Migrant deal does not allow safe EU returns
Home Secretary criticised over agreement which she admits will not solve small boats crisis on its own
Ministers faced a backlash over their £63million deal with France after it emerged it will not enable migrants to be sent back across the Channel. The agreement will fund a 40 per cent rise in gendarmes, British officers to be stationed in French control rooms and extra drones and night-vision goggles. However, sources said a deal on returning illegal migrants to safe European countries remained a “long way off ”. Downing Street also admitted there were no targets for outcomes.
MINISTERS faced a backlash over a £63million deal with France after it emerged it will not enable migrants to be sent back across the Channel.
The agreement, signed by Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, and Gerald Darmanin, the French interior minister, means the UK will pay for a 40 per cent increase in the number of gendarmes on French beaches, for British officers to be stationed in French control rooms for the first time and for extra drones, night-vision goggles and other surveillance equipment. However, sources said a deal on returning illegal migrants to safe European countries was a “long way off ” and was likely only to be agreed on an Eu-wide basis.
Just 21 out of 16,000 migrants earmarked for removal in the 18 months to June had been returned to “safe” countries through which they had travelled and where they should have claimed asylum. Experts blamed the collapse of the pre-brexit Dublin returns deal.
Downing Street also admitted there were no targets for outcomes in the deal, raising questions over how its success and value for money will be measured. Asked if there were targets for outcomes, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “There is the deal as set out but no, there is not [targets].”
Mrs Braverman has spoken of wanting to see the proportion of migrants stopped from leaving French shores doubled from around 40 per cent to 70 or 80 per cent to break the economic model of the people smugglers.
Asked in the Commons whether the deal would mean fewer small boats crossing, she ducked the question, saying there would be a 40 per cent rise in gendarmes on French beaches from 240 to 340 by the middle of next year to prevent migrants leaving.
She admitted the deal – which brings the UK’S payments to France to stop small boats to £220million since 2018 – would not “on its own solve the problem” but she maintained it was a “step change” in cooperation with France.
Rishi Sunak said the deal was a “foundation” for “greater cooperation” with France as ministers aim for a wider treaty next year that could enable Channel migrants to be returned to safe EU countries and allow joint Anglo-french land patrols.
Natalie Elphicke, the Tory MP for Dover, said the agreement “falls far short of what is needed” and amounted to “more of the same” rather than a radical new approach to stop the record 41,738 migrants who have reached the UK so far this year, 40 per cent more than the whole of last year.
“It doesn’t match the scale or urgency of the crisis, or the increased risk of loss of life as winter approaches. What’s needed is a step-change in approach, with joint border patrols and a Channelwide joint security zone,” she said. Tim Loughton, a former minister and member of the home affairs committee, said the Home Office would be “throwing good money after bad” unless the French were obliged to detain migrants caught trying to cross rather than freeing them so they could try again.
Sir Roger Gale, Tory MP for North Thanet, said it was a “very modest but significant step in the right direction”. He agreed there needed to be British officers on the beaches even if there was a “frisson of resistance” from the French over their sovereignty. He called for a pan-european agreement for tougher border controls within and around the continent to prevent migrants exploiting free movement.
sir – I suppose we should welcome the deal made between Britain and France to contain illegal Channel crossings (report, November 14), but what exactly will we get for our £63million?
These figures are never broken down and British taxpayers almost certainly won’t get any value for money. We clearly haven’t for our previous payments, given the huge increase in crossings since 2019. Alasdair Ogilvy
Stedham, West Sussex
sir – Fraser Nelson (“With millions on benefits, we don’t need mass migration to boost GDP”, Comment, November 11) makes important points about our failure to train people, our addiction to importing cheap labour and its impact on productivity. However, he fails to mention that business must have a moral purpose, and that the pursuit of profit alone is not one. Businesses benefit from – and ultimately can only exist in – a stable society.
No one can deny that new arrivals to this country bring economic and cultural dynamism from which we all benefit. The issue is scale. The population has increased by eight million in the past 20 years, and over one million people were granted right of access in 2021 alone. This carries with it challenging trade-offs.
In addition to the economic shortcomings mentioned by Mr Nelson, there are a number of noneconomic ones, which are of great significance to our settled population. These include the loss of open space caused by increased need for housing, additional pressure on our public services, damage to our ecology, and risks to food security and possibly social cohesion. Robert Kennedy famously said that GDP measures everything except those things that make life worthwhile.
We need to weigh up all these factors in a way that commands public confidence. This is why I have been pressing the Government to establish an Office for Demographic Change, constructed along the lines of the Office for Budget Responsibility, to undertake the necessary transparent, evidence-based analysis.
Population change is a long-term issue. Our children and grandchildren will not thank us if we do not address these challenges now.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con) London SW1
sir – It’s time the Government explained the differences between a refugee, an asylum seeker, a migrant and an illegal immigrant. They aren’t interchangeable terms, as some would have you think.
Dr Stewart Cowley
London SW18