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The first asylum seekers could be flown to Rwanda from the UK within weeks, the government has said.

It follows the announcement of a pilot that will see people sent to the east African country to claim asylum there.

That scheme will initially focus on single men crossing the Channel in boats or lorries from France.

The prime minister said it would "save countless lives" and break the business model of traffickers, but campaigners have called the plan "inhumane".

Two more migrant crossings were recorded on Friday morning despite thick fog, the BBC's Simon Jones said.

Andrew Griffith MP - director of the No 10 policy unit - said the new scheme would not require new legislation and could be implemented under "existing conventions".

He told BBC Newsnight it could therefore be launched "in weeks or a small number of months".

He added that, if the flow of illegal migration could be stopped, it would leave "lots of capacity for the very generous safe and legal routes" into the UK.

The Rwanda scheme is part of a broader strategy to reduce the number of people entering the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats.

The Royal Navy has taken operational command of the Channel from UK Border Force in an effort to detect every boat headed to the UK.

Some 562 people on 14 boats made the journey on the day the new scheme was announced, according to the Ministry of Defence. No one making the crossing is believed to have arrived on UK soil "on their own terms", it added.

Last year, 28,526 people made the crossing, up from 8,404 in 2020.
 
Tony Smith, former director-general of UK Border Force, said it could be weeks before it became clear if the "radical" new scheme was feasible.

He told BBC Breakfast the government was likely to face a legal challenge when people are put on aircraft bound for Rwanda.

"But then I'm not sure what the answer is to stopping the boats… because if we don't do something, then more people are going to drown," he said, adding the UK was potentially facing its biggest asylum intake ever.

In a speech on Thursday, Boris Johnson said the agreement with Rwanda would provide "safe and legal routes for asylum".

"Economic migrants taking advantage of the asylum system will not get to stay in the UK, while those with genuine need will be properly protected," he said.

He said the scheme would cover anyone who had arrived in the UK illegally since the start of this year.