Boost for potential plans to deport failed asylum seekers

"Return hubs" that would see Britain send failed asylum seekers to another country have been endorsed by the UN's refugee agency.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper met the UN's high commissioner for refugees Fillipo Grandi last month to discuss the idea. It had been reported that the government is looking into the prospect of paying countries like the Balkans to take in failed asylum seekers - which ministers hope might discourage people from crossing the Channel in small boats.

The Home Office confirmed Ms Cooper met with Mr Grandi to discuss the "principle of returns hubs" but said reports about "payments and specific locations are not right". A total of 9,099 migrants have made the journey across the Channel so far this year, including more than 700 on Tuesday this week - the highest number on a single day in 2025.

Out of 253 migrants that made the crossing on Friday, one died. The UN's refugee agency has set out how such hubs could work while meeting its legal standards in a document published earlier this week.

It recommended monitoring the hubs to make sure human rights standards are "reliably met". The country hosting the return hub would need to grant temporary legal status for migrants, and the country sending the failed asylum seekers would need to support it to make sure there are "adequate accommodation and reception arrangements".

A UK government source said the document was a helpful intervention that could make the legal pathway to some form of return hub model smoother. Read more from Sky News:How Japan could shape future of NHSCan the Lib Dems secure election success? It comes after the EU Commission proposed allowing EU members to set up so-called "return hubs" abroad, with member state Italy having already started sending illegal migrants abroad.

It sends people with no right to remain to Italian-run detention centres in Albania, something Sir Keir has taken an interest in since coming to power. With Reform UK leading Labour in several opinion polls this year, the prime minister has been talking tough on immigration - but the figures around Channel crossings have made for difficult reading..