Shabana Mahmood meets Kristi Noem at Five Eyes summit

The new home secretary will discuss criminal smuggling gangs with Donald Trump’s head of homeland security at a meeting of intelligence-sharing allies in London on Monday.

Shabana Mahmood will host US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, along with ministers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the countries which make up the Five Eyes security partnership.

Noem – who oversees the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency – has been a key player in the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations.

The summit is also expected to focus on online child sexual abuse and the spread of opioids.

The talks come as the government continues to face pressure to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats.

Saturday – Mahmood’s first full day in the job – saw 1,097 people arriving, one of the highest number of people on record.

That brought the total number of people arriving in the UK by small boat to more than 30,000 this year, according to Home Office statistics, a number that Mahmood described as “utterly unacceptable”.

The number of people arriving in the UK by small boats this year is up by 37% on last year, according to analysis by the PA news agency.

Mahmood said she hoped to agree new measures to “protect our borders with our five eyes partners, hitting people smugglers hard” at Monday’s security talks.

She said: “As the security threats we all face become more complex and span continents, we are stronger and safer together.”

The meeting comes days after Mahmood was appointed as home secretary in the prime minister’s major cabinet reshuffle, replacing Yvette Cooper.

The Five Eyes alliance is a post-World War II intelligence-sharing pact between the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand on communications intelligence.

On Sunday night, Noem posted a photo on social media of her meeting with the US Ambassador to the UK Warren Stephens.

She said the pair discussed border and aviation security, immigration enforcement, and how her department can support “meaningful results” for both the UK and US.

Defence Secretary John Healey has confirmed the government is looking at expanding the use of military sites to house asylum seekers, as it looks to move people out of so-called asylum hotels.

He said on Sunday that officials were also considering other types of “non-military accommodation”.