Policing Minister Chris Philp has defended the Government’s Rwanda scheme by providing two examples of how previous deterrents have worked.
He referred to programmes in Australia and Albania, which have been effective in stopping the boats.
Appearing on the BBC’s Question Time programme, Mr Philp said: “We do have to stop these boats which are dangerous and unnecessary.
“There are two examples, two case studies I can give, in support of the hypothesis that it will act as a deterrent.
“The first of those was in Australia about 10 years ago. They had a very similar problem – people crossing from Indonesia. They implemented a programme called Operation Sovereign Borders, very similar in principle to the Rwanda scheme and very quickly their illegal maritime arrivals, which were about the same level as ours, went down to zero.
“They didn’t have to ship 50,000 people somewhere for the deterrent effect to work. It was a relatively small number before the deterrent effect kicked in.”
Last year, more than 45,000 migrants crossed the English Channel in small boats to reach the UK.
In 2013, Australians watched as 20,000 migrants made similar perilous journeys from countries like Indonesia, Iran and Sri Lanka. Scores died en route.
Under then Prime Minister Tony Abbott, migrant boats would be intercepted and either returned to where they travelled from or those on board taken to overseas island detention centres.
Mr Philp went on to provide a second example of an effective deterrent.
He said: “In 2022, the most numerous nationality crossing the channel was people from Albania, which obviously generally speaking, is not a dangerous country. We reached a returns agreement with the Albian Government where people who came across got returned to their home country, Albania.
“Very quickly, the number of Albanian people crossing the channel went down by 95%. So those two examples of Australia and the recent Albanian example here shows how the deterrent effect works.
“If we can stop this illegal trade run by people smugglers who are exploiting the vulnerable, we’ll have more capacity to help people most in need.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made stopping the bots one of his key pledges ahead of a general election, which is set to be later this year.
