Yvette Cooper will use new laws to prosecute migrants who dangerously overcrowd small boats and put women and children at risk.
The Home Secretary has ordered officials to expand the ‘endangering lives at sea’ offence, currently going through Parliament, to specifically include cases where up to 100 passengers can pack on to a single dinghy.
It comes as the number of people per small boat has reached record levels this year, with insiders warning it is ‘a matter of time’ before one sinks from overcrowding.
Ms Cooper is worried about women and children being ‘crushed at sea’ and told this newspaper: ‘If you storm a boat, trampling over the bodies of tiny children, you are complicit in putting other people in danger.’
She wants to use the new powers in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill to tackle migrants who overcrowd the dinghies.
