UK and France End 'One In, One Out' Migrant Return Pilot After Just 1,500 Removals

The British government has confirmed that its flagship "one in, one out" migration arrangement with France has been discontinued, bringing an end to a pilot scheme that was intended to curb small boat crossings across the English Channel. The programme, launched just over a year ago, permitted the UK to send back some asylum seekers who had arrived by small boat while simultaneously accepting an equivalent number of people from France who were deemed to have legitimate grounds for entering Britain.

The initiative has now been formally scrapped, with the Home Office confirming that no new cases are being processed under the arrangement. According to BBC reporting, ministers would have preferred the scheme to continue, but concluded that it had failed to achieve the scale necessary to justify its continuation. Only approximately 1,500 individuals were removed to France during the pilot's lifetime, a figure that officials privately acknowledge fell well short of expectations.

A Home Office spokesperson said the government would apply "lessons learned" from the pilot to "accelerate efforts" to return small boat migrants who have no legal right to remain in the UK. The spokesperson confirmed that while the bilateral pilot is no longer accepting new cases, removal flights will persist in the coming weeks as authorities seek to swiftly deport those whose claims have been rejected.

The spokesperson also emphasised that cooperation with France on tackling small boat crossings would continue, describing "real progress" in reducing arrival numbers, which are "significantly down on last year." The French Interior Ministry, for its part, told the BBC that discussions with British counterparts regarding the terms of the agreement's termination are ongoing.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood addressed the scheme's difficulties earlier this month, telling MPs that the arrangement had "not been without its challenges." She acknowledged that the numbers involved remained "relatively small" and that scaling up removals to the French system on a weekly basis had proven operationally difficult. However, Mahmood also noted that the United Nations and other agencies had observed that some migrants were deterred from boarding small boats because they believed the "one in, one out" scheme offered a chance of acceptance.

The discontinuation comes against a backdrop of shifting migration figures. Between January 1 and September 27 of this year, 19,135 people crossed the English Channel by small boat from France. This represents a 42% decrease compared with the same period in 2025, when 32,188 crossings were recorded. Since 2020, small boat arrivals have become the most common method by which people are detected entering the UK illegally.

Nearly all individuals arriving by small boat claim asylum, which under international law entitles them to remain in the country while their applications are assessed. Small boat arrivals accounted for 40% of all asylum applications between July 2025 and June 2026. Boats arriving in the UK between late September 2025 and late September 2026 carried an average of 67 people, more than double the average in 2021. Experts warn that overcrowding on these vessels significantly increases the danger of crossings, and at least 84 people died attempting the journey in 2024, according to United Nations data.

The demographic composition of arrivals reveals that people from Eritrea made up 18% of all small boat arrivals between July 2025 and June 2026. The top five countries of origin were Eritrea, with 5,875 arrivals detected, followed by Sudan with 4,191, Afghanistan with 4,042, Somalia with 3,901, and Iran with 3,657. Additionally, Home Office figures covering January to December 2025 indicate that at least 2,335 people who arrived by small boat were identified as potential victims of human trafficking or other forms of modern slavery.

Beyond small boat crossings, another 4,712 people were detected entering the UK without permission through alternative methods between July 2025 and June 2026, including hiding in vehicles, travelling on ferries, or arriving through airports. This represented a 17% decrease compared with the previous year. The total number of individuals living in the UK illegally after initially arriving through legal channels, such as work or study visas that they subsequently overstayed, remains unknown.

The government has repeatedly pledged to "smash the gangs" responsible for organising small boat crossings as part of its broader strategy to reduce irregular migration. While the "one in, one out" pilot was a key component of that approach, its termination raises questions about what replacement measures will be introduced. The Home Office has signalled that future efforts will focus on expediting the removal of individuals with no right to remain, but critics may argue that the pilot's modest returns underscore the broader difficulty of managing migration through bilateral return agreements.

The scheme's cost-effectiveness had also come under scrutiny. The Home Secretary previously disclosed that the "one in, one out" arrangement cost approximately £56,000 per person returned to France, a figure likely to fuel further debate about the value of such programmes. As the UK and France negotiate the terms of the pilot's conclusion, the focus now shifts to whether alternative strategies can achieve the scale of returns that the discontinued scheme could not.