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A top Belgian official has slammed the UK’s new deal with France to stop migrants crossing the English Channel as “bad value for money”. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood signed a three-year agreement with France on Thursday to pay £662 million to support beach patrols as part of efforts to drive down the number of arrivals.

It will see the UK hand over £501 million to cover enforcement activity and five police units on French beaches, with an extra £160 million only paid if the new tactics succeed. Carl Decaluwe, governor of West Flanders, warned that the millions of pounds of taxpayer cash could achieve very little, however. He told The Telegraph: “You get nothing; nothing… If you see the results – year after year – new records!”

Mr Decaluwe, a former member of Belgium’s centre-right Christian Democratic and Flemish Party, added that he was calling for the France-Belgium border to be closed in what would be a major breach of the Schengen zone, which allows passport-free travel between its 29 member states.

“I asked some weeks ago to close the border, but of course, the politicians and Brussels are not happy about it,” he said. “I think we must do more control, because we know that most of the people are coming from France.”

The Home Office said the new deal would see officers “targeting and detaining” small boat migrants on the French coast with the aim of removing hundreds of them from beaches every year.

If efforts fail, the additional funding is expected to stop after a year, although ministers haven’t set specific targets to measure the success of the arrangement.

Mr Decaluwe’s comments follow the first group of small boat arrivals since the deal was signed, with more than a dozen people thought to be migrants, including women and children, pictured being brought into the Border Security Command compound in Dover on Saturday.

A total of over 6,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after making the perilous journey from France, down 36% on the number this time last year.