Illegal Migrants: Unknown Whereabouts

Mike Kane Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rupert Lowe]

I do agree with the hon. Member’s helpful intervention. Unvetted and unknown men—sex pests, misogynists, and even far worse—are in our communities, on our streets and near our schools, in the thousands and thousands. This is a national security emergency and must be treated as such.

The evidence is undeniable. I have seen it in Home Office documents. It exists. It is real. The figures were not even disputed by the Home Office; they simply told The Daily Telegraph:

“The Home Office has refused to confirm whether the figures are accurate, saying it does not comment on speculation.”

This is not speculation. This is cold, hard data. The numbers demonstrate quite spectacularly how the Home Office has failed to keep the British people safe. It is an outrageous scandal that this information has been deliberately hidden from the British people. We deserve to know the facts. We deserve to know what is being forced on to our communities. The answer is staggering: 736 foreign criminals gone, disappeared; and 53,298 illegal migrants gone, disappeared. My questions—

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

There will be 18 of them.

[Rupert Lowe]

My questions are these. Where are they now? What is the Minister doing to detain them? Where did they come from? What are their convictions? How has this been allowed to happen?

[Mike Kane]

That was No. 5.

[Rupert Lowe]

I can count, thank you. Why did the Minister mislead the British people? Who is being sacked?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Tapp]

I thank the hon. and learned Member for his question. We do not comment on unverified leaks.

After internal reviews, my officials have acknowledged that the interpretation of an absconder requires clearer definition in departmental policy. Work is under way to amend guidance and operational processes, so that it is easier for immigration officials interacting with individuals to know when an absconder marker should be associated with a person, enabling them to take the right action in a timely way. Of course, there is more to do. That is why we are implementing the most significant immigration and asylum reforms of modern times.

[Mike Kane]

When we talk about emotive subjects such as this one, it is important that we establish the facts. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) recently railed on social media against illegal migrants coming to his constituency. They happened to be canoeists traversing the Atlantic and fundraising for motor neurone disease. Now he is Billy No Mates; he is like some latter-day King Cnut, without his courtiers, on the beach, railing at the tide to go backwards. Does the Minister not agree? For the record, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that I pronounced Cnut correctly.

[Mike Tapp]

In public life, it is important to ensure that we are not sensationalising, or raising the temperature on such an important and divisive issue. That is precisely why the Home Secretary is looking to restore order and control to the system—so that the likes of the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth cannot use it as a divisive tool for their own political ends.

I turn to the published figures, and will address the questions around them. The Government are not in a position to state the current number of illegal migrants whose whereabouts are unknown because the information is not available from the published statistics. The data would have to be taken from a live operational database, and would include historical records, which means that any figures would not be sufficiently robust and would not be verified.

I thank the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth again for securing this debate, and thank all Members who have contributed. These issues are a source of concern for many of our constituents, and it is right that they be discussed in this House. Perhaps inevitably, given the subject matter, a range of views and arguments have been advanced. Let me conclude by reasserting the Government’s stance: we will not stand for abuse of our immigration system, we will always put the safety of our citizens and the security of our nation first, and we will use every possible measure to find and remove those individuals with no right to be in this country.

Question put and agreed to.