UK could suspend visas for countries with no migrant return dealspublished at 11:48 British Summer Time
11:48 BST
Image source, EPA
The UK could suspend visas from countries that do not “play ball” and agree to returns deals for migrants, the new home secretary has said.
Shabana Mahmood made the comments as she hosted Donald Trump’s head of homeland security and ministers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada at a meeting of the intelligence-sharing Five Eyes group in London on Monday.
The talks came as the government continued to face pressure to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats.
Saturday, which was Mahmood’s first full day in the job, saw 1,097 people arriving, one of the highest number of people on record.
Speaking for the first time since being appointed on Friday, Mahmood said her “top priority” is “securing” the UK’s borders.
On visas, she said: “We think there is interesting space for collaborating, particularly on how we deal with countries who do not take their citizens back – so making sure we are able to return out of our countries people who have no right to be in our countries and send them back to their home countries.
“For countries that do not play ball, we have been talking about taking much more coordinated action between the Five Eyes countries.
“And for us that means the possibility of cutting visas in the future to say we do expect countries to play ball, play by the rules and if one of your citizens has no right to be in our country, you have to take them back.”
The home secretary did not specify which countries could be included in any future visa suspensions.