Two people died trying to cross the Channel on Sunday as more than 700 migrants attempted the journey.

More than 50 people were rescued by the same boat after it sent a distress signal to the local coast guard in French waters.

New government data released on Monday showed that 703 people made the dangerous journey across the English Channel in Britain on Sunday, the highest number of daily crossings since Sir Keir Starmer took office as prime minister.

The highest number of daily arrivals this year was 882 people on June 18 under the Conservative government.

Last week a total of 1,172 people arrived in small boats, compared to 713 people the week before.

According to the latest figures, the provisional total for the current year is 18,342 – 13 percent more than at the same time last year, but three percent less than in 2022.

The high numbers in 2022 are partly due to the large number of Albanians who made the journey.

Aid groups working with migrants at the French border said 31 people have died trying to cross the border this year, compared with 12 known deaths in 2023, the nonprofit Utopia 56 said.

French authorities said they responded after a migrant boat ran into distress off the coast of Calais on Sunday. When rescue workers arrived on the scene, they found people in the water. A helicopter was able to pull an unconscious person from the water and take him to hospital.

They were later pronounced dead along with another person who was recovered unconscious by a search and rescue boat.

Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly said the new Labour government must “quickly get a grip on the number of Channel crossings”. Responding to Monday’s figures, he said: “Since Labour abandoned our deterrent measures, more and more boats carrying more and more people are crossing the Channel.”

“They sent the wrong signal by opening the doors instead of doing what was necessary to stop the dangerous border crossings.”

A Downing Street spokesman denied there was any link between the Tories’ abandonment of the Rwanda deportation plan and migration figures. He said: “We made it very clear in the weeks leading up to the summer that it is a difficult time and we expect a spike before we see improvements.”

“We know that criminal gangs are trying to exploit people in these months. We saw that yesterday with more deaths in the English Channel. That’s why it’s important that we work to break up the gangs.”

Beginning of the year The Independent reported that migrants were travelling longer distances across the Channel by launching boats from beaches further along the French coast to evade police.

Migrants said the increased crackdown by French police has made them even more desperate to reach Britain.

The mother of a 21-year-old woman who died when she was crushed in an overcrowded boat while trying to cross the Channel said on Sunday the family must attempt the journey again.

Amira Al Shammari, 52, from Calais, told the PA news agency: “We have no choice here, where should we go?”

“Who will give us protection? We have to do that again.”

Their daughter Dina was killed in a collision as the family attempted to cross the border on July 28. The family of six arrived in France on July 1 and had attempted to cross the border five times before Dina’s death.

Ms Al Shammari said: “The boat was so crowded. Dina was the first. She ran to the boat because she wanted to get to the UK as quickly as possible. They followed her and pinned her from all sides. As they pinned her down, she couldn’t breathe and started screaming.”

The family, members of Kuwait’s Bidoon, a stateless Arab minority, fled the Gulf state in 2018.