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  6.  » Ministers don’t know how many illegal migrants are in Britain or the number using human rights law to avoid deportation

Rory Tingle – The Daily Mail Dec 5, 2025

Gaps in official migration statistics mean ministers do not know how many illegal migrants are in Britain or the number using human rights law to avoid deportation, research has found.

The University of Oxford‘s Migration Observatory flagged 10 major areas where information is lacking, including immigration enforcement and returns, and the size of the population living in the UK without papers.

The research also raised how it is difficult to understand how many immigration cases are affected by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which the Conservatives and Reform UK have vowed to leave.

Experts found there is little data to know who and how many people apply for and are granted permission to stay in the UK through the convention, or successfully appeal against their removal.

Director of the Migration Observatory, Madeleine Sumption, said: ‘The UK’s membership of ECHR is a major issue in public debate, in large part due to its impacts on migration policy.

‘But the current data can’t give us a clear picture of where and when it has most impact. This makes it harder for the public or policymakers to make an informed choice about an important decision with long-term repercussions for the UK.’

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, accused Labour of ‘hiding the very data the public need to understand what is happening to our borders’.

He said ministers were ‘refusing to publish key enforcement data and they avoid saying how many cases are affected by human rights law’ claiming that ministers were ‘keeping the country in the dark because the truth would expose how weak and incompetent their approach really is’.

The research comes as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced a series of reforms that aim to cut the number of people coming to the country.

As part of the asylum proposals, ministers will seek to bring in legislation to prevent human rights laws being used to frustrate deportations and make it easier to remove people.

Elsewhere, the Government will also make refugee status temporary, and refugees will have to wait 20 years before being eligible to apply for permanent settlement, instead of five years currently.

Asylum seekers whose claims are denied will be limited to make one appeal against their removal, instead of having the ability to make multiple challenges on different grounds.

One of the themes the Migration Observatory found in the study were poorly linked records for a person’s migration journey.

Senior researcher Peter Walsh said: ‘These evidence gaps are particularly challenging when trying to track asylum seekers through the immigration system: official data can’t tell us much about what happens to asylum seekers who are refused but not returned, or what type and sequence of appeals some people make when told they must leave the UK.

‘These are important questions, especially at a time when the Government plans to reorganise the immigration and asylum appeals system.’

The researchers however found promise for data improvement through recent pilots such as linking HMRC and Home Office immigration datasets, and changes from the Office for National Statistics on measuring net migration.

Research affiliate Georgina Sturge added: ‘The challenges the UK faces in properly getting to grips with migration data are often because the issue of migration is hugely complex and interacts with every part of society and Government.

‘IT systems that collect the records are often not up to the job.

‘That said, new approaches already being piloted have the potential to improve things significantly, and several recent investments are already bearing fruit.’

In a new announcement this week, the Home Office revealed that 60 delivery riders are to be deported from the UK after they were found to be working in Britain illegally

Large numbers of newly arrived migrants have been found to be working for takeaways companies – flouting a ban on paid employment for asylum seekers.

The Home Office said targeted action of workers in the so-called gig-economy, across the country, led to 171 arrests last month, including 60 detained for removal from the UK.

Those arrested included Chinese nationals working in a restaurant in Solihull, West Midlands, Bangladeshi and Indian riders in Newham, east London, and Indian delivery riders in Norwich, Norfolk.

Video footage released by the Home Office of wider action shows officers escorting an arrested man into the back of an immigration enforcement van, arresting another man by his bike in the street, and Ms Mahmood present at an operation in Streatham, south London.

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