UK says migrant returns scheme costs £56,000 per person returned to France

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has told MPs the UK's "one in, one out" small-boat returns deal with France costs about £56,000 per person removed.

• Mahmood told the home affairs select committee the scheme cost roughly £56,000 per person returned, above the Home Office's £48,800 average for enforced returns.
• Around 1,400 people have been removed to France since the scheme began in August 2025, some of whom have since returned to the UK.
• Mahmood said the scheme had been "operationally difficult" to scale up and numbers remained small, dismissing an EU-wide returns deal as a "silver bullet" that would not solve the crisis.
• French interior minister Laurent Nuñez has told Mahmood that France wants to end the bilateral scheme and replace it with an EU-UK agreement, saying the pilot would not be renewed beyond October 1, 2026.