Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people where subject to immigration enforcement action in each of the last five years.

The Home Office does not the hold the specific information requested in a reportable format. The department undertakes a wide range of enforcement action. This action includes application of sanctions against individuals and employers, prosecution of foreign national criminals, the disruption of serious and organised crime as well as our work to encourage and enforce the return of those who have no legal right to stay in the UK. The department does publish information on returns. Published returns figures only include those who have been removed not all of those who were subject to immigration enforcement action.

The Home Office publishes the number of returns from the UK, by year in table rt_01 (returns data tables, volume 1) in ‘Immigration Statistics, year ending March 2019’, available from the GOV.uk website at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/803173/returns1-mar-2019-tables.ods.

Further information about Immigration Enforcement activity is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-enforcement-data-may-2019

As detailed at paragraph 5 in the published information linked above; The Home Office is proposing to review the enforcement data that it publishes in order to ensure it provides a comprehensive overview of the detention and returns system. This will involve a consultation in 2019, where it will invite public views on its proposals.