A senior Conservative MP has questioned the government’s immigration strategy after 509 people were found to have crossed the Channel on the same day six people lost their lives off the French coast. Tim Loughton, the MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, said it was “not a good idea” for the Tories to boast of a week dedicated to immigration announcements, which they billed as “small boats week”, as it was a “hostage to fortune”. More than 100,000 people have made the dangerous journey across the Channel since 2018, and the approximate total for this year so far is 16,679. At least six people died in the incident on Saturday and at least 58 were rescued, many of them Afghans, after a boat got into difficulty off Sangatte. Loughton, who sits on the Commons home affairs committee, told Times Radio: “I think it was probably not a good idea to have a small boats week. It was a hostage to fortune and clearly it depends on how many people are risking their lives coming across the Channel, which is dependent on the weather and how people-smugglers are operating.” He also called on French authorities to intervene. “Without the French actually intercepting and detaining those boats, then we have a problem stopping that,” he said. “Secondly, the Home Office has got to do a lot better in speeding up the processing times of those people who do then come to the UK to see whether they have a legitimate asylum claim or not.” Last week a row erupted in the Tory party when the Conservative deputy chair Lee Anderson said the government had “failed” on stopping small boat crossings, adding: “I’m very angry every day when I see these illegal migrants.” The immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, criticised Anderson’s remarks, insisting he was “wrong” to say the government’s policies had failed. Later in the week, 39 asylum seekers had to be removed from the Bibby Stockholm barge after the discovery of potentially deadly bacteria in the water system. On Saturday the senior Conservative backbencher David Davis said the “startling incompetence” of the Home Office had been laid bare after all those onboard the 500-capacity vessel were disembarked because of the discovery of legionella bacteria in the water supply. Many Tory MPs have used the recent deaths during small boat crossings to criticise France’s policies, and urged the government to take action against people-smuggling gangs. Writing in the Sunday Express, the backbencher and former party chairman Sir Jake Berry said: “We must put a stop to the vile people-smugglers who trade in human misery and whose actions result in the loss of life.” The former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said the French policy of escorting small boats to UK waters was “madness”. He told the Mail on Sunday: “That acts as an incentive for them to make the crossing and take the risk.” Paris prosecutors on Sunday took over the investigation into the deaths on Saturday, as police hunted the people responsible. Prosecutors in the channel port of Boulogne opened an investigation on Saturday, hours after the tragedy, but the investigation was switched to Paris, officials in both offices told AFP. The Wales secretary, David TC Davies, defended the government’s handling of the Bibby Stockholm situation, saying the forced evacuation “actually demonstrates how we’re putting the safety of people first”. The shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said a “better, fairer system” was needed to tackle the backlog of asylum applications and cut the need for temporary accommodation.