Australia's asylum system of housing migrants offshore did not work and it is "deeply concerning" Britain may be considering copying the policy, MPs were warned today.
Leaked plans this autumn suggested the Government was examining sending asylum seekers to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic to be processed, and turning disused ferries anchored at sea into holding centres.
A document also revealed a secret consultation on building floating walls to block migrants from crossing the English Channel had been launched.
So far this year, more than 7,755 migrants have crossed from the Continent in about 600 small boats.
At least 1,892 made the crossing in 2019.
But Australian lawyer Madeline Gleeson, who specialises in international human rights and refugee law, said implications of the policy which sees asylum seekers detained off the coast while claims are processed should trigger concern.
She told the Commons Home Affairs Committee: "I think it's deeply concerning that any country would consider trying to replicate what Australia has done.
"It wasn't effective in the policy goal that it was seeking to achieve and on top of that, the legal and humanitarian concerns should be cause for great pause, certainly for any state which is a signatory to international conventions – but more than that, any state that considers itself to be a democratic society based on respect for common decency really."
MPs heard that in the first year of Australia's regime, more people arrived by boat than "at any other time in history or since".
The controversial policy of sending to Papua New Guinea all asylum-seekers who tried to reach the country by sea began in 2001.
Then-Prime Minister John Howard hailed his "Pacific Solution".
But Ms Gleeson claimed: “In the first three months of that policy we already had so many people arrive by boat as to outstrip the forecasted capacity of those detention centres and so already it was abandoned and most people had to remain in Australia.
"The main point on offshore processing is that did not deter people from arriving in Australia by boat to seek asylum."
Home Secretary Priti Patel has promised to carry out "the biggest overhaul of our asylum system in decades".
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has confirmed ideas for using Ascension Island, some 4,000 miles from the UK, were considered as part of a "scoping exercise".