Foreign criminals and failed asylum seekers will not be given more than £10,000 to return home, a Home Office minister has revealed. Shabana Mahmood wants to increase the amount given to immigration offenders, foreign convicts and those refused sanctuary in the UK to encourage them to leave.
And Border Security Minister Alex Norris claimed the payments – currently up to £3,000 – were “great value” because of the costs of accommodating illegal arrivals.
He insisted the handouts would not exceed £10,000 – though he refused to set an exact number.
But Mr Norris revealed, for the first time, that the Home Office will deport children born in the UK if their parents are eligible for removal.
He was speaking ahead of the first migrants arriving at Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre, which has been reopened as part of a drive to ramp up removals.
Mr Norris told the Express: “At the moment the kind of regime we’re talking about is in the order of about £3,000.
“We are looking at a possible pilot to increase that.
“The reality is, for the public, that is great value because someone needing to be in hotel accommodation for a long period of time is very expensive to the taxpayer and that’s before you get to all the associated costs for those hotels.
“Offering incentives for voluntary returns is good value for taxpayers, it makes that process easier and that’s why we want to see that happen.
“If there are ways of making sure that happens more often, then that’s what we are looking closely at.”
Asked if payments could reach £10,000 per migrant, Mr Norris insisted: “That’s not a figure I would recognise”.
Asked if it could be higher, the Labour minister said: “No.”
Every asylum seeker costs, on average, £30,000 a year in accommodation, food, clothing and emergency cash payments, the Daily Express can reveal.
And migrant families whose asylum claims have been rejected will be deported if they refuse cash incentives.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will forcibly deport families if they refuse to take the larger incentives, Home Office documents revealed.
Mr Norris said: “Already, we do a number of family returns. However, that hasn’t been part of the main Home Office approach, which means we are in a situation where we’ve got 700 Albanian families who are failed asylum seekers, they are a country that is a signatory to the ECHR and they are not being removed.
“That’s not right and we want those to be as voluntary as possible.
“We want those to be as seamless as possible.
“We are going to ramp up our appetite there. We’re working with those families and other families in the system that don’t have a right to be here, then they’ll be removed.”
Asked if that includes children who are born in the UK, Mr Norris revealed: “Yes, ultimately it will be everybody’s case on the merits under immigration law, but there are those circumstances and in those cases, people will be removed.”
Mr Norris was speaking at Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre, which the Home Office reopened as it tries to ramp up deportations.
Labour insists 50,000 foreign criminals, failed asylum seekers and immigration offenders have been removed since Sir Keir Starmer’s Government took office.
Up to 160 migrants will be detained at Campsfield in the first “phase” of the reopening. It will be expanded to 400 over time.
Small boat migrants will be amongst those held at the site, with the Home Office hinting that it could also be used for Keir Starmer’s “one-in-one-out deal with France”.
Officials said: “Detained individuals will be escorted to the IRC either directly from prison, a short-term holding facility after their illegal entry to the UK or following enforcement action such as illegal working arrests. They will comprise of foreign national criminals, immigration offenders, illegal small boats arrivals and failed asylum seekers.”
All of the first arrivals are understood to be foreign criminals.
Mr Norris, speaking to the Daily Express, denied Labour was struggling to deport small boat migrants.
The number of Channel migrants being deported has fallen to its lowest level since the start of 2023.
Only 2,272 small boat arrivals were turned in the year to September, down from 2,462 the previous year.
Mr Norris told the Daily Express: “I think it would be too early to see a trend there.
“You would expect, as the British people would, that we have a real prioritisation of foreign national offenders. We’ve done a lot of work in that space to get those removal numbers up.
“But, beyond that, we want to see failed asylum seekers of whatever route being removed from the country once they have no right to be here.
“A lot of the focus will go on those who come in small boats, but people who overstay their visas have to be removed as well.
“So, I don’t think I’d draw a trend at this point.
“We want to see significant increases in the numbers.”
Campsfield will have around 200 staff, including custody officers, educational tutors and “religious affairs colleagues”.
Mitie, the private company running the centre, said it will be the first “all-electric” IRC in the country, running off of “renewable electricity, heat pumps, and solar panels”.
