§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to monitor the level of illegal immigration into the United Kingdom. [186554]
§ Mr. BrowneBy definition, illegal immigrants fall outside of official statistics and are therefore difficult to measure. Official estimates of the numbers of illegal entrants to the UK or estimates of the size of the illegally resident population in the UK do not exist. The Government have commissioned research into the methods used in other countries to estimate the size of the illegal population in order to define methods appropriate for the UK.
1406WWe are committed to maintaining robust pre and on entry controls to prevent illegal immigration into the United Kingdom and there are many strands of work currently being undertaken to ensure the integrity of UK Border Controls. These include:
The increasing involvement of organised crime in illegal immigration led to the creation in 2000 of Reflex, the multi-agency forum which brings together key law enforcement players including the Immigration Service, as well as relevant government Departments and the Security Services, under the chair of the National Crime Squad.As part of a longer-term strategy, the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) manages an expanding network of Immigration Liaison Officers (currently 12) in key overseas posts who work closely with local law enforcement agencies to combat illegal migratory flows.A network of Airline Liaison Officers working closely with airline staff at key locations worldwide, who offer advice to carriers on the admissibility of passengers seeking to travel to the UK.Working closely with UK Visas to put in place visa fraud officers at a number of our missions overseas to enhance further the quality of visa issues.Introduction of a range of initiatives designed to reduce the numbers of those who arrive without adequate documentation or concealed in vehicles. Such measures include the roll out of New Detection Technology to search vehicles for would be clandestine entrants prior to embarkation for the UK, and the introduction of juxtaposed controls at strategic locations overseas to pre-assess eligibility for entry.
§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the joint work of immigration officers and British Transport Police in London in identifying illegal immigrants; and how many individuals have been(a) questioned and (b) arrested as part of the operation. [187059]
§ Mr. BrowneOver the past 15 months the UK Immigration Service (UKIS) has participated in a variety of joint multi-agency street crime operations in London, initiated by both the Metropolitan and British Transport Police (BTP). Focusing on crime hotspots, the Immigration Service has been invited to attend where an immigration offence is expected. The deployment of immigration officers in public places is a legitimate activity within the spectrum of our mandate of enforcing immigration laws.
While immigration officers do not have the same powers as the police to stop and search individuals in public places, they may legitimately question people to determine their immigration status where there is reasonable suspicion that a person is an immigration offender.
Records of (a) the number of people questioned or (b) the number of people arrested as part of the police-led crime reduction operations are not kept centrally. However, locally collated provisional information indicates that between May 2003 to July 2004 the UKIS participated in approximately 235 such operations which resulted in the arrest of around 1,000 immigration offenders, including 717 failed asylum seekers.
While officers routinely record the details of persons questioned in their individual notebooks, these data are not collated centrally.
1407WThe Government have made it clear that they are taking a robust and determined approach to tackling illegal immigration, and removing from the UK those who no longer have a legal right to be here.
§ Mr. RosindellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will set out the immigration figures for each of the past 14 months. [184255]
§ Mr. BrowneLatest available figures on international migration are given in the table.
Total international migration1: United Kingdom, 2001 to 2002 Thousand Year and quarter2 Inflow All migration Outflow Balance 2001 480 308 172 Of which March 100 60 40 June 113 65 48 September 178 103 75 December 89 81 8 2002 513 359 153 Of which: March 105 75 30 June 117 81 36 September 197 124 73 December 95 80 14 1Figures are estimates derived from the International Passenger Survey and other sources?these are Home Office data on asylum seekers and their dependants and estimates of migration between the UK and the Irish Republic from the Irish Central Statistical Office. 2 Quarters are labelled by their final month, e.g. March denotes the quarter January to March. Source: National Statistics (www.statistics.gov.uk). Monthly data is not available.