Returns from the UK between July and August 2024
Published 9 October 2024
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This note has been produced to provide an overview of the number of people who have been returned from the UK since early July, following statements made to the media by the Prime Minister. It provides the public with clear and timely statistics in an area of high public interest, putting on record the statistics used by the Prime Minister.
The statistics are provisional and taken from live operational systems at the end of August 2024. As a result, figures are subject to change. The Home Office will publish full statistics relating to the number of returns between July and September 2024 in the next Immigration system statistics quarterly release on 28 November 2024.
Between 5 July and 31 August 2024, there were 1,240 enforced returns of people with no legal right to remain in the UK. This compares with 1,010 over the same period in 2023, an increase of 23%.
Between 5 July and 29 August 2024 there had been a total of 3,600 returns (including both enforced and voluntary returns).
Official Statistics relating to the number of returns from the UK can be found in the ‘How many people are detained or returned?’ section of the Immigration system statistics quarterly release
Revisions to the statistics
Data on returns is subject to upward revision. This is because some individuals who have been told to leave the UK will not notify the Home Office of their departure from the UK. In such cases, it can take some time for the Home Office to become aware of such a departure and update the system. As a result, data for more recent periods will initially undercount the total number of returns and will increase as additional cases are retrospectively recorded. ‘Other verified returns’ (a subset of voluntary returns) are particularly affected by this. For this reason, comparisons of more recent periods to older periods should be made with caution.
Official Statistics on returns will be published in the Immigration system statistics quarterly release in November 2024, covering July to September 2024. The returns figures in this upcoming quarterly release are expected to show more returns than the data presented in this release, due to the time taken for data to pass through the caseworking and reporting systems.