Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress has been made towards introducing universal exit checks at UK borders.

The Government is committed to introducing exit checks by April 2015. Under the last Government, exit checks were suspended and nothing was done to identify illegal overstayers.

We are currently developing and testing a new Departure Lists system which will enable us to confirm departure and improve our ability to identify those who have overstayed.