Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the impact in other countries of offering payments to failed asylum seekers who agree to return to their home country on trends in numbers of people claiming asylum in those countries.

The enhanced voluntary return offer is a strategic and time-limited approach mirroring schemes seen in Denmark, where voluntary return is prioritised and families are offered payments up to the equivalent of £30,000 to expedite departures. This has contributed to them halving the number of people awaiting deportation, including rejected asylum seekers and foreign criminals more broadly.