What does the pledge mean? 

Immigration ‘returns’ involve the removal of people who are in the UK without a legal right to be here, usually to their country of origin. Some of these returns are voluntary, meaning that a person leaves the UK of their own accord (either with or without notifying the Home Office), while others are enforced (meaning their departure is carried out by the Home Office).

After leaving the EU, and prior to Labour coming into government in July 2024, the UK negotiated bilateral returns agreements with a number of non-EU countries, including Albania, Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in an effort to speed up the return of people with no right to remain in the UK, including failed asylum seekers, foreign national offenders and others.

We’ve not seen Labour set out details of its approach to negotiating further arrangements, though it has signalled that it wants to negotiate a returns agreement with the EU, which would potentially allow the UK to return some asylum seekers who travelled to the UK via an EU member state to that country (as opposed to their country of origin).

We also don’t know exactly which countries the UK already has returns agreements with. The House of Commons Library says “there is no publicly available and up-to-date consolidated list of which countries the UK has returns agreements with and what those agreements say” because the government isn’t legally required to publish “a memorandum of understanding or operational protocal”, and notes that ministers have said receiving countries may end withdrawing arrangements if sensitive details are made public.

The House of Commons Library estimated in December 2024 that the government had known returns agreements with 24 countries. 

What progress has been made?

We’re now rating this pledge as “Achieved”, as the government has announced new returns arrangements with at least two countries since the election.

On 20 November 2024 the Home Office announced a new “readmissions agreement” with Moldova, saying in a press release: “The UK has strengthened its returns cooperation with Moldova after signing a new readmissions agreement – boosting UK border security by further ensuring the swift removal of those with no right to be here.”

And on 28 November 2024 the Home Office announced a series of co-operation deals with Iraq, including a joint statement on migration which it said included “further work on the returns of people who have no right to be in the UK, where returns are currently very slow, and the continued provision of reintegration programmes to support returnees”.

In September 2024 the Home Office published a contract inviting charities to bid for contracts to help with the “reintegration” of people being returned to 11 countries (Albania,  Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe).