{"id":121503,"date":"2023-12-13T19:09:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-13T19:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogcamlodipine.com\/?p=121503"},"modified":"2023-12-13T19:09:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T19:09:10","slug":"slippery-home-office-officials-have-misled-sunak-on-small-boats-figures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogcamlodipine.com\/politics\/slippery-home-office-officials-have-misled-sunak-on-small-boats-figures\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Slippery’ Home Office officials have ‘misled’ Sunak on small boats figures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lee Anderson blasts disrespectful Home Office<\/h3>\n

A senior Tory MP has raised questions over the information the Prime Minister is receiving after a car crash session for Home Office ministers and officials in front of a powerful Commons committee.<\/p>\n

Conservative Dudley North MP Marco Longhi pointed to indiscrepencies over figures on returns of illegal Albanian immigrants quoted by Rishi Sunak and the ones presented to the home affairs select committee.<\/p>\n

In a quote made by the Prime Minister on December 7 last week about the small boats crisis and used on the Government website, he said that 5,000 Albanians had been returned this year.<\/p>\n

But according to figures presented to MPs, only 762 Albanians have been returned since 2020.<\/p>\n

Mr Longhi pressed the issue at a fiery meeting of the committee, where new immigration ministers Tom Pursglove and Michael Tomlinson were making their first appearances since being appointed three days ago.<\/p>\n

Click here to join our WhatsApp community to be the first to receive politics news from The Express<\/b><\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong> The inside story of Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda meltdown \u2013 and how it all unravelled<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The row has called into question information used by the Prime Minister from the Home Office to justify his controversial Rwanda Bill to allow deportation flights to take off to the East African country after they were blocked by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

At a breakfast meeting with potential Tory rebels ahead of the second reading vote yesterday, Mr Sunak had pointed to Home Office modelling to explain why his Bill would work.<\/p>\n

Pressed on the issue by Mr Longhi, Home Office director of immigration and borders Dan Hobbs said that the 5,000 referred to the overall number of Albanians who had been deported not only those who had arrived on small boats.<\/p>\n

But not satisfied, Mr Longhi pointed out that the Prime Minister had been specifically referring to small boats.<\/p>\n

He read out the line from Mr Sunak: “Last year, a third of all those arriving in small boats were Albanian. This year we have returned 5,000 people and cut those arrivals by 90 percent.<\/p>\n

“And Albanian arrivals have far more recourse to the courts than anyone under this new legislation. That\u2019s why I\u2019m so confident that this Bill will work.”<\/p>\n

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