English Channel crossings: The proposed solutions Priti Patel was offered before striking Rwanda deal

The British government refused a series of proposals to reduce the smuggling of asylum seekers over the years leading up to the Rwanda deal, The Independent can reveal.

On Monday, Priti Patel accused critics of failing to “offer their own solutions” following an outcry over plans to send migrants arriving on small boats to the central African countries for their claims to be considered.

A joint letter with the Rwandan foreign minister said they aimed to “disrupt the business model of organised crime gangs and deter migrants from putting their lives at risk”.

“Illegal migration is a global issue and we are jointly leading in setting a viable plan to deal with one of the most complex challenges facing the world today,” it added.

“We are taking bold and innovative steps and it’s surprising that those institutions that criticise the plans, fail to offer their own solutions.”

But numerous changes aiming to reduce the demand for people smugglers promising transport to the UK have been rejected since the current government came to power in 2019.

They include laws proposed in the House of Lords and official recommendations by a parliamentary committee, borders watchdog and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

All have repeatedly called for an expansion of safe and legal routes to the UK, or changes to the system to mean that asylum does not have to be claimed on British soil.

Several refugee advocacy groups have already raised concerns that the Rwanda deal will not achieve the government’s stated aims, and could create more business for people smugglers as asylum seekers attempt to leave the country and journey to the UK once more.

Sile Reynolds, the head of advocacy at Freedom From Torture, said: “The government claims that this proposal will dismantle the smuggling networks and end the deaths in the Channel but, in fact, it will do neither of these. The deaths in the Channel are not an inevitability – they are the result of decades of tighter border controls that have left asylum seekers with no other option but to take their lives into their own hands. This proposal simply raises the stakes, increasing the price that smugglers will demand, rendering the routes to protection longer and more deadly and feeding the international trafficking networks with more desperate people.

“If this government really wanted to stop people dying in the Channel, they would increase search and rescue operations so that people can be brought safely to the UK to seek protection. They would also collaborate with our European neighbours to ensure that all asylum seekers travelling irregularly through Europe can access protection safely and with dignity. There are other solutions.”

The home secretary issued a rare “ministerial direction” to force the plans through after the Home Office permanent secretary, Matthew Rycroft, warned there was no evidence that the “policy will have a deterrent effect significant enough” to justify the huge costs.

These are the proposed solutions previously refused by the government:

The House of Lords has proposed amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill to increase the number of refugees resettled directly from outside Europe, and expand family reunion schemes to allow asylum seekers to join relatives in the UK more easily.

The government objected to both amendments and MPs voted them down on 22 March. Peers lodged updated amendments on 5 April but the government is expected to reject them again.

Backing the changes, the Lord Bishop of Durham said: “The fundamental premise of the bill is that people seeking safety in the UK should arrive by safe and legal routes, rather than by making irregular journeys.

“My concern in tabling this amendment is that there are not sufficient safe routes from the countries where the majority of asylum seekers arriving in the UK originate.”

Lord Dubs, who was behind a previous law allowing unaccompanied child refugees in Europe to reunite with family in Britain, said increasing official pathways would “lessen the dangerous journeys that young people make to join their families”.

He added: “If we believe that traffickers should not have opportunities, surely the right thing to do is to provide a safe and legal route.”

The government refused the Lords’ call for a minimum resettlement target of 10,000 refugees a year, and a Home Office minister said it also “cannot accept” a requirement to set any target.

In the House of Commons, Conservative MP Damian Green said resettlement schemes “must be accessible to meaningful numbers of people” but were currently “restricted” to geographic areas.

He said that the current schemes for Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan are not open to large numbers of asylum seekers crossing the channel, who come from countries including Iraq, Iran and Yemen.

Ministers also rejected a separate amendment that would allow unaccompanied minors with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings or partners in the UK to be allowed into the country to seek asylum.

Home Office minister Tom Pursglove told the House of Commons that the government does not consider the more generous approach to family reunion “fair”, and suggested it would “encourage what are often dangerous journeys into Europe, facilitated by smugglers and traffickers”.

While appearing before the Home Affairs Committee, Priti Patel refused a proposal put forward by a Conservative MP to process some asylum claims in France, removing the need for clandestine Channel crossings.

Tim Loughton said he had met MPs from Calais who made “a legitimate case about the absence of safe and legal routes”.

He told the committee that the French Republican party was looking at taking people detained while attempting crossings to reception centres where they could apply for asylum in the UK.

“If we were to allow them to apply for asylum in the UK from those reception centres, which we do not at the moment; and if they would guarantee that those who were rejected by us would then not be allowed to go free to turn up on a beach again in Calais, but would be dealt with and returned to where they came from, is that a goer?” he asked.

