Campaigners hit back at Priti Patel’s plans for tougher border controls

The Border Force will be given new powers to send migrant boats back to France and arrest asylum seekers who land in Britain illegally, under Home Secretary Priti Patel’s new plans to overhaul the refugee system.

The Nationality and Borders Bill, to be brought before Parliament on Tuesday, will bring forward the biggest reform of the asylum system in a generation.

The Bill will hand a wide range of new powers to the Border Force and create new offences for arriving in the UK “without a valid entry clearance” – with a maximum penalty of four years in prison. The maximum sentence for people smuggling would increase from 14 years to life behind bars.

The plans will also include details on the removal of asylum seekers to offshore centres, where they will remain while their claims or appeals are being processed, and give the Home Secretary the power to control visa availability for countries “refusing to take back their own citizens”.

The move follows a continued surge in Channel migrants. More than 6,600 migrants have arrived in small boats this year, with 404 arriving at the weekend alone.

Patel said: “This legislation delivers on what the British people have voted for time and time again: for the UK to take full control of its borders.”

“It paves the way for a fair but firm system that will break the business model of the gangs that facilitate dangerous and illegal journeys to the UK while speeding up the removal of those with no right to be here.”

But campaigners have dubbed the new proposals the “anti-refugee Bill” and claimed that it leaves no route for many genuine refugees to seek safety in the UK.

Critics also warned that plans in the Bill to create a new offence to lock up asylum seekers arriving illegally could add thousands of people to Britain’s overcrowded prison system.

Mike Adamson, chief executive of the British Red Cross, told The Guardian: “We have major concerns about the proposals, which would see someone’s case and the support they receive judged on how they entered the country, rather than the dangers they face.”

According to The Refugee Council’s analysis of Home Office data, 9,000 people who would be accepted as refugees under current rules – for example, those confirmed to have fled war or persecution – would be criminalised due to their method of arrival under the reforms.

Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council said: “Today this government is cruelly choosing to not only turn away those in need of safety but also treat them as criminals.”

“This anti-refugee Bill will drive an already inefficient and ineffective system into disarray with even worse delays and far greater expense.”