Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation

Debate between Kieran Mullan and Mike Tapp

Monday 13th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mike Tapp)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for clearly and comprehensively articulating the key facets of the petition that has resulted in us all being here on this sunny afternoon. I am grateful to him, to the petitioners and to all other Members who have spoken. We have heard a wide range of views. I have listened with interest to the arguments advanced and the various points raised, and I will seek to respond to as many as possible in the time available.

Before I get into the detail, I must do two things. First, I assert again this Government’s unshakeable commitment to tackling illegal immigration. I am sorry to have to remind Members of the situation we inherited, but it was so dire that, two years on, the legacy of past failures remains. When we took office, smuggling gangs saw this country’s borders as a soft target. The enforcement of basic rules had ground to a halt. The system was in disarray.

We have worked hard since July 2024 to turn things around, and our efforts are having an impact. Over 44,000 channel crossings have been stopped in partnership with the French. Under our landmark returns agreement with France, those arriving can face immediate detention and removal. Removals and deportations of illegal migrants and foreign criminals have gone up, as have illegal working visits. We have more officers tackling organised immigration crime, and disruption of OIC is at record highs. Asylum costs, meanwhile, are down, as is the number of hotels being used to accommodate asylum seekers.

We are reducing the pull factors, and we will do whatever it takes to secure effective returns co-operation with our international partners. We will use every lever available to return those with no right to be in the UK. In November, we threatened visa penalties against Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Within weeks, my Department had successfully negotiated new arrangements and it is now conducting returns on that basis. My message is clear: if foreign Governments refuse to accept the return of their citizens, they will face the consequences. That is just the start of our action. Countries that do not co-operate on returns cannot expect a normal visa relationship with the UK.

We do all of that and more, because the Home Secretary has said from day one that we must do whatever it takes to restore order and control to our borders, but we also know that there is much more to do.

[Dr Mullan]

Let us say that in a year from now, all this stuff has not worked and the Home Secretary has committed to doing whatever it takes. Does “whatever it takes” include withdrawing from the ECHR?

[Mike Tapp]

We must remember that the ECHR, which I will say more about later in my speech, underpins many of the exact returns agreements that we rely upon to deport and remove people.

[Dr Mullan]

Does the Minister really think that Canada or Australia do not get to deport people? Those countries are not in the ECHR, but they have deportation agreements with third countries, so in no way is it a necessity to be in the ECHR to have deportation agreements.

[Mike Tapp]

It is an absolute fact that many of our returns agreements are underpinned by our membership of the ECHR. I will now make some progress.

That is why we are embarking on the most significant set of asylum reforms in a generation. Under our plans, the UK will continue to play its part in helping the world’s most vulnerable people. However, to meet the challenges of today, we must address the fact that this country is more attractive to asylum seekers than other countries in Europe, so we are acting, including through the introduction of new legislation, to build a new fair but firm asylum model, based on contribution, integration and respect for UK laws.

Of course, the reason I mention all that is that it goes to the heart of the problem that this petition seeks to answer, which is the arrival of illegal migrants and their continued presence in this country. We understand why people are frustrated after years of chaos and crisis. That is why we are taking concerted and decisive action to restore order and control.

I will now move on to my second point, which is to address the specific thrust of this petition, namely that the Government should seek to establish offshore detention facilities for individuals who enter the UK illegally.

We have been clear that we will continue to work with international partners to tackle the global challenge of irregular migration. However, interventions must work in practice, they must offer value for money and they must comply with the UK’s international obligations. The Government are doing whatever it takes to secure our borders, including the introduction of the most sweeping asylum reforms in a generation.

The petition also refers to deportation, to which I would reply that more people with no right to be here are being removed from British soil under this Government than at any time in years. Since the election, we have removed or deported nearly 70,000 people who were here illegally.

I turn now to some of the specific points made by Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) made an absolutely fantastic contribution. I agree with him wholeheartedly that it is important that we get the rhetoric right and that it is our responsibility —the responsibility of all of us in this Chamber—to ensure that we do not pitch neighbour against neighbour. Unity is British; division is not.

I turn to the contribution of the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin). She made a good point about visa overstayers; they do make up a large proportion of those who are here illegally. We have paused the health and social care route and we have also paused automatic family reunion. We are imposing stricter measures on universities to ensure that that route is not abused, and we have already seen the number of those who are seeking to claim asylum after signing up to a university drop significantly. But of course, we are looking to go further across the board on legal migration and overstayers.

The hon. Member also talked about rapists and paedophiles. Everyone here agrees that if a rapist, a paedophile or a criminal has come to this country, they should not be here, and it is important that we make changes to the ECHR—a process that is ongoing at this time—to deport and remove those people.

[Dr Mullan]

But we do not deport all rapists and paedophiles, because some of them make successful ECHR claims and get to stay in the country. Again, unless the Government are willing to tackle that, they will not get to do the things that the Minister has so much rhetoric about.

[Mike Tapp]

The hon. Member’s party had 14 years to make changes, but they absolutely failed. We inherited their open borders and their broken system, but we are working hard behind the scenes, as we speak, to make the ECHR more fit for purpose.

Let me move on to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who made very good points about the cost of some of these proposals. Everything that we do in the Home Office must be costed and must be affordable to the British taxpayer, and of course we have a duty to protect those who are fleeing war and persecution, which is one of the things that makes Britain so great.

The right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) made a good point about the single dinghy having more individuals on it over the weekend. The reason is that we are attacking the supply chains and taking boats out of the supply chain, which means that more people are being forced on to these boats. We acknowledge that that is dangerous, which is why we are working hard with our international partners to stop these boat crossings. Disruptions of boat crossings are now at around 44,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Tapp]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We saw the start of the boat crossings crisis only after we left the EU; of course, the Dublin agreement provided some sort of deterrent. However, reopening the Brexit wound is not something I want to do, which is why we are looking at introducing more returns agreements, so that we can deport and remove more people.

[Dr Mullan]

I do not know whether hon. Members know this, but just for the record, we took more people than we sent back under the Dublin agreement. It did not act as any deterrent, because a person was more likely to get to the UK on the basis of the Dublin agreement than they were to be sent away.

[Mike Tapp]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, which is now on the record. I would be keen to discuss why he thinks the numbers went up, and why we saw about 180,000 people cross after 2018. [Interruption.] Perhaps that is something to discuss outside this room.

I will now move on to some broader points. I have tried to get around everybody who spoke; my apologies if I have missed anybody.