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 after wide-ranging security talks in London, Mahmood 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 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.”
That brought the total number of people arriving in the UK by small boat to more than 30,000 this year, according to Home Office statistics, a number that Mahmood described as “utterly unacceptable”.
The number of people arriving in the UK by small boats this year is up by 37% on last year, according to analysis by the PA news agency.
Mahmood held talk with US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who oversees the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and has been a key player in the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations.
The summit was also expected to focus on online child sexual abuse and the spread of opioids.
Mahmood said she hoped to agree new measures to “protect our borders with our five eyes partners, hitting people smugglers hard” at Monday’s security talks.
She said: “As the security threats we all face become more complex and span continents, we are stronger and safer together.”
The meeting comes days after Mahmood was appointed as home secretary in the prime minister’s major cabinet reshuffle, replacing Yvette Cooper.
Defence Secretary John Healey has confirmed the government is looking at expanding the use of military sites to house asylum seekers, as it looks to move people out of so-called asylum hotels.
He said on Sunday that officials were also considering other types of “non-military accommodation”.
