Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, (a) how many and (b) what value of facilitation payments were made to people subject to (i) deportation and (ii) removal in each of the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested regarding the specific value of payments made under the Voluntary Returns Service (VRS) and Facilitated Return Scheme (FRS) are not separately available from published statistics.
The Home Office publishes all available information on returns expenditure in the Home Office Annual Report and accounts at Home Office annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab)(opens in a new tab).
The number of foreign national offenders returned under FRS is published as part of the Immigration Enforcement quarterly release, with the latest publication being in 2022. The latest published data on FRS returns can be viewed at: Immigration Enforcement data: Q2 2024 - GOV.UK.
Whereas the number of foreign nationals returned under the VRS is published as part of the Immigration system statistics return summary tables, with the latest publication being for Q2 2025. The latest published data on VRS returns can be viewed at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.
FRS and VRS are not an alternative to removal or deportation but facilitate the early removal of FNOs and those without leave to remain in the UK, helping them to re-settle in their country of origin. Voluntary removals benefit the UK taxpayer as costs of detention, appeals, and other legal challenges are significantly reduced.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many decisions of the Home Office with a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum) have been made in each of the last 12 months; and how many of these have been or are now the subject of such an appeal.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on initial decisions and outcomes on asylum claims, is published in table Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum claim and initial decisions detailed datasets’. The latest data relates to as at 30 June 2025.
Data for as at 30 September 2025 will be published on 27 November 2025.
Data on asylum appeals is published in table Asy_D06 and Asy_D07 of the ‘Asylum appeals lodged and determined detailed datasets’. The latest data relates to the year ending March 2023.
Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks.
Appeals data from April 2023 onwards is currently unavailable for publication due to ongoing work as immigration data transitions to a new caseworking system. Work is ongoing to make this information available, and it will be included in a future edition of the Immigration System Statistics release.
Please note that figures for immigration and asylum appeals at First-Tier Tribunal and subsequent stages are published by the Ministry of Justice as part of their Tribunal Statistics release. The latest data relates to January to March 2025.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is her Department's policy to fund the cost of driving lessons for (a) asylum seekers and (b) other immigrants.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
No.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Government pays the RNLI in connection with Channel crossings by asylum seekers.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Any safety of life at sea operations related to attempts to cross the Channel by migrants in small boats are directed and coordinated by HM Coastguard. The Home Office does not provide funding to RNLI but does provide maritime assets and reconnaissance capabilities where necessary for any Coastguard-directed operations.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many visa applications under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme are awaiting a decision; and how many of these have been outstanding for more than (a) 6 and (b) 12 weeks.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The number of applications currently awaiting a decision under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme is published weekly and can be found at: Ukraine Family Scheme, Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (Homes for Ukraine) and Ukraine Extension Scheme visa data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The Home Office does not publish data on the number of applications outstanding for more than 6 and 12 weeks. However, the Homes for Ukraine Scheme has a Service Level Agreement of 15 days for straightforward applications.
Additionally, the transparency data published 22 August 2024 does include a range of processing data and the latest data can be found at: Visas and citizenship data: Q2 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many European Arrest Warrants have been issued to the United Kingdom in the last 12 months for which information is available; and how many of these have been executed.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
European Arrest Warrants were replaced by arrest warrants under Title VII of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). The National Crime Agency deals with arrest warrants issued in accordance with the TCA, as the designated authority for cases which fall under Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003.
The NCA holds the data relating to arrest warrants issued and executed, not the Home Office.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will hold discussions with Action Fraud and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau on the potential merits of opening a criminal investigation into crimes with reference numbers NFRC240606737247 and NFRC240606733631.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
Due to the operational independence of law enforcement partners, the government is not able to comment on any specific case that is currently under review.
Action Fraud and the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau will ensure that any case is dealt with appropriately with the necessary action taken.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 13 March 2024 to Question 17274 on Offences against Children, on what evidential basis the National Crime Agency has stated that the number of child sex offenders in the UK is between 550,000 and 800,000.
Answered by Laura Farris
The National Crime Agency publishes an overview of the Child Sexual Abuse threat annually as part of the National Strategic Assessment. This includes an estimate of the number of UK based adult offenders who pose varying degrees of risk to children. An explanation of the CSA Scale Methodology has been published as an Annex to the National Strategic Assessment.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate he has made of the number of serious child abuse offences committed in the last 12 months.
Answered by Laura Farris
The term child abuse covers a broad range of offences including, but not limited to, sexual offences, violence against the person and cruelty and neglect. It is not possible to identify all child abuse offences recorded in official data.
In January 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published experimental analysis which looked at a range of indicators from different data sources to enable understanding of child abuse. This report can be found here:
Child abuse in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).
As the Home Secretary stated in his written statement of 10 January 2024, we are working with the ONS to explore whether a new survey could more effectively measure the current scale and nature of child abuse and neglect, including child sexual abuse. The ONS is currently developing the questionnaire and safeguarding procedures for the proposed survey, which will then be piloted.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much and what proportion of refugee integration loans have been repaid in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office does not hold the data requested in a reportable format and it would require a manual search of records which would incur a disproportionate cost.