Guards escorting ‘one in, one out’ migrants fell asleep on deportation flight, report reveals

Guards escorting migrants back to France under the “one in, one out” scheme fell asleep on a deportation flight, a report into removals has revealed.

A report from the prisons inspectorate published on Monday also said the migrants being deported to France were unable to understand what was happening because interpreters weren’t available.

The controversial one in, one out scheme, which launched last August, returns small boat migrants to France in exchange for other asylum seekers.

Some 367 people have come to the UK under the programme, with 305 people sent back, according to the latest figures. Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has said the government “obviously want to see much larger numbers” of people being deported under the scheme. She said the pilot scheme has “proved the concept” but issues like French capacity to take in large numbers and the amount of UK detention space were limiting the scheme’s expansion.

Inspectors monitored a removal flight from Stansted airport to Paris that included 20 male detainees, 58 escorts and two paramedics. They said most of the detainees were aware that they were being deported to France but didn’t understand what would happen to them on arrival.

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The report said that treatment of detainees by escort staff was “mostly good”, with staff “polite, friendly, and respectful”. However they noticed that staff would sometimes have prolonged conversations over the heads of the migrants, and would swear in front of detainees. In another example of unprofessional behaviour, both escort staff allocated to a detainee were asleep at the same time.

The report found that “almost no information” was available to the men about what would happen in France, with some telling the inspectors they were anxious about their futures and others saying that they had no connections in France.

Migrants returned to France under the deal have access to three days of emergency accommodation. After that, they could be referred to centres for asylum seekers or could be left destitute.

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Demonstrating how few material possessions the men have, the report documented that two detainees collected from Harmondsworth detention centre, in Middlesex, were removed wearing flip flops. Inspectors noted that “staff did not offer alternative footwear”.

Inspectors noted that the detained men spoke a range of different languages and only one interpreter was present who spoke Arabic and French, languages that “almost none” of the men spoke.

Force was also used on one man at Brook House immigration detention centre, near Gatwick, who said he would not comply with his removal. The inspectors said the force was only used as a last resort and, although a waist restraint belt was used, it was removed when it was safe to do so.

Records show that force has been used against one in, one out migrants on eight occasions, five of them on one of the earliest flights under the scheme.