French police could 'easily have stopped' the massive mega-dinghy before it launched, the Shadow Home Secretary said

There is "no limit" to the number of migrants who pile onto infamous "mega-dinghies", the French lifeboat service has warned after yesterday's record-breaking crossing.

France and Britain alike were left shocked on Monday morning after GB News revealed a 230-strong "small" boat had crossed the Channel.

The vessel carried more people than a Boeing 737 and was larger than a London bus.

Each passenger is believed to cost taxpayers as much as £106,000 in immediate pressures alone, meaning the "mega-dinghy" could leave the Home Office with a near-£25million bill.

Jean-Marc Lamblin, the director of the SNSM - France's equivalent to the RNLI - said: "For the past three months, we've been seeing more and more 15-metre boats.

"We recently passed the record of 150. We didn't think there could be more, but there really seems to be no limit anymore."

But Mr Lamblin confirmed his boats had ferried the migrants across into British waters from Berck-sur-Mer, over 40 miles south of Calais and more than 90 from Dover.

Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, said French authorities should have stopped the massive dinghy in the first place.

"This is now beyond a joke," he said. "The French authorities could easily have stopped a vessel this size from embarking in shallow waters.

"I recently saw for myself French Gendarmes standing by and doing nothing while illegal immigrants boarded in knee-deep water.

"Shabana Mahmood is handing over £660million of our money while this happens. It's a disgrace."

French police have in the past admitted they have orders to do nothing when migrants attempt to cross the Channel.

Monday's mega-dinghy raised the rising average number of illegal migrants per boat even further.

Just days ago, that figure stood at 72 - a tenfold increase in just eight years - but it has now shot up.

Migrants typically pay around £2,000 each for a Channel crossing, meaning Monday's boat could generate more than £500,000 in revenue before costs for people-smuggling gangs.

And yesterday No10 warned of how the chaos showed "the reality behind the ruthless smuggling gangs that are prepared to risk human lives for profit".

"That's exactly why the Government has signed a new payment-by-results deal with the French to prevent these perilous journeys from happening in the first place," the Prime Minister's official spokesman said.

"As the Prime Minister has said, we're not complacent and we are bearing down on these crossings, and that's reflected in the joint action that’s prevented 47,000 attempted crossings since the election."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, however, said the numbers of people crossing in small boats "are down but they're still horrendous".

Many of the mega-dinghies used for Channel crossings are made in China, before being shipped via Turkey or Bulgaria to European "staging posts", mainly in Germany.

Smugglers store and distribute them from the staging posts, just a few hours' drive from the beaches of France.

The Home Office has previously identified Chinese websites as a key source of both boats and parts - and has been working with Beijing to try to disrupt the supply chain.

A National Crime Agency source told The Telegraph that China was "likely to be one of the countries but not the only country" from which smugglers buy their gear.

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the only man to successfully "stop the boats", told GB News the simple way the crossings could be prevented.

Last autumn, Mr Abbott told The People's Channel how his border officials put illegal migrants "on unsinkable orange lifeboats with just enough fuel to make it back to Java and said: 'That's the way to go. See you later.'

"Once you're paying the people smugglers for a journey to nowhere, the game is up," he added, admitting that the tactic has "quite a lot of instructive lessons for Britain right now."

"The French wouldn't like it, of course, but frankly, I think it's an unfriendly act not cracking down on these people smuggling gangs operating out of northern France," he said.