The passage of shipping under the Conservatives, the home secretary, would be “a thousand higher”. Yvette Cooperhe said, although they remain 20% higher than this time last year.
But Cooper would not say when people could expect to see the number reduced, saying only that the government was making progress in reducing the asylum backlog, accusing the previous government of “crashing[ed] asylum system “.
In an interview with the BBC, Cooper once again hinted that the UK was interested in exploring third-country processing of migrants who had come to the UK from safe countries.
He said his government was on track for the worst year for migrant crossings, but the number of crossings was lower than in 2022. The number of people who arrived in Britain in small boats this year alone stood at 34,880. , up to 20% at this time last year but up to 22% in 2022.
On Sunday, Cooper announced the formation of a joint unit in the Foreign Office and Home office to monitor migration and return agreements. It is expected that the new focus will be placed on UK embassies in order to prioritize the lowering of shipping costs and the receipt of income, especially in transit countries and at the source.
Cooper told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg program on Sunday: “What we’ve inherited in the first half of this year … we’re recording a high level of transit traffic – that we’re on track for a really worst year ever for small transit transit.
But if we had continued passage through the summer and autumn we would have had many thousands. As it is, we are about a quarter lower than in 2012 – that was at the top of the year. But that’s a consolation when you still have those small boat crossings, where we compare lives put in danger and huge lives lost, and also criminal groups are useful to undermine the security of borders.
Cooper was speaking in Italy after a summit with the Italian counterpart, Matteo Piantedosi, where the two countries announced a cooperation agreement on the illegal economy of herds.
The home secretary said once again the UK was committed to looking at the third-country agreement process Italy had struck with Albania. “Whatever works we will see. Obviously, all the proper international standards must be met, it must be clearly effective and deliver results,” he said.
“The interesting thing about the Italy/Albania arrangement, and you are right that it has not yet fully begun, is at the heart of the plan to make the case of a rapid course effectively secured by the dominant countries.”
“Please make us, as in the UK, fast tracking decisions coming from countries that are predominantly safe, where we can take them quickly and people can return quickly. That did not happen before. So the question is to develop in propaganda; we think that is important.”
Asked about Skye’s Trevor Phillips program for the day the government would bring back the small boat crossings, the minister for border security, Angela Aquila, said: “I’m not going to sit here and say when something is presented to you. This is well confirmed and this urban, that I can get out a magic wave, and everything will be fine in five months.
“This is a tough job. Time to do it, complete cooperation, good cross-border policing.