Select committee: Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 19
First Report - Channel crossings, migration and asylum
Published 18 Jul 2022
Paragraph 76
Addressed to Home Office
Home Affairs Committee Channel crossings, migration and asylum-seeking routes through the EU All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Following the Minister’s admission that from January to November 2021 the UK returned only five people who had arrived on small boats, it is clear that the UK’s arrangements for the return of failed or inadmissible asylum seekers to Europe have collapsed. We consider that there is no prospect of the promised bilateral deals with former EU partners. The Government must pursue an agreement with the EU on responsibility for asylum seekers who arrive in the UK from another EU country as the most effective and transparent way to deal with returns for irregular migration across the Channel.
From: Home Affairs Committee, First Report - Channel crossings, migration and asylum (HC 199), paragraph 76, 18 July 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 October 2022 (deadline 18 September 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government's overall position is that there is "no silver bullet" for illegal migration, that the Rwanda partnership is "just one part of the approach", and that it disagrees with the Committee's criticism that it has not paid sufficient attention to the problem.
- On the Committee's proposal for UK asylum assessment facilities in France, the Government says it "could not possibly consider protection claims from the very large numbers of individuals overseas who might like to come to the UK", and that this could "create a new pull factor".
- On the Rwanda partnership, the Government disputes that policies were announced without agreement across departments. It says full funding details would be "prejudicial to interests of the UK government", and that it will provide an updated Accounting Officer note "ahead of the next financial year".
- On the Committee's call for an independent end-to-end review of children's experience of the asylum system, the Government says it "will commit to looking at the current projects and research in progress to determine their suitability".
- On guardianship for young asylum seekers, the Government says there is "currently no intention to expand the scope" of the Independent Child Trafficking Guardian service to all young asylum-seeking children in England and Wales, citing its "specialist nature".