Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in setting up a new returns and enforcement unit to fast-track removals to safe countries for people who do not have the right to stay in the UK, and in particular how many of the additional 1,000 staff allocated to the unit have been recruited.

We need to be able to progress swiftly those with no right to remain in the country towards a return, reversing the decline in returns since 2010.

That’s why 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, redeploying significant numbers of staff to a returns and enforcement programme enhancing the Home Office’s ability to accelerate removals to safe countries for individuals without the right to remain here.