Illegal Immigrants

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the factual basis is for the Minister for Borders and Immigration's statement in his answer on 18 May 2009, Official Report, column 1192, on illegal immigrants, that the trend of removals is significantly up. (277069)

[holding answer 1 June 2009]: The following table shows the total number of removals and voluntary departures in each year between 2005 and 2008:

*Removals and voluntary departures*^{1, 2,}*January 2005 to December 2008*
Number³
	2005	2006	2007⁴	2008⁴
Total removals and voluntary departures	58,215	63,865	63,365	66,275
Change compared to previous year (percentage)	—	10	-1	5
¹ Figures are rounded to the nearest 5. ²Includes persons departing voluntarily after notifying the UK Border Agency of their intention to leave prior to their departure, persons leaving under Assisted Voluntary Return Programmes run by the International Organization for Migration and since January 2005 persons who it has been established left the UK without informing the immigration authorities. Statistics from 2005 onwards are not directly comparable with earlier years. ³ Removals and voluntary departures recorded on the system as at the dates on which the data extracts were taken. Figures will under record due to data cleansing and data matching exercises that take place after the extracts are taken. ⁴ Provisional figures.

Published statistics on immigration and asylum are available from the Library of the House and from the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate website at:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration-asylum-stats.html

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many illegal immigrants were detained at their point of entry to the UK in the last month for which figures are available; and how many of them admitted they were entering the country illegally. (277130)

In April 2009, 767 people were recorded at ports as having illegally entered the UK. In such cases, passengers are initially detained at the Point of Entry.

The data provided are based on locally-collated management information, which may be subject to change and do not represent published national statistics.

The UK Border Agency does not routinely record whether an illegal entrant admits they were attempting to enter the UK illegally.

Volume 493: debated on Tuesday 2 June 2009