Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have agreed a returns deal in an attempt to reduce the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.
The UK and French leaders announced the “one in, one out” agreement on 10 July after months of talks.
This is what we know about the deal:
What is the basic agreement?
The UK will be able to send migrants who enter the UK on small boats back to France.
For each one returned, the UK will allow an asylum seeker to enter through a safe and legal route – as long as they have not previously tried to enter illegally.
The two leaders, and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, were clear it is a pilot, for now.
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When will it begin?
Sir Keir said it will start “in the coming weeks”, but did not give a specific date.
Who will be returned?
There have been no details released on how the government will select who is returned, but the initial focus will be on adults and they will not split up families.
They will be held in removal centres before being sent back to France.
It is not clear how long the process will take, but it is understood migrants will be returned weekly.
Read more:
What difference will ‘one in, one out’ small boats deal make?
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How many will be returned?
Sir Keir and Mr Macron mentioned no numbers, but it is understood around 50 people a week will be returned to France.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky News: “We haven’t fixed the ultimate numbers yet.”
She said that was because it is just a pilot at this stage, but that there was a plan to increase the numbers returned.
Since the start of March, an average of more than 1,000 people have arrived in small boats every week. Sending 50 of them back would represent less than 5% of that total.
Is the deal set in stone?
For now, it is just a pilot, so the final details will not be set until later. The government has not said how long it will run as a pilot.
The deal also needs approval from the EU, with France saying it needed to be legally ratified before being put into action.
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The home secretary said she thought the European Commission would sign it off, despite some Mediterranean countries’ concerns about returned asylum seekers travelling back to southern Europe.
She told Sky News she had been talking to France’s interior minister since October about the deal, and had also been talking to EU commissioners, who represent all 27 member states and she said had been “very supportive”.
What else is being done to tackle illegal migration in the UK?
Mr Macron has repeatedly said the UK needs to address “pull factors”.
The Home Office has said authorities will soon undertake “a major nationwide blitz targeting illegal working hotspots, focusing on the gig economy and migrants working as delivery riders”.
Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat have already committed to ramp up facial verification and fraud checks in the coming months after ministers called them in for talks.
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The government has also introduced eVisas for people in the UK on a visa to make it easy to identify those who are in the UK legally.
For the first time, France has also agreed to allow police officers to enter the water from the beaches in northern France to try to stop the boats from leaving.
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Over the past two weeks, they have been filmed slashing the rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) the people smugglers load up with migrants.
The British government, which is helping fund the French police’s efforts, is pushing France to go further and let officers intervene against boats in deeper waters.
