Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average award to each individual was under the Voluntary Returns Scheme; and what the total cost was to the public purse of the Voluntary Returns Scheme in each of the last five years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The specific information requested is not readily available from published statistics and could only be obtained for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
There are long standing arrangements to encourage individuals to return to their home countries through the Voluntary Returns Service (VRS), which offers financial and practical assistance to help people leave the UK peacefully and voluntarily, in order to avoid the considerable costs involved in detaining, accommodating and forcibly removing the same individual under the Enforced Returns process.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of conducting a review of the number of irregular migrants resident in the UK.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Robust procedures are in place to ensure that individuals with no right to be in the UK are removed, either voluntarily or through enforcement action.
When an individual fails to engage with the Home Office or attend a reporting event, we automatically seek to contact them, and if those efforts fail, they are treated as an absconder and the Home Office works with the police, other government agencies and commercial companies to trace those individuals and take appropriate action to remove them.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of known irregular migrants the Department has lost track of in each of the last five years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Robust procedures are in place to ensure that individuals with no right to be in the UK are removed, either voluntarily or through enforcement action.
When an individual fails to engage with the Home Office or attend a reporting event, we automatically seek to contact them, and if those efforts fail, they are treated as an absconder and the Home Office works with the police, other government agencies and commercial companies to trace those individuals and take appropriate action to remove them.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people on bail for immigration cases have public authorities lost track of in each of the last five years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested is not readily available and could only be collated for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing legislation to require more (a) frequent and (b) detailed checks on the immigration status of licenced taxi drivers.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government sets the regulatory structure within which local licensing authorities license the private hire vehicle (PHV) and taxi sector. The primary function of licensing authorities is to ensure that the sector is safe, including defining the criteria that must be met when deciding whether a person is 'fit and proper' to hold a licence.
The Immigration Act 2016 introduced a legal responsibility on licensing authorities not to issue licences in the PHV and taxi sector to those individuals who are disqualified from holding a licence due to their immigration status. Therefore, all licensing authorities in the UK are required to carry out right to work checks during the licence application process to ensure applicants are not disqualified from holding a licence due to their immigration status. The check must be performed when the applicant applies for a licence, or applies to renew or extend their licence, whether for the full statutory term or for a lesser period.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing legislation to lower the threshold at which the Department has a legal duty to deport foreign national offenders.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Under the UK Borders Act 2007, the Home Secretary has a duty to deport a foreign criminal convicted in the UK and sentenced to a period of imprisonment of 12 months or more unless an exception applies. Where the automatic deportation threshold is not met, a foreign national can already be considered for deportation where it is considered conducive to the public good under the Immigration Act 1971.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish the immigration status of people prosecuted for membership of a rape gang.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The immigration status of convicted offenders may be disclosed as part of court proceedings, at the discretion of the Judge in each case.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many removals of illegal migrants were (a) voluntary and (b) enforced since 2018.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes statistics on returns from the UK in the ‘Immigration System Statistics quarterly release’.
Data on enforced and voluntary returns from the UK, including the breakdown by nationality can be found in Ret_D01 of the ‘Returns detailed datasets’. This data covers the period 2004 to September 2024.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the nationalities were of illegal migrants removed since 2018.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes statistics on returns from the UK in the ‘Immigration System Statistics quarterly release’.
Data on enforced and voluntary returns from the UK, including the breakdown by nationality can be found in Ret_D01 of the ‘Returns detailed datasets’. This data covers the period 2004 to September 2024.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many chartered flights for the deportation of illegal migrants there were in each of the last five years; and how many such migrants there were on each such flight.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The table below shows the number of flights chartered in each of the last five years, and the total number of individuals who were returned or removed on these flights.
Year | Flights | Individuals |
2020 | 47 | 883 |
2021 | 64 | 1,298 |
2022 | 62 | 1,566 |
2023 | 60 | 2,622 |
2024 | 66 | 3,533 |