Labour’s ‘one in, one out’ costs eye-watering £56,000 to send each small boat arrival back to France

LABOUR’s flagship “one in, one out” deal is costing an eye-watering £56,000 for every small boat arrival sent back to France, the Home Secretary has admitted. Shabana Mahmood revealed the hefty price tag as she was grilled by MPs over whether the scheme is delivering value for taxpayers. inflatable ‘small boat’ carrying migrants crosses the channel after leaving northern France Credit: Getty Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood Credit: Alamy More than 1,400 migrants have been returned across the Channel – but Ms Mahmood conceded the numbers remain “relatively small”. Asked how much each return had cost, she said: “I’ll need to write to the committee on the most recent figures. Sign up for the Politics newsletter Thank you! “I think it’s per person for the numbers that have been returned so far, it’s about £56,000.” She later defended the cost, insisting it was “still cheaper, or just about the same as supporting someone in a hotel for a year”. Under the deal, Britain sends small boat migrants back to France in exchange for taking asylum seekers through a legal route. The pilot has already been extended once and is now due to run into October, with its long-term future still up in the air. France wants the bilateral arrangement eventually replaced by a wider EU-UK returns deal. But Ms Mahmood slapped down suggestions an EU-wide system would be a “silver bullet” for the Channel crisis. Most read in The Sun She boasted one-in-one-out had already returned more migrants than Britain ever managed under the EU’s old Dublin arrangements. She said: “It is a real mistake to think that that pact is the future. And if we were in that, this problem would go away because I promise you, it would not.” But the Home Secretary admitted the Government’s own scheme had struggled to get large numbers of migrants out of Britain, saying: “It’s not been without its challenges. Obviously, the numbers are still relatively small.” She added it had been “operationally difficult” to dramatically ramp up removals because both Britain and France face constraints including detention space. Ms Mahmood also told the Home Affairs Committee only “relatively small numbers” of failed asylum-seeking families have taken up a separate pilot offering them as much as £40,000 to voluntarily leave Britain. She said: “If you’re a failed asylum-seeking family, what you’re trading off is an offer of £40,000, which will help you resettle back in your country of origin, versus, you know, access to free healthcare and education for your children.” Britain is separately shelling out £662million to France over three years to tackle Channel crossings. Ms Mahmood admitted it was “a lot of money” and “more than we were paying before”, but insisted the new deal allows cash to be targeted at measures that actually work. Comment now