HL Deb 04 February 2002 vol 631 cc62-3WA
The Countess of Mar

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether, for the purposes of immigration control, there are any "non-removable nationalities". [HL2495]

Lord Rooker

It is the destination, not the nationality, which is the primary concern. A decision on whether or not a person is returned will depend on the facts of the particular case, conditions at that time in the country concerned and the availability of appropriate travel routes. It will also take into consideration whether there are any other countries to which a person can be lawfully returned.

The Countess

of Mar asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many asylum seekers whose claims have been refused and who have exhausted all appeal procedures have been returned to Somalia, Liberia, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Ivory coast since January 2000. [HL2496]

Lord Rooker

The estimated number of principal asylum applicants removed during the period April to June 2001 for each of the requested nationalities are given in the table.

Country of origin (not destination) Principal asylum applicants removed, April-June 20011 2 3
Somalia 5
Liberia *
Iraq 20
Afghanistan 10
Ivory Coast *

Figures rounded to the nearest five, *= less than 5.

p 2001 data are provisional and subject to possible change.

1 Data relate to principal applicants only, and includes persons departing "voluntarily" after enforcement action had been initiated against them and persons leaving under assisted voluntary return progammes run by the IOM.

2 Data on the nationality of dependants of asylum seekers removed are not available.

3 Nationality data have been estimated because of some data quality issues on the IND databases.

I regret that information on the destination of asylum seekers removed from the United Kingdom is not recorded centrally and could be obtained only by examining individual case files at disproportionate cost. Therefore it is not possible to determine how many of these persons were returned to their respective country of origin.

A nationality breakdown of asylum seekers removed between January 2000 and March 2001 is not available due to data recording problems.

Information on the nationality of principal asylum applicants removed in the period July to September 2001 will be published on 28 February 2002 on the Home Office Research Development and Statistics Directorate web site at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigrationl.html.