The UK and Belgium are on the brink of a new migration deal to help tackle Channel small boat crossings, The i Paper understands.
The two countries are set to strike an agreement on law enforcement cooperation to allow police and other forces to work more closely together to target people smuggling gangs.
The i Paper understands the deal will restore some of the data-sharing lost when the UK left the EU, albeit only with Belgium rather than the wider bloc, and is designed to boost Labour’s pledge to “smash the gangs” operating dinghy crossings.
But the deal will not include anything on migrant returns despite past UK efforts to include Belgium in its experimental one-in, one-out agreement with France.
Germany has also rejected British overtures to join the one-in, one-out agreement, although Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is poised for talks with Paris to extend the deal with France beyond its October expiry.
The expected deal with Belgium comes after a spate of smugglers launching so-called “taxi boats” from the country earlier this year. The boats move along the coast to pick up migrants in the water before heading towards France.
The dinghies have been launched from coastal towns such as De Panne, Nieuwpoort and Middelkerke.
Belgian police identified at least 32 such attempts between January and April this year, compared to just two in the whole of 2025.
There has since been a crackdown with only a handful of similar attempts since May with Government sources praising the efforts of Belgian police.
The i Paper understands the Home Office views Belgium as less of a concern currently, with smugglers instead launching boats further south in France before travelling northwards up the coast, such as the so-called “mega dinghy” that was carrying a record 232 people earlier this month.
But ministers still view a deal with Belgium as an important extra piece in the puzzle of taking on people smuggling gangs, to sit alongside existing deals on law enforcement with France and Germany.
A Government source said: “The Belgians are very keen on further cooperation. They have been very effective in their efforts on cracking down on small boats and there is much we can learn from each other’s approaches.”
The i Paper understands the deal will include more data-sharing after Britain lost access to some shared intelligence databases as a result of Brexit in 2020.
While the UK and EU agreed deals on sharing information on DNA, fingerprint and number plate records, Britain remains locked out of the bloc’s Schengen Information System (SIS2) that is seen by police as a faster way of sharing information than its post-Brexit replacements.
Former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer made boosting law enforcement cooperation a priority in his strategy to tackle people smuggling gangs.
His successor Andy Burnham has since pledged to push for the “eradication” of small boat crossings but refused to commit to achieving this by the next election, due in 2029.
As of Thursday, 15,897 migrants had crossed the Channel so far this year, down 43 per cent on the same time last year, and an 18 per cent drop from the same point in 2024.
A Home Office spokesman said: “We do not comment on leaks or speculation.”
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