Home Office data shows almost 500 asylum seekers crossed the Channel in small boats in one day, the highest number so far this year.

Eleven boats carried 497 people from France to the Kent coast yesterday, topping this year’s previous highest number of 492 on April 5.

This comes as a day earlier, Home Secretary Suella Braverman laid amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill designed to make it more difficult for domestic and international courts to have a say in how the UK government controls the country’s borders.

The Cabinet minister urged MPs to bring the Bill “into force as soon as possible so we can stop the boats”, with the legislation due to return to Parliament next week.

One of Mrs Braverman’s proposed changes to the bill is that ministers would be able to decide whether or not to accept a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Some MPs had been calling for the UK to exit the ECHR so judges on the continent could not make orders to prevent deportation.

Strasbourg judges had used a Rule 39 order to block the inaugural deportation flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda last year.

Other potential changes MPs will consider include moves to restrict UK courts from hearing a legal challenge to deportation to someone deemed to have arrived unlawfully, unless they are at risk of serious and irreversible harm.

Mrs Braverman said only people aged under 18, deemed medically unfit to fly, or facing serious and irreversible harm in the country they would be deported to would be able to delay their deportation.

Home Office figures published earlier this month confirmed the provisional total number of people making the journey across the Channel so far this year stood at more than 5,000.

The Government has vowed to change the law to make it clear people arriving in the UK illegally will not be allowed to stay, either facing deportation back to their home country or a nation like Rwanda where a deal is in place.

Around 45,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel since the Government signed the Rwanda deal last year.