Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many illegal migrants were apprehended between Stranraer and Belfast in each of the last three years; and how many of those were apprehended during a) daytime and b) evening sailings.

To maintain the highest standards of accuracy, the Home Office prefers to refer to published data, as this has been subject to rigorous quality assurance under National Statistics protocols prior to publication.

Information about illegal migrants encountered specifically at the Port of Cairnryan and between Stranraer and Belfast is not available in our published data.

Our published national data on enforcement activity is available at the following link and includes data on irregular migration: Immigration system statistics, year ending June 2025 - GOV.UK