Just 408 non-Albanian small boat migrants returned home since 2020

The Home Office has revealed that only 408 non-Albanian small boat migrants have been returned to their home countries since 2020.

The figure emerged in a letter to MPs on the home affairs select committee (HASC).

Ministers have also revealed the full cost of the Bibby Stockholm asylum barge, moored in Dorset,

They disclosed it cost £22m, and said there had been no assessment of the vessel's value for money.

The number of returned asylum seekers emerged in a letter from Home Office officials, which revealed that since 2020 there had been 408 returns of non-Albanians who arrived by crossing the English Channel in a small boat.

Albanians made up a large proportion of small boat arrivals last year. Rishi Sunak reached an agreement with the Albanian government in December 2022, creating a new UK government unit to handle Albanian asylum cases and to remove them on regular flights.

The figure of 408 also excludes foreign convicted criminals, who the government is allowed to classify differently when they are returned.

HASC chair and Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson said the return number represented 0.4% of small boat arrivals.

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The letter said that, out of 51,813 returns of foreign nationals since 2020, 1,182 involved small boat arrivals including Albanians and foreign offenders.

Government figures show there have been more than 100,000 arrivals by small boat since 2020.

The letter also confirmed that the Bibby Stockholm barge, which has been housing some asylum seekers in Dorset, has cost £22,450,772.

An assessment of the value for money of the barge will not be published until the new year, it added.

'Mis-labelled'

Separately, BBC Verify has learned that the statistics watchdog plans to write on Thursday about an error in official figures which downplayed the number of asylum applications officials have withdrawn without the person's consent.

Officials told the committee that 17,316 people had their asylum claims withdrawn by the government in the 12 months to September.

However, when BBC Verify accessed Home Office data to examine this figure, it was unable to arrive at the totals quoted to MPs.

When asked, a spokesperson said a "technical error" had meant a large number of asylum application withdrawals had been mis-labelled as withdrawn by applicants, when they were actually withdrawn without their consent.

The Office for Statistics Regulation said it was "finalising a public letter" about the error.

On Wednesday, the committee questioned two newly-appointed Home Office ministers, Michael Tomlinson and Tom Pursglove, about an appearance last week by senior officials in the department.

Dame Diana called the previous meeting a "disaster" and said she had received the letter containing answers to the MPs' questions only last night.

Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson, who also sits on the committee, called the officials "slippery and disrespectful", and asked whether they should be "put into special measures".

Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Today's admissions from the Home Office show the truly appalling scale of Tory failure and chaos including a disastrously low level of enforcement in the asylum system.

"Just 1% of small boat arrivals since 2020 have been removed. Even for Albania, which is a designated safe country, only 5% have been removed - which is a shockingly low figure.

"At the same time, it is a disgrace that the government still doesn't know what has happened to more than 130 unaccompanied children."