France could take back Channel migrants under new deal
Ministers are understood to hope that they can announce an agreement in principle when Emmanuel Macron, the French president, makes his state visit to the UK next month for the Anglo-French summit.
Under the scheme, Britain would send back Channel migrants to France within weeks of their arrival in return for the UK taking asylum seekers from France.
Home Office sources indicated that a returns scheme was a 'work in progress'.
France has resisted such moves since the Dublin returns agreement was scrapped under Brexit and argued that any new agreement would have to be EU-wide.
However, France opened the door to taking back Channel migrants for the first time after Bruno Retailleau, the French interior minister, said that it would 'send a clear message' to others planning to make the journey.
France has also agreed to start intercepting migrant 'taxi boats' at sea for the first time after previously refusing to do so for fear of breaching maritime safety laws.
The policy change driven through by Mr Retailleau is expected to be confirmed at the summit, which is taking place from July 8-10.
The moves come after small boat crossings hit record levels with more than 18,000 migrants having reached the UK so far this year, up 43 per cent on the same point last year and the highest number since the first arrivals in 2018.
The French have been open to a pilot, one-for-one scheme, which, if successful, could be extended EU-wide.
The EU has previously rejected returns agreements that are only bilateral between two countries.
A deal would be limited to the UK taking asylum seekers in France with family connections in Britain in exchange for a corresponding number of Channel migrants being returned to France.
No 10 has, however, also been studying more ambitious returns schemes.
Senior figures from the European Stability Initiative (ESI) have been invited to Downing Street twice in the past eight months to present their ideas.
In their presentations, ESI proposed almost every Channel migrant would be returned to France within three to four weeks with very occasional exceptions for people with the strongest family connections to the UK.
In return, the UK would agree to take in a capped number of asylum seekers from the EU of, for example, 20,000 a year under a time-limited scheme.
They argued that without a near-100 per cent return rate, there would be no deterrent to crossings, predicting that as soon as it became clear there was no prospect of success, the incentive for migrants to make the dangerous, expensive journeys would evaporate.
The ESI team argued that their scheme could be extended to a wider group of countries than just France.
It also offered them a model for striking their own 'returns' deals with countries that were the source of illegal migrants.
The EU has already backed the creation of return 'hubs' - temporary detention centres in non-EU countries where deported migrants would wait before being sent back.
Sir Keir confirmed last month that the UK was also in talks with a 'number of countries' about return hubs for failed asylum seekers, which he described as a 'really important innovation'.
Home Office sources said it was uncertain whether a deal would be formally announced at the Anglo-French summit.
However, they will face pressure not to limit the number of migrants they can send back to France.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, warned that the scheme would fail unless all illegal migrants were denied asylum in the UK and removed from Britain.
'We pay the French half a billion pounds to wave the boats off from Calais, and in return we get a merry-go-round where the same number still come here,' he said.
'The French are failing to stop the boats at sea, failing to return them like the Belgians do, and now instead of demanding real enforcement, Labour are trying a 'one in, one out' gimmick.
'If Labour were serious, they would not have scrapped the returns deterrent the National Crime Agency said we needed – instead, they've surrendered our immigration system. Pathetic.'
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