Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she is holding discussions with the EU Commission on a replacement agreement for the Dublin Regulation.

The UK is in discussions regarding the returns of asylum seekers to European Member States; it would not be appropriate to provide a running commentary on these negotiations.

We can confirm that work is underway to secure appropriate return agreements with safe countries. Returns may also be agreed with partner countries on a case-by-case basis without formal agreements. This happened historically, outside of the former Dublin arrangements, and will continue to be part of the approach we apply.

Our inadmissibility provisions in the Immigration Rules give us the legal basis to declare an asylum claim as inadmissible where a person has a connection to or has passed through a safe country. The first returns on inadmissible grounds have been successfully carried out.