Migrant crime rates are being covered up, says Robert Jenrick

The former Home and Communities Secretary has tabled a proposed law that would require the government to submit a report to Parliament every year detailing the nationality, visa and asylum status of every offender convicted of crimes in England and Wales in the last 12 months was convicted in courts.

That would reflect an approach taken by some U.S. states and Denmark, where rankings compiled using government data show that crime rates in the top four nations – Kuwait, Tunisia, Lebanon and Somalia – are eight times higher than those of Danish nationals.

This follows a Telegraph investigation at the weekend which revealed how hundreds of Albanians crossing the Channel on small boats have helped their drug gangs gain a grip on the domestic cannabis market. More than 700 have set up a secret channel on Telegram to discuss tactics and methods.

Mr Jenrick believes publishing data on migrant crime would allow the Home Office to tighten visa and deportation policies for nationalities linked to higher crime rates in the UK.

Tom Tugendhat, the shadow security minister and Tory leadership contender, is understood to support the plan to give ministers the ability to make decisions on immigration rules, movement agreements and working with other governments on deporting criminals .

A source said: “The Home Office should provide clear and transparent data on this.”

“Disproportionate costs” of extracting nationality data

Neil O’Brien, a former minister, has tried to obtain citizenship data from the Home Office, the MoJ and the ONS, but was told his requests could only be answered at “disproportionate cost”.

He said the Home Office had collected significant amounts of data on arrests by ethnicity, but not by nationality. It also would not answer questions about the immigration status of detained aliens.

The MoJ publishes the nationality of foreign prisoners – 10,000 of whom are in British prisons – but will not provide further analysis, such as the number of high-frequency offenders, as they would be required to compare their data with that of the Home Office link. “It could only be provided at a disproportionate cost,” the MoJ said.

Mr O’Brien said even the most basic data was missing because the ONS had told him there was no longer a breakdown of the UK population by nationality.

He said: “Number 10 and the Home Office should get to grips with this and launch a cross-Whitehall push to improve migration data and bring it together.”

Mr O’Brien said that as minister he and Mr Jenrick had initiated a joint project to obtain more accurate estimates of migrant use of the NHS, which had led to an increase in health surcharges charged to migrants.

He said: “We simply can’t have a meaningful conversation about migration if we’re constantly deleting the data.”

James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch, the other two Tory leadership contenders, have been contacted for their views.