Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 16
16
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 65
Lack of clarity regarding Rwanda migration programme's deterrent effect.
Conclusion
The Government’s stated purpose of the Migration and Economic Development Programme with Rwanda is to deter people from seeking to arrive in the UK by irregular means. It is not clear as yet whether it will have that effect. We invite the Government to set out its evidence base for assuming such an effect in its response to this Report.
Government Response Summary
The government states that as a new policy, the deterrent effect of the Rwanda partnership cannot be quantified with certainty yet, but suggests it stands to reason it will deter and cites Australia's experience, promising to provide more details in due course.
Paragraph Reference:
65
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
As a new policy, with the first relocations yet to take place, there is less evidence to draw on than in other policy areas and the desired deterrent effect that the MEDP seeks to achieve cannot be quantified with sufficient certainty at this early stage in isolation from wider efforts to tackle small boat crossings. Until relocations are operational, we would not expect to achieve any sustained deterrent impact from the policy. However, it stands to reason that for those willing to pay smuggling gangs thousands of pounds to facilitate a dangerous and illegal journey to the UK, the probability of relocation to Rwanda at the end of that journey, will prove a deterrent. This has been the historic experience of other countries, such as Australia who used a suite of measures including offshoring to prevent small boat arrivals and can be considered to have been successful in preventing illegal maritime arrivals and preventing unnecessary deaths at sea. look to assess its effectiveness as well as the medium and long-term impacts. We will set out more details on this in due course. However, there are a range of policies we have introduced which we anticipate will impact numbers of irregular migrants arriving in the UK, including a suite of measures, such as increasing the maximum sentence for those facilitating illegal entry, intended to break the business model of people smugglers while maintaining a fair and robust immigration and borders system. These policies are also intended to support the Government in its objectives of preventing tragic loss of life in the Channel and maintaining public trust and confidence in border controls. In the meantime, we are closely monitoring small boat arrivals and the Home Office publishes statistics each quarter.