"Pull factors" that draw illegal migrants to the UK must be addressed if the current crisis is to end, Priti Patel has urged.

The Home Secretary admitted there was "no quick fix" after the deaths of 27 people yesterday as their boat drowned while attempting to cross the Channel and said co-operation was needed.

It comes after Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister, said the "attractiveness" of the British job market was one of the reasons that people keep trying to cross.

"This is about addressing long-term pull factors, smashing the criminal gangs that treat human beings as cargo, and supply chains," Ms Patel told the Commons.

"Yesterday was the moment many of us had feared for many years. The criminals who facilitate these journeys are motivated by self-interest and profit, not compassion.

"I hope the whole House can come together to send a clear message that crossing the Channel in this lethal way, in a small boat, is not the way to come to our country. It is of course illegal, unnecessary and desperately safe."

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