Immigration turmoil as Mahmood says Home Office ‘not yet fit for purpose’

The UK Government’s immigration plans are facing fresh turmoil after a man deported to France re-entered the UK and the number of small boat arrivals this year passed the total for 2024.

The setback came as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood conceded the Home Office is “not yet fit for purpose” after a secret report – written during the previous Tory administration – found a “culture of defeatism” within the department.

The Iranian national was detained and the UK Government intends to send him back to France again after he crossed the Channel a second time, it is understood.

Meanwhile, the number of migrants who have come to the UK so far this year in small boats has exceeded the total of 36,816 for the whole of last year, sources said.

‘Further and faster’

Ms Mahmood said “we must go further and faster” in preventing people from making the dangerous crossings as she blamed the previous Tory government for leaving “our borders in crisis”.

The man who came back to the UK on October 18, after being sent to France on September 19, told the Guardian he was a victim of modern slavery at the hands of smugglers in the north of the country.

The “one in, one out” deal struck between Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this year is aimed at deterring small boat crossings by enabling deportations of anyone deemed not to have a right to stay in Britain.

The treaty means people who arrive in the UK by small boat can be detained and returned to France, in exchange for an equivalent number of people who applied through a safe and legal route.

But in a blow to the Prime Minister’s efforts to curb crossings, Home Office figures showed the cumulative number of migrants to have made the journey so far this year stood at 36,734 up to and including Tuesday.

This was just 82 short of the 36,816 migrants who arrived during the whole of last year, and sources confirmed that arrivals on Wednesday meant that milestone has now been surpassed.

A group of migrants was seen boarding a small boat towards the UK on Gravelines beach in northern France at first light on Wednesday.

Roughly 30 people were pictured scrambling aboard a dinghy before it set off towards Dover, while French police vehicles in the sand dunes tried to search for and deter potential crossings.

Official figures that include the latest arrivals are expected to be released by Thursday.

Failure

Later on Wednesday, Ms Mahmood said her department had been “set up to fail” in response to the release of a highly critical review by former Home Office special adviser and Tory whip Nick Timothy.

The Home Office sought to keep the report secret for more than two years before it was obtained by The Times following a legal challenge by the newspaper.

It warned of “several confused and conflicting systems working to contradictory ends” resulting in “poor” enforcement of immigration laws as well as a “culture of defeatism” on immigration.

Mr Timothy found that the “hand-offs between immigration enforcement and other parts of the immigration system are poor, as are the hand-offs with the police and criminal justice system”.

Ms Mahmood said on Wednesday: “This report, written under the last government, is damning. To those who have encountered the Home Office in recent years, the revelations are all too familiar.

“The Home Office is not yet fit for purpose, and has been set up for failure. As this report shows, the last Conservative government knew this, but failed to do anything about it.

“Things are now changing. I will work, with the new permanent secretary, to transform the Home Office so that it delivers for this country.”