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.
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