UK adverts targeting migrants crossing the Channel branded 'naive'

British MPs say some migrants are being held in “shocking conditions” in facilities in England, with women and children forced to sleep in crowded rooms on thin mattresses.

Their concern comes amid criticism over a government advertising campaign on Facebook designed to deter arrivals.

Record numbers of migrants are crossing the English Channel in small boats, with more than 9,000 making the journey so far this year, surpassing the 2020 total of 8,417.

Ministers had promised to make the route “unviable” for migrants, but thousands are reportedly still waiting in northern France to make the crossing by sea.

The Home Office launched an advertising campaign in December to get a message to migrants in France but refugee charities say it has been ineffective.

This has included spending more than £23,000 ($32,118) on social media ads between December and April targeted at migrants living in France, a Freedom of Information request by the PA news agency revealed.

The ads on Facebook and Instagram featured slogans such as “There is no hiding place”, “Don’t put your or your child’s life in danger” and “We will return you”.

Migrant charity Care4Calais accused the Home Office of “wasting money” on the ads that could have been better spent helping migrants.

“I’m genuinely horrified by the lengths this Government will go to to avoid helping desperate people,” founder Clare Moseley told the Press Association.

“Refugees risk their lives to escape from some of the world’s most dangerous countries, fully aware that this could be the last journey they make.

“It’s extremely naive of this Government to think that social media ads will deter them. This isn’t a choice.”

MPs also highlighted a perceived lack of concern for migrant welfare in a report on the Atrium facility in Kent, where migrants are transferred after they are brought ashore.

Yvette Cooper, the Labour chairwoman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said the facility was unsafe, with vulnerable people held in cramped conditions.

The MPs observed 56 migrants held in a waiting room. They said women with babies and a woman in a wheelchair were among the group.

“There were teenage boys sharing mattresses,” Ms Cooper told BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme.

“Almost the entire floor was covered with thin mattresses jammed into aisles and squeezed between seats. There were no open windows, there was no sign of any Covid precautions, no masks or social distancing.

"I could not see in how or any way that room was Covid safe, as well as concern for the welfare of the vulnerable children in that situation for many hours.”

Ms Cooper said that legally no person should be detained by Border Force for longer than 24 hours, but some migrants at the facility had been there for twice that amount of time.

The committee noted that services were under increasing pressure from “unacceptable numbers” of migrants crossing the Channel at the hands of people smugglers.

The Home Office said: "Unacceptable numbers of people are making life-threatening journeys crossing the Channel at the hands of criminal trafficking gangs.

"We take the welfare of migrants extremely seriously and despite these pressures we have improved our facilities, arranged additional staffing and are working to process people as quickly and safely as possible.”