Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people that entered the UK illegally and were subsequently convicted of a criminal offense have been deported in each of the last three years; and what steps she is taking to expedite the deportation of foreign nationals with criminal records.

The information requested is not available from published statistics.

Any foreign national who is convicted of a crime in the UK and given a prison sentence is considered for deportation at the earliest opportunity. Where a person’s criminality does not meet the threshold for deportation, consideration is given to administrative removal.

Statistics on the returns of foreign national offenders (FNOs) by nationality and year are published on a quarterly basis. These returns are published in the Returns Detailed Datasets, Year Ending June 2024, which are available at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The published statistics include deportations, as well as cases where a person has breached UK immigration laws, and those removed under other administrative and illegal entry powers that have declined to leave voluntarily.

Figures on deportations, which are a subset of enforced returns, are not separately available.

We have already begun delivering a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced.