Overview
- Government figures put the average enforced removal at about £48,800 per person, covering casework, charter flights, escorts and support after return.
- A Stansted-to-Paris charter that carried 32 men with 73 escorts and two paramedics could have cost up to £1.52 million, according to Oxford’s Migration Observatory.
- An HM Inspectorate of Prisons report says the men had arrived by small boat and were held at Brook House, Harmondsworth and Tinsley House, and it found the January removal ran smoothly after earlier flights used restraints on three resisting detainees.
- Under the reciprocal returns-for-refugees deal with France, 498 people have been sent back and 482 have arrived in the UK through the legal route.
- The Home Office cites close to £1 billion in asylum savings and nearly 60,000 returns or deportations since 2024, while opposition figures label the policy a failure as Channel crossings continue.