UK could suspend visas for countries with no returns deal

The UK may droop visas from international locations that don’t “play ball” and comply with returns offers for migrants, the brand new dwelling secretary has mentioned.

Shabana Mahmood made the feedback as she hosted Donald Trump’s head of homeland safety and ministers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada at a gathering of the intelligence-sharing 5 Eyes group in London on Monday.

The talks got here as the federal government continued to face stress to scale back the variety of folks crossing the Channel in small boats.

Saturday, which was Mahmood’s first full day within the job, noticed 1,097 folks arriving, one of many highest variety of folks on file.

Talking for the primary time since being appointed on Friday, Mahmood mentioned her “prime precedence” is “securing” the UK’s borders.

On visas, she mentioned: “We expect there’s fascinating area for collaborating, significantly on how we cope with international locations who don’t take their residents again – so ensuring we’re capable of return out of our international locations individuals who haven’t any proper to be in our international locations and ship them again to their dwelling international locations.

“For international locations that don’t play ball, we have now been speaking about taking way more coordinated motion between the 5 Eyes international locations.

“And for us which means the potential of chopping visas sooner or later to say we do anticipate international locations to play ball, play by the foundations and if certainly one of your residents has no proper to be in our nation, you need to take them again.”

The house secretary didn’t specify which international locations could possibly be included in any future visa suspensions.

Sir Keir Starmer has beforehand mentioned he favoured a “way more transactional” method on visas.

In June, the prime minister mentioned he was considering whether British visas could possibly be granted relying on how properly international locations co-operate with the UK on points akin to taking again failed asylum seekers.

On Monday, the prime minister’s spokesman mentioned an settlement amongst 5 Eyes allies to cooperate over unlawful migration offers “one other device in our armoury” and “reveals our willpower to make use of each lever at our disposal to crack down on unlawful migration, to return folks with no proper to be right here”.

Saturday’s small boat numbers introduced the entire variety of folks arriving within the UK by small boat to greater than 30,000 this 12 months, in line with Residence Workplace statistics, a quantity that Mahmood described as “completely unacceptable”.

The variety of folks arriving within the UK by small boats this 12 months is up by 37% on final 12 months, in line with evaluation by the PA information company.

Dr Madeleine Sumption, director of Oxford College’s Migration Observatory, mentioned there have been “fairly just a few international locations the place returns of refused asylum seekers are low and demand for UK visas can be excessive” – citing India, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Nepal as examples.

“How these international locations would reply to threats to scale back visa entry would possibly rely how a lot they care about visa choices for his or her residents,” she mentioned.

“This can differ, though some international locations – akin to India – have a protracted historical past of lobbying for visa entry.”

Responding to the announcement, shadow dwelling secretary Chris Philp mentioned it was “about time this Labour authorities now stopped speaking robust and began performing robust”, and mentioned the UK also needs to lower help to international locations not taking again its residents.

“This Labour authorities is just too weak to take the steps mandatory to guard our borders and I see no signal of that altering any time quickly,” the Conservative MP added.

Mahmood held talks with US Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) company and has been a key participant within the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations.

The 5 Eyes alliance is a decades-old intelligence-sharing pact between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It’s typically described as being among the many most profitable agreements between allies for sharing labeled intelligence.

On-line baby sexual abuse and the unfold of opioids have been additionally on the agenda on the summit, which was attended by Canadian public security minister Gary Anandasangaree, Australian dwelling affairs minister Tony Burke and New Zealand minister Judith Collins.

Earlier on Monday, Mahmood mentioned she hoped to agree new measures to “defend our borders with our 5 Eyes companions, hitting folks smugglers arduous”.

Mahmood, previously the justice secretary, was appointed as dwelling secretary within the prime minister’s main cupboard reshuffle over the weekend, changing Yvette Cooper.

Her appointment has been interpreted as Starmer seeking to send a clearer signal that dealing with illegal immigration and asylum is one of the government’s biggest priorities, given Mahmood has a fame inside Labour of being a hardliner on the difficulty.

On Sunday, Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed the federal government is expanding the use of military sites to deal with asylum seekers, because it appears to be like to maneuver folks out of asylum lodges.

He mentioned officers have been additionally contemplating different varieties of “non-military lodging”.