UK-France 'one in, one out' migrant scheme scrapped

The UK government has announced the "one in, one out" agreement with France to send back some migrants who cross the Channel has been scrapped.

The pilot scheme allowed the UK to return some small boat arrivals while agreeing to take in the same number of people from France who were believed to have a legitimate claim to come to Britain.

Only around 1,500 people have been removed to France since the scheme began just over a year ago.

The BBC understands the government would have liked the scheme to continue, but felt it did not reach the desired scale.

A Home Office spokesperson said "lessons learned" would be used to "accelerate efforts" to return small boat migrants with no right to remain.

"The government's pilot with France to remove asylum seekers in exchange for an equal number of legal migrants is no longer processing new cases," the spokesperson said.

"However, flights will continue over the coming weeks to swiftly remove small boat migrants from the UK, and we will use lessons learned from the pilot to accelerate efforts to return small boat migrants with no right to remain in the UK."

The government would continue working with France to tackle small boat crossings, the spokesperson said, adding that "real progress" had been made with numbers "significantly down on last year".

The French Interior Ministry told the BBC: "We are discussing with the British the terms of exit from the agreement."