Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions officials in her Department have had with (a) representatives of Police Scotland and (b) the Scottish Government prior to the attempted removal of asylum seekers in Kenmure Street, Glasgow on 13 May 2021.

As with our activity throughout the UK, Immigration Enforcement works closely with Police Scotland to ensure that our operations are conducted lawfully and safely – this includes notifying the Police of scheduled visits through operational notifications. The Home Office and Police Scotland have a Memorandum of Understanding for data sharing. Police Scotland and the Home Office share data and intelligence on immigration crime, detecting foreign national offenders in the community, modern slavery and human trafficking amongst many other things.

There are no protocols on the enforcement of immigration issues specific to Scotland. Guidance and procedures for immigration issues throughout the UK are published on WWW.GOV.UK.

This was a routine, lawful, operation: the Police were informed of the visit in advance through an operational notification form and raised no concerns. Routine operations are not normally discussed with any government department prior to activity taking place so no discussions took place with the Scottish Government prior to this visit.