Illegal Immigrants
Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department
2:30 pm
Phil Woolas (Minister of State (also in the Home Office), Home Office; Oldham East and Saddleworth, Labour)
I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's point. The trend of our removals is significantly up. Of course, we have difficulties with some countries that refuse to issue documents, and that must be taken into account. However, there is steady improvement, as the report that the chief executive of the UK Border Agency gives regularly to the Home Affairs Committee—I see its Chairman in his place— shows.
Annotations
Garry Lelliott
Posted on 19 May 2009 3:25 pm (Report this annotation)
Mr. Woolas might like to read CONTROL OF IMMIGRATION: QUARTERLY STATISTICAL SUMMARY, UNITED
KINGDOM OCTOBER DECEMBER 2008 (second edition) published by his own department that shows, on page 15, since the creation of the UK Borders Agency, removals went down by 1000 between Q3 and Q4 of 2008. The table also fails to show the upward trend he refers to. I couldn't find any figures for 2009 but I did stumble across the following from an Audit Commission report dated 23 January 2009:
"Seventy per cent of escorted removals are cancelled, resulting in additional work and costs. A large number of these are outside of the Agencys control, such as legal action, but we found that a lack of coordination between booking escorts and flights is adding to the problem.". For the full report go to http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0809/management_of_asylum...
Richard Taylor
Posted on 29 May 2009 1:36 pm (Report this annotation)
I have made a Freedom of Information Request asking for the statistics behind this statement to be released:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/statistics_on_those_de...
The latest published Home Office Statistics entitled: "Control Of Immigration: Quarterly Statistical Summary, United Kingdom for January March 2009" appear to contradict the minister's statement. They state:
"In Q1 2009, 15,840 persons were removed or departed voluntarily from the UK, 6 per cent fewer than in Q1 2008 (16,760). There was a fall of 7 per cent to 2,805 for those leaving who had claimed asylum (including dependants) and a fall of 5 per cent to 13,035 for non-asylum cases. "
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs09/immiq109.pdf
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Richard Taylor
Cambridge
http://www.rtaylor.co.uk