David Hanson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2014-04-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the number of people who have overstayed their approved visa to be in the UK by (a) up to six months, (b) six months to one year, (c) more than one year and (d) more than three years as at 31 March 2014.

James Brokenshire

It is not possible to accurately quantify the number of immigration offenders in the UK as, by their very nature, those that deliberately evade immigration control to enter and stay in the country illegally are not officially recorded until they come to light and are arrested.

The Immigration Bill will provide new powers to implement exit checks, which the last Labour Government scrapped in 1998. This will allow the Home Office to screen those who leave the UK to identify threats and persons of interest to Border Force, immigration enforcement and other law enforcement bodies, and to enable an appropriate response.

The Home Office continues to prevent abuse, pursue offenders and increase compliance with immigration law – our Immigration Compliance and Enforcement teams across the UK target illegal migrants who have no right to live and work in the community.

The Immigration Bill will stop migrants using public services to which they are not entitled, reduce the factors which encourage people to come to the UK and make it easier to remove people who should not be here.