Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent assessment she has made of the number of illegal immigrants currently in the UK. [174731]

Mr Harper, Minister of State for Immigration [holding answer 8 November 2013]: It is not possible to accurately quantify the number of immigration offenders in the UK as by their very nature those that deliberately evade immigration control to enter and stay in the country illegally are not officially recorded until they come to light and are arrested.

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