Official league tables displaying nationalities of migrants with the highest rates of crime are set to be published for the first time in Britain. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has reportedly ordered officials to publish the detailed breakdown of offences committed by foreign criminals living in the UK while awaiting deportation. Unofficial tables have previously been published, but civil servants have resisted an official tally, arguing it would be too difficult to provide quality data.
So why the change of heart? The answer, it seems, is good old party politics. A Labour source is quoted as boasting in the Daily Telegraph:
‘Not only are we deporting foreign criminals at a rate never seen when Chris Philp and Robert Jenrick were in charge at the Home Office, but we will also be publishing far more information about that cohort of offenders than the Tories ever did.’
Given the Conservatives’ record on both Whitehall transparency and deporting foreign criminals, such gloating is not entirely undeserved – even if Cooper’s table might not be launched until Christmas.
Still, there are good policy reasons to publish this data too. Cooper’s counterpart in Copenhagen runs a similar league table, which shows that the foreign crime rata is higher than that for Danish nationals. A migrant league table will allow the Home Office to introduce enhanced screening for visas and guide the department’s returns policy. Data could be used in diplomatic talks to help secure deportation deals similar to the agreements with Albania for fast-track removals and prisoner transfers. It can also inform policing agencies’ response to foreign crime gangs.
Data on nationality will lead to the kind of difficult conversations which many government MPs have deliberately sought to avoid. Ministry of Justice data suggests that Afghans and Eritreans were more than 20 times more likely to account for sexual offence convictions than British citizens. Such statistics prompt a conundrum for pro-migration Labour MPs, concerned about women’s safety. Cooper’s league table is designed to nullify attacks by Reform and the Tories. But will her government have the courage to provide answers to the thorny questions which it provokes?
Unsurprisingly, the man leading on all this has been Robert Jenrick – the hunter-submarine killer of the shadow cabinet. Jenrick has established form in this area: he called for nationality tables in a CPS report last May with fellow Tory MP Neil O’Brien. As a backbencher, he tabled an amendment to the-then Tory government’s Criminal Justice Bill – opposed by, among others, Chris Philp, then in the Home Office. Yet Philp has since happily joined his fellow frontbencher on this new crusade: part of an established pattern of Tory MPs following in Jenrick’s wake.
Within minutes of the league table being announced, Jenrick was out on X declaring victory. It is the kind of politicking which has propelled him to the top of the ConservativeHome rankings, at a time when many of his colleagues are drifting into obscurity. He will hope to follow that up with wins on the Islamist prison gangs and an expansion of his ‘two-tier’ attacks on Labour. All that, alongside a packed planned diary of Tory dinners, fundraisers and other local events. Just where does he find the time…?
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