People held under UK’s ‘one in, one out’ asylum deal say they had not heard of it

Screengrab taken from a video issued by the Home Office of the first small boat arrivals detained under the ‘one in, one out’ deal in Dover, Kent. Photograph: Home Office/PA

Asylum seekers locked in detention centres as part of Labour’s “one in, one out” deal have said they had not heard of the scheme before arriving in the UK on small boats and were terrified of being returned to their home countries.

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, has said the plan to send one small boat arrival back to France in exchange for accepting another to live in the UK would deter the thousands from crossing the Channel.