Labour to turbocharge deportations by making 14,500 returns by the end of the year

Yvette Cooper is looking to turbocharge deportations by making 14,500 returns by the end of the year, it has been revealed in this weekend’s Sunday Times.

More than 200 failed ­asylum seekers were flown to Brazil this month in what marks the largest single British deportation on record.

It was one of nine charter flights since Labour took power seven weeks ago that have returned people with no right to be in the UK to their home countries.

Following years of bluff and bluster surrounding the controversial Rwanda scheme, Labour has looked to cement returns agreements using up mostly existing resources.

The charter flights booked for Rwanda have not been cancelled but re­directed, for example.

The aircraft that Rishi Sunak had ordered for the first set of Rwanda deportations on July 24 sent 46 foreign criminals and immigration offenders back to Vietnam and East Timor.

Cooper, meanwhile, has reassigned 300 Home Office caseworkers from the Rwanda scheme to process the returns of failed asylum seekers.

A Home Office source said: “It’s about focusing the department’s full resources on what we can do rather than being distracted by unworkable concepts and schemes like the Rwanda policy under the previous administration.”

The approach is designed to restore the numbers of returns to what they were when Labour was last in power — from 46,000 a year to almost 27,000 last year.

Cooper believes it is an area where significant progress can be made in tackling the immigration dilemma. She plans to hit 14,500 returns by the end of the year as a first step.

Related: Port of Dover: Post-Brexit travel laws will ‘mimic Cold War regulations’