omen and children are among a group of people brought ashore by an RNLI lifeboat as the number of people crossing the Channel this year in small boats approaches 25,000.
Around 40 people were brought to Dungeness in Kent before being taken by bus to a Home Affairs processing facility.
The arrivals are expected to be the first of several boats to cross as the weather remains calm in the English Channel after no voyages were known to take place on Friday.
As of Thursday, 24,231 people have crossed this year, with the possibility of reaching a milestone of 25,000 over the holiday weekend.
Saturday’s arrivals come after it was revealed that the cost of the UK’s asylum system has topped £2 billion a year, with the highest number of claims in two decades and record delays for people waiting for a decision.
Home Office spending on asylum has increased by £756 million from around £1.4 billion in 2020/21 to £2.1 billion in 2021/22. This is the highest on record and more than double the amount spent in 2019/20, official figures show.
The 63,089 applications in the year to June 2022 were also the highest number for any 12-month period since the year to June 2003, when 71,316 applications were made, according to the department.
Officials are understood to be working hard to reduce the backlog of pending asylum applications, but are struggling to keep up with the number of new applications.