It comes after the government announced an extra £75m funding for the UK’s new Border Security Command, which brings together police, intelligence and immigration enforcement agencies to tackle small boat crossings.

Graeme Biggar, the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) director general, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that continuing to work with international partners was “crucial”.

He added that it is “very difficult to have exact confidence” on how much measures would reduce the number of UK small boat crossings as “so much depends on what’s happening with the rest of the world”.

On tackling people-smuggling gangs, Mr Biggar said that what is “particularly hard” for the NCA “is that the people themselves are not illegal, their presence in the UK or in some countries on the way here may be illegal, and often the tools that they are using to get here are not themselves illegal – boats and engines”.

“So being able to prove a criminal conspiracy is quite hard,” he added.

The EPC was set up in 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a way of bringing together European heads of government for informal talks and improving cooperation.

The group includes the 27 members of the EU as well as 20 other European countries.