Only 1% of small boats arrivals are sent back with just 1,182 removed from the UK since 2020, stark figures show

• Previous statistics quoted by Rishi Sunak said there had been 5,000 removals

Just one per cent of small boat migrants who have reached Britain since 2020 have been removed by the Home Office, figures reveal.

New data disclosed to MPs showed only 1,182 out of 111,800 arrivals from across the Channel have been kicked out of the country in three and a half years.

A letter to the Commons’ home affairs committee from Home Office permanent secretary Sir Matthew Rycroft showed 762 of those removed were Albanians – equivalent to 0.7 per cent of the total arrivals.

A further 420 were other nationalities – or 0.4 per cent of the total.

Of the 1,182 removed from the UK, 142 were criminals, the letter showed. It is the first time the Government has provided a detailed breakdown of the number and demographic of small boat migrants who have been removed.

Just one per cent of small boat migrants who have reached Britain since 2020 have been removed by the Home Office, figures reveal (Pictured: Home Secretary James Cleverly)

Previous statistics quoted by Rishi Sunak and the Home Office said there had been 5,000 removals in all.

However, this included other types of migrants such as failed asylum seekers who may have been in the UK for years and criminals who had served time in British jails.

Illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson told the committee he wanted to ‘see those figures as high as possible’.

He added: ‘As far as I’m concerned the numbers need to be significantly higher than they are.’

It also emerged that the Home Office has spent almost £22.5 million on the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge. The vessel, berthed at Portland in Dorset, is housing more than 200 migrants and was the scene of a suspected suicide by an asylum seeker earlier this week.

It remains unclear whether the barge is providing cheaper accommodation than migrant hotels, which currently cost the taxpayer £8 million a day.

Sir Matthew’s letter said an assessment of whether the vessel offered value for money was ‘currently being updated’. Legal migration minister Tom Pursglove said the cost was ‘undoubtedly’ cheaper than housing asylum seekers in hotels.

He said he believed the Home Office would meet its target – set by the Prime Minister a year ago – to clear the ‘legacy’ backlog of asylum claims by the end of this month.

New data disclosed to MPs showed only 1,182 out of 111,800 arrivals from across the Channel have been kicked out of the country in three and a half years (File Image)

Sir Matthew Rycroft’s letter showed that of the 1,182 removed from the UK, 142 were criminals (File Image)

It has already been slashed from more than 92,000 to 18,366, according to the latest data. But Mr Pursglove added: ‘It’s fair to say that the legacy backlog has been quite complex, challenging, difficult cases.’

The Mail revealed last month that the number of asylum seekers winning refugee status in Britain has hit the highest level since records began in 1984, with nearly 39,000 claims granted in the year to September.

The proportion of asylum claims which are granted is now at 76 per cent, compared with just 34 per cent in 2002. Rates have rocketed in the last year as the Government introduced schemes to meet its pledge to clear the legacy backlog, made up of claims lodged before the summer of 2022.

Mr Pursglove said he expected the grant rate for applications will now ‘come down’.

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the removals figures showed a ‘disastrously low level of enforcement in the asylum system’.

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