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Foreign criminals and people unable to apply for asylum will be given no more than £10,000 to return home, the Home Secretary has announced. Shabana Mahmood wants to increase the amount given to immigration offenders, foreign prisoners and those refused asylum in the UK to encourage them to leave.

Border Security Minister Alex Norris also claimed payments, currently up to £3,000, were “of great value” due to the cost of covering illegal entries.

He insisted the benefits would not exceed £10,000, although he refused to set an exact figure.

But Mr Norris announced for the first time that the Home Office will deport children born in the UK if their parents are eligible for removal.

He was speaking before the first immigrants arrived at the Campsfield Immigration Removal Center, which reopened as part of an effort to speed up removals.

Mr Norris told the Express: “The kind of regime we are talking about now costs around £3,000.

“We are looking at a possible pilot to increase this.

“The reality is that it’s a great value to the public because it’s very expensive for taxpayers to have someone needing hotel accommodations for an extended period of time, and that’s before you get to all the costs associated with those hotels.

“Offering incentives for voluntary returns is good value for taxpayers; it makes the process easier and that’s why we want to see it happen.

“If there are ways to make this happen more often, then we’re looking at that closely.”

Asked whether payments could reach £10,000 per migrant, Mr Norris insisted: “That’s not a figure I would accept.”

The Minister of Labor answered “No” to the question whether this figure could be higher.

Each asylum seeker costs an average of £30,000 a year to pay for accommodation, food, clothing and emergency cash, the Daily Express has revealed.

Immigrant families whose asylum requests are rejected will be deported if they refuse cash incentives.

Home Office documents have revealed Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood will forcibly deport families if they refuse to receive bigger incentives.

Mr Norris said: “We are already carrying out a number of family repatriations. But this has not been part of the Home Office’s main approach, which means we are in a situation where there are 700 Albanian families who cannot claim asylum, they are a signatory country of the ECHR and they are not displaced.”

“This is not right and we want these to be as voluntary as possible.

“We want these to be as perfect as possible.

“We’re going to increase our appetite there. We’re working with families who don’t have the right to be here and other families in the system, and then they’ll be removed.”

Asked whether this would extend to children born in the UK, Mr Norris said: “Yes, ultimately under immigration law the merits will be everyone’s case, but there are circumstances and in those circumstances people will be removed.”

Mr Norris was speaking at the Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre, which the Home Office has reopened as it seeks to speed up deportations.

Labor insists 50,000 foreign criminals, failed asylum seekers and immigration offenders have been removed since Sir Keir Starmer’s government took office.

Up to 160 immigrants will be detained in Campsfield in the first “phase” of reopening. Over time, this number will increase to 400.

Small boat migrants will be among those held in the area, and the Home Office has hinted it could also be used for Keir Starmer’s “one-on-one deal with France”.

Officials said: “Detainees will be taken to the IRC either directly from prison, a short-term detention facility following their illegal entry into the UK, or following sanctions such as unlawful employment arrests. These will include foreign-born criminals, immigration offenders, those arriving on illegal small boats and failed asylum seekers.”

It appears that the first arrivals were all foreign criminals.

Speaking to the Daily Express, Mr Norris denied Labor was pushing to deport small boat migrants.

The number of Channel migrants deported has fallen to its lowest level since the beginning of 2023.

There were only 2,272 small boat arrivals in September; This figure was 2,462 the previous year.

Mr Norris told the Daily Express: “I think it’s too early to see a trend there.

“You would expect, as the British public would expect, that we really prioritize foreign national offenders. “We’ve done a lot of work in this area to increase these suspension figures.

But beyond that, we want to see unsuccessful asylum seekers, by whatever means, removed from the country when they have no right to be here.

“There will be more focus on those arriving on small boats, but people whose visas have expired also need to be removed.

“So I don’t think I’m going to draw a trend at this point.

“We want to see serious increases in numbers”

There will be around 200 staff at Campsfield, including probation officers, education teachers and “religious affairs colleagues”.

Mitie, the private company that runs the centre, said it would be the first “all-electric” IRC in the country and would be powered by “renewable electricity, heat pumps and solar panels”.