NEARLY 8,000 people have arrived in Britain so far this year having risked their lives crossing the English Channel in small boats, following the latest arrivals last weekend.

A total of 167 people made the dangerous crossing in 13 boats on Saturday, according to the Ministry of Defence.

These are the latest people to have been intercepted by British authorities after four days without any crossings, with Monday, May 9, seeing 51 people cross in two boats.

This brings the total for the year to 7,957, according to figures collated by the Press Association.

It comes as the Home Office said it will begin the process of informing the first asylum-seekers that they could be flown to Rwanda under its new resettlement scheme, with flights expected to begin in “the coming months.”

But Tom Pursglove, the minister for justice and tackling illegal migration, told the home affairs committee this week that the scheme was a “new and untested policy” and could not point to what modelling was used to give the “evidence base” to implement it.