Shadow home secretary Chris Philp has said “Italy-style” migration deals will not “work as a deterrent”, as Transport Secretary Louise Haigh did not deny that the Government is negotiating with Libya, Tunisia and Kurdistan.
Their comments come as official figures show that over 1,000 migrants crossed the English Channel in the last week.
It had been reported that the Government is negotiating “co-operation and security” agreements such as those reached by Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni that has seen a 62% fall in arrivals to Italy over the first seven months of 2024.
Such deals involve payments to countries that have high levels of emigration to encourage them to do more to prevent migrants attempting to make the journey to Europe and the UK.
Latest figures from the Home Office and Border Force show 1,018 people attempted to cross the English Channel in 17 small boats in the week to November 15.
Mr Philp said prevention deals are a “constructive step” but would not work without a deterrent, as he defended the previous government’s Rwanda deportation scheme.
He told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “(The Government) are not proposing, as far as I can see, to have a returns agreement with those countries. They’re proposing to work with those countries to prevent departures in the first place.
“Now that’s all well and good. I’m perfectly happy to support that, but it’s not going to work as a deterrent.
“To deter people, they need to know that if they illegally and dangerously cross the English Channel, they’re going to be immediately removed somewhere else. And that’s what Rwanda did. These deals don’t do that.”
He added: “The Rwanda scheme never actually started. It was due to start on the 24 July and it would have saved us a lot of money had it been started, because the deterrent would have stopped people crossing the English Channel. We know that because it worked in Australia.”
Elsewhere, Ms Haigh was grilled as to how such preventive migration schemes with third countries were different to the Rwanda plan which Labour were highly critical of and ended upon entering Government.
She told Sky News: “Rwanda wasn’t working well before we scrapped it on coming into office, it was costing the taxpayer a fortune.
“It clearly wasn’t working as a deterrent, and it wasn’t resolving the issue at source – what we’re talking about is resolving the issue upstream.
“So, tackling and smashing the gangs as Keir Starmer has repeatedly talked about in order to stop the boats coming over at all, the Rwanda scheme wasn’t deterring boats.”
She would not be drawn on the potential cost of individual deals, adding: “What I can say is this absolutely characterises our approach, working with international partners in a long term, serious way.”
