UK-France 'one in, one out' migrant scheme scrapped

What the report says

The UK government has ended its pilot “one in, one out” agreement with France, under which some people who crossed the English Channel in small boats could be returned to France while the UK accepted an equal number of migrants judged to have a lawful route to Britain. BBC World News reported that the arrangement has stopped taking new cases after operating for just over a year.

According to the BBC, about 1,500 people were removed to France under the scheme. A Home Office spokesperson said the government would use “lessons learned” to speed up returns of people who arrive by small boat and have no right to remain in the UK. Flights to remove some small boat migrants are expected to continue in the coming weeks, and the government said it would keep working with France on wider efforts to reduce crossings.

The French Interior Ministry told the BBC that discussions were under way about how to exit the agreement. BBC reporting also said the UK government would have preferred the pilot to continue, but judged that it did not reach the scale it wanted. The policy sits within a broader effort by the UK to deter Channel crossings, which have remained a major political and operational issue for ministers and border authorities.

For context, small boat arrivals are one of the main ways people seek asylum in the UK, and the BBC has noted that the numbers crossing this year were lower than in the same period last year.