Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of deportations between 4 July and 31 December were (a) enforced and (b) voluntary.

The Home Office routinely publishes data on returns in the “Immigration Systems Statistics” quarterly release. Data on quarterly returns of individuals since July 2024 can be found in table Ret_D01 of the “returns detailed datasets”.

The next full quarterly release, which will include data up to December 2024 is due to be published on the 27^th February 2025. We have also published interim figures on the 9^th of January to provide an overview of the number of people who have been returned from the UK since early July.

Returns are reported in 3 main groups:

• enforced returns (people subject to administrative removal or deportation action which is carried out by the Home Office)
• voluntary returns (people who were liable to removal action or subject to immigration control but have left of their own accord, sometimes with support from the Home Office)
• port returns (people who are refused entry to the UK and have subsequently departed)