‘One in, one out’ migrant deal numbers will fluctuate – Downing Street

Downing Street has insisted the number of migrants under a returns deal with France “will fluctuate” as it was revealed more people have arrived in the UK under the scheme than have been returned.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told LBC on Tuesday that 281 people have been sent back to France while 350 people have come to the UK under the pilot scheme’s approved route.

The “one in, one out” deal with France is aimed at deterring migrants from coming to the UK in small boats across the English Channel.

As part of the UK-France agreement which came into force in August, 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 apply through a safe and legal route.

Ms Mahmood said: “There are very normal discrepancies in these numbers.

“They are still relatively small numbers. But the thing I would say is, this was a pilot. It was designed to try to prove that this new model of working with the French could work.

“And there are practical issues around how quickly you can detain people and then get them on a plane and move them out to France.”

She added that numbers are “already growing” and that an initial problem encountered under the scheme was that they could not find enough people to come to the UK because of a lack of awareness of it.

“You’ve got to compete with organised immigration crime to get your messages out. We’ve managed to put some of those issues right,” she said.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman also defended the numbers so far, pressing that it is a “reciprocal deal”.

“We’ve always been clear, the numbers will fluctuate,” he said.

“I think at the beginning of the agreement the numbers were higher in terms of us sending people to France than receiving people under the safe returns route. But those numbers will fluctuate.”

The spokesman said there is “no silver bullet” to solving the problem of Channel crossings but the scheme is “another tool in our armoury” to tackle the smuggling gangs business model at source.

A total of 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK in 2025 after crossing the English Channel – the second highest annual figure on record.

The total for last year was 13% higher than the figure for 2024, when 36,816 migrants made the journey, and 41% higher than 2023’s total of 29,437.

It was 9% below the all-time high of 45,774 in 2022.