The government is attempting to wrestle back the agenda today, after almost a week of explosive headlines about the Mandelson scandal.

The Home Office says that over 58,000 foreign national offenders or migrants were in the UK illegally have been deported since Labour took office in July 2024.

They say over 15,000 people in the UK illegally were deported, up 45%, while 8,700 foreign national offenders have also been deported.

However, 43,000 left voluntarily – much higher than the number of deportations.

And of those who left the UK, only just over 17,000 were asylum-related.

65,000 people have arrived in the UK on small boats since Labour took office.

The government has also announced this morning that a third African country, Democratic Republic of Congo, has agreed to take back their citizens who have arrived in the UK illegally after a threat to block visas if they refused.

Home Office minister Mike Tappp told Mornings with Jones and Melbourne earlier that the government said they’d go “harder and faster” in deporting people who have entered the UK illegally. 

“It takes time, of course, to process. But we’re going hard on this. We’ve said that we’ll ramp this up and we absolutely will. If you’re here illegally, then we will do our best to deport and remove you,” he said.

He also called an increase in deportations of foreign national offenders as “really important for public safety”.

But Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “Labour are not fooling anyone. They are barely removing any small boat immigrants – a mere 5%, hence why the boats keep coming.

“Labour are padding out the figures by bundling in voluntary returns, which make up the vast majority of returns,” he added.