Fury as Labour tries to block report revealing migrant crimes by nationality

The Labour Government has been accused of trying to block a report on migrant crimes from being released. The Ministry of Justice has launched legal action to prevent the publication of crime statistics by nationality.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered the department to release conviction data from between 2018 and 2024, which the department is now appealing.

The Centre of Migration Control (CMC), a think tank, requested data on violence, sexual offences, drugs, arson, criminal damage, weapons, theft, and robbery under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Ministry of Justice has argued that the data would be too expensive, exceeding the £600 per request limit, and could risk identifying individuals,

The Information Commissioner has rejected the reason cost, saying the department didn’t adequately justify this wirth a cost estimate. It did agree that releasing very small data points could be a privacy risk, telling the department to only release results of five or more.

In response, the Government has appealed to the First-tier Tribunal in an attempt to avoid releasing the data. The new Education Secretary, Lucy Powell, says the “migrant crisis” is nothing but a “dog whistle”.

The CMC has said that the data would be the most comprehensive release of “immigrant crime data” in British history, pledging to challenge the appeal.

Robert Bates, research director at the CMC, said: “The country is being ordered to hear no evil, see no evil, and ignore the daily slew of news reports that show the barbaric activities of some hotel residents.”

Reform’s Zia Yusuf said it was “obvious” why the government would do this: “The Tories and Labour want to cover up the impact of their immigration betrayal. As Home Secretary, I would publish this data immediately. The British people deserve the truth.”