Yvette Cooper came under fire from the BBC’s Naga Munchetty for being unable to give numbers on the UK’s new migrant returns deal with France. The Home Secretary was asked during a grilling on BBC Breakfast how many small boat arrivals would be sent back to France as part of the pilot scheme.
But Ms Cooper declined to set out a figure amid claims that it would be just 50 a week which is a fraction of the amount that make the dangerous journey on rubber dinghies. Munchetty said: “You will know the criticism levied against this, one being that 50 is a number that would barely touch the sides to coin a phrase because of the numbers that are coming in. So it’s a pilot scheme, how long and then if deemed successful what does that number 50 change to?”
The Home Secretary replied: “We’re actually not fixing numbers, either for the pilot or the first phase or later phases of it.
“We will learn and develop this as we go and it’s important that we do so.
“But the thing that it changes straight away is the claim that the people smugglers have been making that they will be able to get to the UK and there is no possibility of them being returned.”
Munchetty later asked: “I don’t really understand why you won’t give me some numbers and targets because as part of your manifesto and as part of the Labour mantra it has been to smash the gangs and to turn this crisis around.
“So why won’t you tell us what your targets are and what would be acceptable after making those manifesto promises?”
Ms Cooper said: “It’s true that we are taking a very different approach to the way that the Conservatives did this.
“If you recall they suddenly made promises that everyone who arrived in the UK would be sent to Rwanda. Two years after they made those promises just four people had been sent. That is a chaotic way to do things.”
It comes after Sir Keir Starmer unveiled plans for the new one in, one out agreement at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday.
The Prime Minister described the pact as “groundbreaking” and insisted it wuld help “finally turn the tables” on the migrant crisis in the English Channel.
But reports have suggested just 50 migrants a week will be returned compared to the 21,117 who have arrived via the perilous route so far this year.
