s claim either. In October 2022 when Mr Jenrick was appointed immigration minister there were 6,900 arrivals by 147 small boats recorded. A year later, in October 2023, there were 1,869 arrivals by 40 small boats. In December 2023 when Mr Jenrick resigned, there were 1,077 arrivals by 23 small boats.
Small boat crossings did increase significantly between 2018 and 2022 while the Conservatives were in office, but not specifically while Mr Jenrick was immigration minister.
Join 75,000 newsletter subscribers who trust us to check the facts
Sign up to get weekly updates on politics, immigration, health and more.
Subscribe to weekly email newsletters from Full Fact for updates on politics, immigration, health and more.
Our fact checks are free to read but not to produce, so you will also get occasional emails about fundraising
and other ways you can help. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information about how we use your data
see our Privacy Policy.
What about Labour’s record?
Mr Burnham also claimed that crossings “are coming down under this Government”.
This is correct overall, but doesn’t tell the whole story.
As the graph above shows, crossings in the 12 months to September 2026 are lower than in the 12 months to July 2024, when Labour entered government.
And looking at the raw monthly data, which does not allow for seasonal variation, there were also fewer migrant arrivals and boats crossing in September 2026 compared to July 2024. But crossings did increase substantially during Labour’s first year in office, before falling in the second year.
The number of crossings during Mr Burnham’s roughly three months in office so far is also down compared to the same period the previous year.
Between 20 July 2026, when Mr Burnham became Prime Minister, and 11 October 2026, the day before he made the claim, there were 8,466 migrant arrivals via 115 small boats recorded. That compares to 12,770 arrivals on 190 boats over the same period the previous year.
We contacted Number 10 for comment, but did not receive a response.
