The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has confirmed that the cost of returning small boat migrants to France under the "one in, one out" scheme has risen to £56,000 per person, up from earlier estimates of under £50,000. The disclosure, made to the Commons' home affairs select committee, raises fresh questions over the value and scalability of the flagship returns deal as it approaches expiry next month, with Mahmood acknowledging it has proved "operationally difficult" to expand.

More than 1,400 migrants have been sent back to France so far, amounting to a £78 million bill that excludes the cost of accepting over 1,100 asylum seekers into the UK under the deal's reciprocal terms. Mahmood also revealed only a "small number" of failed asylum seeker families have taken up a separate voluntary departure offer worth up to £40,000, as families weigh this against continued access to free healthcare and education in Britain. Separately, legal experts told a Commons committee that the government's new Immigration and Asylum Bill fails to tackle the "central structural problem" enabling asylum claims, while a watchdog warned that planned cuts of nearly 600 Border Force staff risk creating "skills and knowledge gaps".