Shadow Justice Minister Kieran Mullan has criticised the Labour Government over reports Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has asked Kosovo to take small boat migrants and failed asylum seekers.

Speaking to GB News, Mullan questioned why Labour had not utilised the Rwanda policy that was already in place when they took office.

In the latest move to remove asylum seekers from the UK, Starmer plans to establish a series of "return hubs" overseas for rejected asylum seekers, with Kosovo among the countries being considered.

Kosovo's President Vjosa Osmani has suggested her country would be "open" to discussions about hosting one of Britain's return hubs.

Shadow Justice Minister Kieran Mullan has criticised Keir Starmer's latest plan to remove illegal migrants from the UK

While he welcomed "any efforts to create an alternative deterrent," he argued that the Government "should have made an attempt to operationalise and use that Rwanda policy."

Mullan highlighted this as a "key difference" between Labour's approach and what the Conservatives had planned to do.

Mullan elaborated on his criticism, telling GB News: "I know people were very frustrated that we didn't get the Rwanda plan operational as quickly as we would have liked, as I would have liked, but we did have in place a plan with a third country to take migrants as a deterrent, which even the National Crime Agency has said is vitally important."

He emphasised that while he welcomes efforts to create an alternative deterrent, "which Labour still have not done," the Government should have attempted to use the Rwanda policy that was already established.

Keir Starmer is considering sending Channel migrants to KosovoPA

Highlighting the key "disadvantages" of the plan, Mullan explained: "What Labour have talked about, in my understanding so far, is taking people to be processed somewhere else.

"There are real disadvantages to that approach, because they're still caught up in all of the law and the processing that we have to run, just being done elsewhere."

He added: "The benefits of the Rwanda approach was that it would have been the Rwandan government making the decisions about who did or didn't secure asylum.

"I think that's the better approach, and it's the more reliable approach."

Mullan told GB News that Labour should have 'made an attempt' to get the Rwanda plan working

Noting that the Rwanda plan was the first of Labour's "many U-turns", Mullan concluded that out of "all of the policies" the Government have switched stance on, he wished that Starmer's Government had "made an attempt" to get the Rwanda plan working.

He said: "And I really do regret, out of all the things that Labour have U-turned on, whether it's taxes on hardworking people or taxes on farmers, taxes on schools, all these things that they've done that are so damaging, I wish the one change they would have made was to make an attempt to get that Rwanda policy working.

"It worked for Australia, they said if you come here, we'll take you somewhere else and you don't get to stay, and they saw a 90 per cent drop in crossings. We could have had that same result here."