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Repatriation: Expenditure

Asked by Ben Obese-JectyConservativeHome OfficeTabled Answered 14 July 2026UIN 16156

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the answer of 25 June 2026, to question 11993, what proportion of the voluntary departures were a) at the individual’s expense or b) at the expense of the public purse.

Answered by Alex Norris

The Home Office publishes data on returns in the ‘Immigration System Statistics quarterly release’. Data on the number of returns by type of voluntary return since July 2024 can be found in table Ret_D01 of the ‘Returns detailed datasets’.

The data shows since July 2024 there have been 50,712 voluntary returns, of which 33,366 were self-funded (‘controlled’) returns or departed the UK without informing the Home Office (‘other verified returns’) and 17,346 were made with assistance from the Home Office, including via the Voluntary Returns Service (assisted returns).

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