“That is what would stop people getting to those beaches.”

The home secretary replied: “The answer is no.” She argued that the change would not present dangerous crossings elsewhere, such as over the Mediterranean Sea, and would make France a “big magnet”.

Mr Loughton asked what “safe and legal route” would have been available to the 28,000 people who crossed the Channel on small boats.

Ms Patel pointed to resettlement schemes for Syrians and Afghans but admitted there was no alternative for people not from those countries, falsely labelling refugees of other nationalities “economic migrants”.

“The ultimate point is that they should be claiming asylum in other countries and not coming here,” she added.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has made a series of speeches calling for the UK to do more to reduce the push factors driving asylum seekers to northern France and across the Channel.

Addressing the European Parliament on 19 January, Mr Macron said that there were countless “women and men who want to reach British shores, who do not want to seek asylum or protection in France”.

He said reception centres have been set up but “every week, several hundred women and men who have crossed Europe and Asia Minor, sometimes the Mediterranean and part of Africa, do not want to go” there.

The president said that camps in northern France saw “sometimes terrible situations of insecurity and unsanitary conditions”.

“We cannot act as if this situation can last forever,” he added. “We will not be able to resolve this issue if the way of dealing with the subject of migration does not change on the British side … they have not sufficiently organised legal, stable, secure ways and means to seek asylum in Britain.

“That is why we are faced with this situation and therefore it is through a demanding dialogue with the British that we can really deal with this subject.”

In its annual report for 2020-21, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) warned of “heightened concerns about the provision of safe and legal routes in light of the surge in small-boat crossings”.

The watchdog said that the Home Office had shown no evidence that it had evaluated the impact of its decision to refuse child refugees inside the UK to sponsor their relatives to join them, or related issues.

“The Home Office provided clarification of its position in relation to child sponsors, dependent family members over 18, and legal aid,” the report said.

“In summary, it saw no need for any changes. It provided no supporting evidence to show that it had either monitored or evaluated the impact of its policies but simply reiterated its familiar lines, for example that ‘allowing children to sponsor parents would risk creating incentives for more children to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their family and attempt hazardous journeys to the UK. This would play into the hands of criminal gangs, undermining our safeguarding responsibilities.’ This was disappointing, particularly in light of heightened concerns about the provision of safe and legal routes in light of the surge in small boat crossings and the UK’s approaching exit from the EU.”

In November 2020, a separate ICIBI report on clandestine Channel crossings said the surge in small boats in late 2018 should have been predicted and dealt with before becoming an effective modus operandi.

The watchdog said Home Office officials had told its inspectors that small boats arose “as a consequence of the success of the extensive work done by the UK and its European partners, in particular the French, in making other methods of illegal entry more difficult”.

As small boat crossings started to rocket in summer 2020, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said that refugees with legitimate claims, including those wanting to reunite with relatives, should be allowed to “do so quickly and effectively without having to resort to such a dangerous journey”.

A statement added: “UNHCR research shows that delays and administrative barriers to family reunion increase the likelihood of people turning to smugglers as an alternative. Less restrictive and burdensome family reunion rules are therefore needed.”

Months later, the Home Office stopped a programme offering sanctuary to lone minors in Europe. The scheme, known as the Dubs amendment, has not been reinstated and no deals to replace previous EU-wide programmes lost during Brexit have been struck.

Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee released a report on irregular migration. Priti Patel had been on the committee when evidence was heard, but left before the report’s publication as she was made home secretary.

The report warned that the UK must prepare for a surge in asylum seekers crossing Europe, for example caused by a “fresh outbreak of conflict”.

It called for the government to address the root causes of migration, both in source countries and in squalid camps in northern France.

“The UK cannot expect others to prevent Channel crossing attempts if we are not willing to work together to address the root causes,” the report said.

“A policy that focuses exclusively on closing borders will drive migrants to take more dangerous routes, and push them into the hands of criminal groups.”

The report called for more ambitious resettlement schemes and expanded legal pathways to applying for asylum from outside the UK.

“In the absence of robust and accessible legal routes for seeking asylum in the UK, those with a claim are left with little choice but to make dangerous journeys by land and sea,” it warned.

“Focusing on increasing border security without improving conditions in the region may have the counterproductive effect of forcing migrants to make desperate journeys across the Channel.”

In its official response, the government said it was committed to negotiating a new agreement with the EU for the family reunion of unaccompanied children. A deal was never struck.

It said the “range of legal pathways for immigration to the UK, and their efficient operation, is kept under review”.