PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Offenders: Deportation (12 January 2021)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign criminals have been deported in each of the last ten years; and whether it is her policy to increase the number of deportations.

Asked by:
Sir John Hayes (Conservative)

The Home Office publishes data on Returns in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on the number of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) returned from the UK are published in tables Ret_02 and Ret_02q of the Returns ‘summary tables’. The latest data on returns relates to the year ending June 2020.

Deportation is used, where appropriate, against foreign national criminals and those whose deportation is otherwise considered to be conducive to the public good. Our priority will always be to keep the British public safe and the Government is clear that foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them. Any foreign national who is convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence is considered for deportation at the earliest opportunity.

Every week we remove foreign criminals who have no right to be here from the UK to different countries. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have continued to return and deport foreign national offenders and other immigration offenders where flight routes have been available to us, both on scheduled flights and charter flights.

Deportations of foreign national offenders have been negatively impacted by Covid, and we intend to resume historic levels as quickly as possible. It is our intention to deport all foreign criminals as required to by the 2007 Borders Act where we lawfully can, which would imply a further substantial increase in numbers.

Answered by:
Chris Philp (Conservative)
18 January 2021