The UK is in talks with “a number of countries” about sending failed asylum seekers to return hubs in third countries, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The prime minister confirmed the plan at a press conference alongside his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama, in which the pair announced plans to strengthen cooperation on illegal migration.

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Sir Keir described the hubs as a “really important innovation” that complements other measures the government is taking to crack down on criminal smuggling gangs.

“We are in talks with a number of countries about return hubs,” he said.

“At the appropriate time, I’ll be able to give you further details in relation to it.”

Sir Keir did not say which countries he is in talks with, but the subject is understood not to be on the agenda for his meetings in Tirana on Thursday.

Mr Rama suggested he is not open to hosting UK detention centres, telling reporters: “We have been asked by several countries if we were open to it, and we said no, because we are loyal to the marriage with Italy and the rest is just love.”

The Italian scheme was intended to provide offshore processing for migrants, but that plan has been held up by legal action.

Following the press conference, Downing Street said the return hubs will target asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected and who are seeking to frustrate their deportation or have lost their paperwork.

By removing them to another country, the government hopes to reduce their ability to find other reasons to prevent deportation, such as starting a family.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “This will basically apply to people who have exhausted all legal routes to remain in the UK but are attempting to stall, using various tactics, whether it’s losing their paperwork or using other tactics to frustrate their removal.

“It will ensure that they don’t have the chance to make their removal harder by using tactics such as starting a family, et cetera, as we have seen from cases in the past.

“That obviously will reduce the cost to the taxpayer.”

Return hubs are a different concept from the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, which Sir Keir scrapped almost immediately after winning the general election.

The Rwanda plan involved deporting all people who arrived in the UK by unauthorised means to the east African country, where their asylum claims would be processed for them to settle there, not in Britain.

It ultimately failed to get off the ground before the Tories lost the election, despite millions spent, after it was repeatedly challenged in the courts.

Return hubs ‘a con’

Shadow home office minister Chris Philp insisted on Thursday that it would have acted as a deterrent, whereas the return hubs are a “con on the British public”.

He said: “It’s better than nothing but it won’t work because most of the people crossing the Channel are of nationalities where they will get their asylum claims granted.

“It’s a con on the British public for Keir Starmer to claim these return hubs will have any practical effect.”

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Mr Philp also called it a “slap in the face” and “humiliation” for the prime minister that Albania has already rejected the idea.

He said Sir Keir travelled all that way to “announce a few tweaks” to a cooperation deal on illegal immigration that was struck by the Conservatives in 2022.

Read More:
What are return hubs and how will they work?
What are Sir Keir Starmer’s new immigration rules?

Boat crossings pass 12,000

In 2022, arrivals from Albania accounted for around a third of all small boat crossings – a higher number than from any other country.

Over the past three years, those numbers have been cut by 95%. The number of Albanians returned to their home country has also more than doubled to 5,294 last year, from just over 2,000 two years earlier.

Sir Keir is the first British prime minister to travel to Albania for bilateral talks.

Other announcements he is due to make include expanding a programme to detect migrants attempting to travel using fake or stolen documents, with the UK donating new anti-forgery machines.

The visit comes in the same week that the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats passed 12,000 for the year.

The figure puts 2025 on course to be a record year for crossings – something which will cause unease for Labour as it was elected on a manifesto promise to “smash the gangs”.

The government is under pressure to act tough on immigration amid Reform UK’s meteoric rise in the polls. Earlier this week, Sir Keir announced plans to crack down on legal migration, including banning care homes from hiring overseas.