More migrants have come to the UK under the government’s flagship ‘one in, one out’ scheme than have been deported to France, the home secretary has admitted.
Some 350 asylum seekers have been brought to Britain from France under the scheme, which started in September last year, compared to just 281 people who have been removed.
Shabana Mahmood revealed on Tuesday morning that “one of the first problems” the scheme ran into was advertising the new legal route to migrants in France. She said that officials “couldn’t find enough people to bring into Britain through the new route, because there wasn’t enough knowledge”.
Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, she added: “You’ve got to compete with organised immigration crime to get your messages out”. Ms Mahmood stressed that the one in, one out scheme, which sees small boat migrants sent back to Paris in exchange for asylum seekers from France, was still in a pilot phase, saying “they are still relatively small numbers”.
She said: “There are practical issues around how quickly you can detain people and then get them on a plane and move them out to France, we’ve actually speeded up the removals to France and then taking people in.”
More than 41,000 people crossed the Channel in small boats last year, according to government figures – the second highest number on record after the peak in 2022.
The prime minister's spokesman also defended the numbers on Tuesday, pressing that it is a "reciprocal deal". "We've always been clear, the numbers will fluctuate," he said.
"I think at the beginning of the agreement the numbers were higher in terms of us sending people to France than receiving people under the safe returns route. But those numbers will fluctuate."
The spokesman said there is "no silver bullet" to solving the problem of Channel crossings but the scheme is "another tool in our armoury" to tackle the smuggling gangs business model at source.
The update on the scheme comes after the French human rights ombudsman Claire Hédon warned law enforcement against the use of certain weapons on beaches.
Ms Hédon said there was a lack of transparency and information surrounding the French police’s use of rubber-ball launchers, and tear gas grenades, on migrants seeking to cross the Channel. In a report shared with Le Monde, she wrote that such weapons should not be used “when the sole aim of the security forces is to prevent people from boarding a boat”.
