Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps his Department has taken to help encourage the voluntary return of illegal migrants; and if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of his voluntary return schemes for reducing illegal immigration.

The Home Office will always look to support those who wish to depart the United Kingdom voluntarily, and the extent of that support is based on a case-by-case assessment of an individual’s needs. General eligibility criteria can be found online at: Get help to return home if you’re a migrant in the UK: Who can get help - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Home Office publishes statistics on all types of removals from the UK, which include voluntary departures. The latest statistics are available at Immigration system statistics quarterly release - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Published datasets for voluntary returns are available at: Returns and detention datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The cost of a voluntary return depends on the individual circumstances of the case, and therefore we are not able to provide a definitive figure.