Just five migrants who crossed the Channel by boat to the UK have been returned to Europe so far this year, one of the Government’s immigration ministers has told MPs.
Tom Pursglove, a minister for both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, said there had been “difficulties securing returns” when he was questioned by the Commons Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday.
Committee chairman Yvette Cooper had asked “how many asylum seekers or how many people arriving” had been returned to any EU country since January.
Before Brexit, the UK was part of an EU returns deal known as the Dublin agreement which the committee heard allowed several hundred people to be returned in previous years.
When Ms Cooper suggested returns are “substantially worse” since losing the agreement, Mr Pursglove said: “You will appreciate that there have been some difficulties around securing returns, not least as a consequence of Covid.”
He insisted the “ambition remains to secure successful returns arrangements with our European friends and neighbours. And potentially with the European Union.”
More than 23,000 people have arrived in the UK this year after crossing the Channel in small boats. This is almost three times the total of around 8,500 in 2020.
Mr Pursglove told the committee: “What we are seeing is that small boat arrivals is becoming the route of choice for facilitations by evil criminal gangs.
“The smugglers are becoming more audacious. We are seeing riskier behaviours. We are seeing bigger boats deployed. We are seeing a wider array of crossings originating from a wider stretch of coastline.”
He said previously boats were being launched from around 50km of French coastline but now it is from a 200km stretch, describing this as “troubling”.
Mr Pursglove insisted there was “most definitely an improvement” in the prevention of small boat crossings, but added: “Clearly, the fact that we’ve had a five-fold increase in clandestine arrivals this summer compared with 2018 is completely unacceptable.
“We’ve got to do better on this. And I will not rest until we get to a far better place on this issue.”
Committee member and Conservative MP Tim Loughton said there had been “similar undertakings” previously from politicians, but the “situation has not improved”.
Mr Pursglove reiterated plans to “render the route unviable” and said there was “not one single solution to this problem”.
Dan O’Mahoney, the Home Office’s Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, said tackling the problem was a “global law enforcement effort”, adding: “I think we shouldn’t underestimate the challenge that French law enforcement have had.
“The method of entry is now deepened and intensified and has become so profitable for criminals that it’s going to take a phenomenal amount of effort to shift it.”
Highlighting a recent example of a boat carrying 88 migrants, he suggested criminals could raise around 350,000 euro (£296,000) if each person on board paid about 4,000 euro (£3,380) each.
He added: “So at a 50% interception rate, which is roughly what we’re seeing at the moment, criminals are always going to take that chance as even half of 350,000 euro is a lot of money.”
Mr Pursglove confirmed “a significant proportion of funding has been paid to the French” to increase security on its northern coast. But he declined to tell MPs how much has been handed over so far.
During the session, Mr Mahoney also confirmed that previously reported plans by ministers to use giant wave machines to prevent migrant crossings were “never considered”, adding: “I think it’s a bizarre idea.”
Nets to snare boat propellers are also not being considered and officials ruled out using floating walls in the sea, he said, as he described a number of the ideas that made their way into the headlines as “fanciful”.
