Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many foreign nationals have been deported in the last 12 months, and to what countries.

The Home Office publishes data on the number of returns from the UK in each quarter in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly release’.

The latest data on returns of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) are published in Ret_02 and Ret_02q of the returns summary tables. Data on enforced returns (of which ‘deportations’ is a subset), by destination and nationality can be found in Ret_D02 of the returns detailed dataset.

The latest data relate to Q4 2020. Data for Q1 2021 are due to be published on 26 August within the Immigration statistics, year ending June 2021.

The term 'deportations' refers to a legally-defined subset of returns, which are enforced either following a criminal conviction, or when it is judged that a person’s removal from the UK is conducive to the public good. The published statistics refer to enforced returns which 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.

The Home Office seeks to return people who do not have any legal right to stay in the UK, which includes people who:

• enter, or attempt to enter, the UK illegally (including people entering clandestinely and by means of deception on entry);
• overstay their period of legal right to remain in the UK;
• breach their conditions of leave;
• are subject to deportation action; for example, due to a serious criminal conviction and
• have been refused asylum.