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I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Home Department.It is not possible to say what stage in the asylum process the nationals of any country have reached at the time of their removal, including whether their claim has failed at that point and are failed asylum seekers, because those departing voluntarily can do so at any stage without notifying the UK Border Agency. For this reason, the answer can provide only the number of asylum cases removed.Central management systems do not distinguish the number of enforced removals from the UK from the number of voluntary departures after enforcement action had been initiated.It is not possible to identify from the available published data how many removals were made by means other than charter flights.The following table shows the total number of enforced removals and notified voluntary departures of asylum cases from the UK to Sri Lanka from May 2009 to December 2011.<Table width="100%" summary="" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3" border="0"><thead><tr><th>Enforced removals and notified voluntary departures¹, ², ³ of asylum cases4; to Sri Lanka5, May 2009 to December 2011</th></tr></thead><TR><TD>Number of departures</TD></TR><TR><TD></TD><TD>May 2009 to December 2009</TD><TD>20106</TD><TD>20116</TD></TR><TR><TD>Enforced removals and notified voluntary departures to Sri Lanka</TD><TD>23</TD><TD>247</TD><TD>413</TD></TR><tfoot><TR><td>¹ Due to a reclassification of removal categories, figures include asylum removals performed by UK Border Agency officers using in-country powers of removal and a small number of cases dealt with at juxtaposed controls.</td></TR><TR><td>² Figures include people leaving under facilitated return schemes.</td></TR><TR><td>³ Removals and voluntary departures recorded on the system as at the dates on which the data extracts were taken.</td></TR><TR><td>4 Figures include dependants.</td></TR><TR><td>5 Destination as recorded on source database.</td></TR><TR><td>6 Provisional figures. Figures will under record due to data cleansing and data matching exercises that take place after the extracts are taken.</td></TR></tfoot></Table>The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics on the number of persons removed or departed voluntarily from the UK within Immigration Statistics. The data on removals and voluntary departures are available in the latest release, Immigration Statistics: October—December 2011, tables rv.01 to rv.08, from the Library of the House and from the Home Office Science, research and statistics web pages at:"http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/science-research/research-statistics/migration/migration-statistics1/" |