The Home Office used a chartered passenger jet to deport a single migrant to France at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds to the taxpayer. The Telegraph has the story.
The flight, in January this year, was the only flight consisting of a single migrant, although there was another passenger jet chartered to deport eight migrants to Poland in June last year.
The flights were among 74 planes chartered by the Home Office during a one-year period to deport foreign offenders and illegal migrants at an average cost of £186,000 per flight, according to Home Office data.
During the year from February 1st 2025 to January 31st this year, a total of 2,835 migrants were flown out of the UK at a total cost of £13.8 million, equivalent to nearly £5,000 per person.
The single-migrant plane was chartered to fly on January 7th this year. It is understood the migrant had complex physical medical needs.
The plane was originally scheduled to take migrants to France under the ‘one in, one out’ scheme, in which France accepts Channel migrants in return for sending a similar number of legitimate asylum seekers to the UK.
However, Home Office officials had to pull these migrants off the flight for undisclosed reasons, so it was decided to use it for the migrant with medical needs. Sources indicated the flight would otherwise have been wasted without any migrants being flown out under the charter agreement.
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “The cost of these flights equates to £4,485 per migrant deported, which means the system is not running efficiently. They should be getting far more migrants deported for this cost. You can fly on scheduled flights for a fraction of this cost.
“It is also noticeable that countries with high numbers of illegal immigrants and criminals do not feature at all. Where are countries like Jamaica, Nigeria or Iraq on this list? There are lots of foreign criminals and illegal immigrants from countries like those who need to be deported as well.”
The data do not include scheduled commercial flights that are also used to deport migrants. They also do not include the cost of security officers. They fly with the migrants and foreign offenders back to their home countries to prevent them from disrupting flights and ensure they are delivered safely to their destinations.
Worth reading in full.
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Where is the UK law which specifies who exactly is entitled to wear the burqa? Can a male wearing it claim he is identifying as a female and if not, why? Is the right to conceal facial identity in this way only granted to the female followers of Islam and if so, why? So many questions – the courts will be busy!
France…. You can drive there in a secure van via tunnel..
With Political Will the solution is easy. Simply announce that anyone who arrives here uninvited will receive NOTHING. —–Tomorrow none will arrive. There will be no need for deportations, hotels, barracks, HMO’s or millions of taxpayers money spent on this farce.
Indeed.
Political Will. Who’s he?
Dear Lord, no wonder our president is pointing out the UK’s weaknesses, over and over and over again. The country is one big catastroaphe.
Cheap, at the price.
Maybe we should start one of them GoFund me things.
If you want to get rid of an illegal @ £4,500 a pop, please chuck in a tenner…
Reckon we’d smash it, and have ‘em all out of here in a week.
Those responsible should be made to refund the taxpayer – and fired.
It is understood the migrant had complex physical medical needs.
I smell a rat. Unless those needs emerged after they arrived in the UK, how did they manage the arduous journey from wherever they came from?
I just caught a headline on the telly at my club, something about “anti migrant” protests. It’s a subtle and sly misrepresentation, to make it seem like the protesters are being horrid to vulnerable people. In fact the protests are against immigration and certainly in my case the anger I have is primarily directed at the authorities who encourage this and allow it to happen, and their sadly numerous cheerleaders among the public.
Personally I don’t care if they are delivered safely.
As long as they are delivered.
And as many as possible, as soon as possible.
If their country of origin won’t accept them deliver them as close as possible and point them in the right direction.
Do we need to microchip them to make sure they can’t sneak back or just have very limited immigration from a select few countries to make it almost impossible for them to sneak back?