Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many detention spaces are reserved for individuals seeking asylum who are designated for deportation to Rwanda.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office currently operates seven immigration removal centres (IRCs) throughout the UK (six in England and one in Scotland); Harmondsworth and Colnbrook IRCs at Heathrow; Brook House and Tinsley House IRCs at Gatwick; Derwentside IRC in County Durham; Yarl’s Wood IRC in Bedfordshire and Dungavel House IRC in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
As of 24 April, the Home Office has the capacity to detain around 2,200 people in IRCs, including those liable for removal to Rwanda.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many individuals seeking asylum have been detained pending deportation to Rwanda.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
To maintain the highest standards of accuracy, the Home Office prefers to refer to published data, as this has been subject to rigorous quality assurance under National Statistics protocols prior to publication.
Information about those detained who are liable to be removed to Rwanda is not available in our published data
Published data on detentions and returns is available at the following link Migration statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 10 July 2023 to Question 191940 on Offenders: Deportation, what proportion of applications for the Facilitated Return Scheme are (a) considered and (b) decided within 20 days.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Information on the proportion of applications for the Facilitated Return Scheme that are (a) considered and (b) decided within 20 days is not available from published statistics.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign nationals held in the prison estate have previously been deported.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The information requested is not available from published statistics.
Our Nationality and Borders Act became law in April 2022. A factsheet can be viewed here: Nationality and Borders Bill: factsheet - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The same act also amended legislation which means a foreign offender who returns to the United Kingdom in breach of a deportation order can be sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Anyone who enters the UK without leave, or without a visa, also faces a maximum penalty of four years.
Mentions:
1: Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab - Life peer) have told the Times that only 400 to 700 detention spaces are reserved for migrants who are due for deportation - Speech Link
Asked by: Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department has taken recent steps to help tackle the deportation of asylum seekers from the North Caucasus region to Russia.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
The UK has consistently condemned the significant deterioration in the human rights situation in Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In multilateral fora the UK continues to call for Russia to meet its international obligations, including at the The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and UN. The situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia is particularly egregious, as highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Russia. The UK has repeatedly called on Russia to end human rights violations in Chechnya, conduct effective investigations into reports and ensure that those responsible are held to account. The UK regularly discusses migration issues with our international partners.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 10 July 2023 to Question 191940 on Offenders: Deportation, for what reasons her Department do not hold data on the average waiting time to return foreign offenders to their country of origin under the Facilitated Return Scheme.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The average time to return a Foreign National Offender who has been accepted for the Facilitated Return Scheme (FRS) is not available as automated data and would require a manual check of individual cases to calculate the average. The cost of collating the data would be disproportionate.