Home Office publishes immigration returns data following Full Fact intervention

The Home Office has today published data to support a claim made by the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer about immigration returns since Labour entered government, after Full Fact asked that it urgently do so.

Mr Starmer claimed that there had been a “23% increase” in returns of people without a right to be in the UK since Labour was elected, compared to the previous summer. As we wrote at the time, this claim was based on immigration returns data which had not yet been published.

Office for Statistics Regulation guidance states: “Where unpublished data are referred to unexpectedly, the information should be published as soon as possible after any statement has been made – ideally on the same day.”

We wrote to the Home Office on 27 September to ask that it publish this data without any further delay, explaining that, without this, neither we nor the public can verify the claims being made about the government’s record. We did not receive a response, and wrote about this issue again yesterday when similar figures were used by a Home Office spokesperson.

Earlier this week we asked the Home Office for a reply to our letter, which also asked the department to investigate how and why the Code of Practice for Statistics was not followed. On the day after the general election, we asked the Prime Minister to incorporate compulsory adherence to the Code of Practice for Statistics within the Ministerial Code, to help restore trust in politics.

The data published by the Home Office today shows that Mr Starmer was referring specifically to enforced returns between 5 July and 31 August, which were 23% higher than over the same period in 2023.

We wrote more about how immigration returns are categorised earlier this year (though some of the figures mentioned in that article may now be out of date).