Written question asked by Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 8 December 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 10 December 2008. It was answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern (Labour) on Wednesday, 6 May 2009 on behalf of the Home Office.

Asylum

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many asylum seekers were removed through (a) assisted voluntary returns and (b) enforced returns in each of the last five years.

Answer: The Home Office publishes statistics on the number of asylum seekers who were removed or departed voluntarily from the UK on a quarterly and annual basis.The latest published annual information for the last four years can be found in table 7a of the Control of Immigration: Quarterly Statistical Summary, bulletin"http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs09/immih408.pdf."Information prior to 2005 can be found in table 6.1 of the Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2007 bulletin"http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb1008.pdf."Published statistics on immigration and asylum are placed in the Library of the House and are available from the Home Office's Research, Development and Statistics Directorate website at"http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration-asylum-stats.html."

Secondary information