PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(13 November 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people that entered the UK illegally and were subsequently convicted of a criminal offense have been deported in each of the last three years; and what steps she is taking to expedite the deportation of foreign nationals with criminal records.

Asked by:
Richard Tice (Reform UK)

The information requested is not available from published statistics.

Any foreign national who is convicted of a crime in the UK and given a prison sentence is considered for deportation at the earliest opportunity. Where a person’s criminality does not meet the threshold for deportation, consideration is given to administrative removal.

Statistics on the returns of foreign national offenders (FNOs) by nationality and year are published on a quarterly basis. These returns are published in the Returns Detailed Datasets, Year Ending June 2024, which are available at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The published statistics 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.

We have already begun delivering a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced.

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