Less than 1% of small boat arrivals returned home since 2020 – as cost of Bibby Stockholm revealed

Less than 1% of people who have arrived in the UK on small boats since 2020 have been returned to their home country, new statistics reveal.

The numbers showed that when Albanians were taken out of the figures – as the UK has signed a separate returns agreement with the country – just 408 people had been sent home in the past three years, despite 109,117 arriving via Channel crossings, an equivalent of 0.37%.

The government’s new illegal migration minister, Michael Tomlinson, said he wanted to see the return figure “as high as possible”, adding: “I am reading the same chart and, as far as I am concerned the numbers need to be significantly higher than that.”

But he and his colleague, legal migration minister Tom Pursglove, were slammed by the Home Affairs Select Committee for not being across the figures themselves.

During the committee hearing, it was also revealed the cost of housing asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm barge was more than £22m.

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The figures were handed over to the committee late on Tuesday in a letter from Home Office permanent secretary, Sir Matthew Rycroft.

He had appeared in front of the cross-party group of MPs two weeks ago but was attacked for being “disrespectful” by its chair, Dame Diana Johnson, when he struggled to answer questions on the specifics of immigration statistics.

The Labour chair then had to chase Sir Matthew for answers, which only appeared the night before today’s hearing, and which neither Mr Tomlinson nor Mr Pursglove seemed to be aware of.

Dame Diana put the returns number to the ministers early on in Wednesday’s hearing and they claimed to not recognise that figure.

However, when pressed, they could not give what they believed to be the correct number.

This was the last straw for Dame Diana, who said after the “disaster” of the hearing with Sir Matthew, she expected better.

“I appreciate you are very new in post,” she said. “But equally, this committee is now getting to the point where I think it is incredibly disrespectful in the way the Home Office is treating members of parliament.”

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Mr Tomlinson tried to defend himself, saying while he aimed to be “constructive” with the committee, they should put forward “specific questions” ahead of appearances.

But this got short shrift from the chair, who said: “Asking questions on how many people have been returned who came by small boats is not the kind of thing I would expect to have to give notice of to the Home Office for.

“If you come in front of a committee, we are going to ask you those questions, we all know this is a really typical issue, we are all concerned about it, we all want to know.

“You are grown-ups, you are politicians, you have been around, you know what the issues are.”

Sir Matthew’s letter also revealed the exact cost of housing asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm – a total of £22,450,772.

The permanent secretary also said an updated assessment of whether it was “value for money” would be released in the new year.

But Dame Diana said she was “flabbergasted” such an assessment hadn’t taken place already when the vessel is already in use.

Mr Pursglove said the word “updated” was important, insinuating assessments had already taken place.

But pushed for details on that, he again did not have the data, and just said using a barge was “undoubtedly a more cost-effective way” to house people than using hotels.