Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 24 October (HL2526), why they do not routinely publish any data on numbers of individuals that have overstayed their visa expiry in the UK; and whether they will publish the numbers for India in each of the past five years.

The Home Office publishes statistics relating to exit checks, which can be found on gov.uk, which provide statistics on the number/proportion of visas for which:

a) The individual was recorded as departing in time (before their leave expired)

b) The individual was recorded as departing late

c) The individual has no matched departure record

The statistics do not provide information on the number of overstayer due to known limitations in the data. For example, an individual travelling to or from the UK via the Common Travel Area will be included in the ‘no matched departure record’ category. Further information is provided in the published report and accompanying user guide on gov.uk.

The latest statistics are published in the Fifth report on statistics relating to exit checks and future plans for these statistics outlined in the recent publication on Developments in Exit Checks, also found on gov.uk.