To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many people in the last 12 months he estimates have entered the United Kingdom illegally via Eurostar; [36997](2) what estimate he has made of the number of persons entering the United Kingdom illegally in each of the last six months. [37011]
There is no estimate of the total number of persons who enter the United Kingdom illegally since, by the very nature of the problem, it is not possible to establish that a person is here illegally until they have been traced and interviewed.The available information, relating to the total number of persons detected and served with papers as illegal entrants in 1997, is given in the table. I regret that information concerning the numbers of illegal entrants detected who had arrived, or had claimed to have arrived, via the Eurostar service, could be obtained only at disproportionate cost through the examination of individual case records.
| Persons served with papers as illegal entrants1 by month papers served, 19972 | |
| Month | Number of persons2 |
| January | 1,410 |
| February | 1,200 |
| March | 1,130 |
| April | 1,180 |
| May | 1,080 |
| June | 1,060 |
| July | 1,100 |
| August | 1,100 |
| September | 1,160 |
| October | 1,280 |
| November | 1,340 |
| December | 1,110 |
| Total | 14,150 |
| 1 Covers persons served with papers and dealt with as illegal entrants as defined in section 33 (1) of the Immigration Act 1971. | |
| 2 1997 figures are provisional and rounded. | |