Question to the Attorney General:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many people have been (1) prosecuted, and (2) convicted, for offences of people smuggling under the Immigration Act 1971, for each of the past five years.

The Immigration Act 1971 contains offences (including those created by the Nationality and Borders Act 2022) for assisting and facilitating unlawful immigration into the United Kingdom.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not hold any data which shows the number of defendants in England and Wales charged with, prosecuted and convicted for people smuggling offences created by the Immigration Act 1971.

However, management information for England and Wales is held showing the number of offences charged by way of S25 (Assisting unlawful immigration to member State or the United Kingdom), S25A (Helping an asylum-seeker to enter United Kingdom) and S25B (Assisting entry to United Kingdom in breach of deportation or exclusion order) of the Immigration Act 1971 in which a prosecution commenced in each of the last five years. The table below shows the number of these offences to the latest available year, 2022, in England and Wales.

The figures relate to the number of offences and not the number of individual defendants. It can be the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence against the same complainant. No data is held showing the final outcome or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at finalisation.