Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 24 July (HL980), how many grants of discretionary leave to remain have been made to persons unable to leave the country through no fault of their own and where there is no prospect of enforced removal, in (1) the current year, and (2) each of the two previous years.

Whilst there is provision to grant discretionary leave to remain where someone has been unable to leave through no fault of their own and there is no prospect of enforced removal, we do not grant such discretionary leave for the sole reason that removal cannot be enforced.

Those who have no right to remain in the UK are expected to leave voluntarily and should take all reasonable steps to do so.

The overall numbers of discretionary leave grants are published on the Immigration Statistics webpage and the most recent release is available from:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2017-data-tables

The breakdown for years 2014-2016 is as follows: