ROBERT BATES: I've used every method available to get Labour to reveal the real number of serious crimes committed by migrants in Britain. Now, they're taking legal action to block me... it's a complete cover-up

Published: 00:32, 22 July 2026 | Updated: 00:32, 22 July 2026 Two asylum seekers were given lengthy prison sentences last Wednesday for raping a woman on Brighton beach, while a third who filmed the attack has also been jailed. Two days earlier, an Afghan migrant admitted the ‘frenzied’ killing of a man, as well as stabbing his landlord and a teenage boy while in a ‘psychotic state’. A month before that, an asylum seeker who raped a ‘particularly vulnerable’ 18-year-old woman in a park in Nottinghamshire was jailed for ten years. As people digest with horror what feel like daily reports of horrendous attacks carried out by foreign incomers, is it any surprise voters now regularly cite immigration and crime as among the most important issues facing the country? But our new Prime Minister appears to be blind to such problems. During the long weeks of his protracted coronation, Andy Burnham made no effort to address these concerns. Both topics were conspicuous by their absence from his Makerfield by-election campaign and his re-appointment of Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary suggests his tenure in No 10 will simply herald more of the same. His first policy pledge, to ‘end’ homelessness, made no mention of the fact that this is a problem driven in large part by migration and the asylum system. The tent cities which now dominate streets up and down the country often contain large numbers of migrants, with the proportion in London approaching 50 per cent, according to homelessness charity St Mungo’s. Meanwhile, footage of the thousands of young men who continue to cross the Channel in small boats only reinforces the increasingly widespread view that Britain is descending into lawlessness. Our new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, appears to be blind to two of the country's most pressing issues – immigration and crime Thousands of men continue to cross the Channel in small boats but, says Robert Bates, there remains a chronic lack of official data that would enable us to hold the Government to account Robert Bates says knowing whether or not certain nationalities commit crimes at a greater rate than others, would be beneficial as we could adjust our visa policy accordingly And when people hear that the Home Office has been unable to deport yet another foreign offender convicted of serious crime, they cannot help but feel something has gone terribly wrong. But despite a perception that migrants are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime, there remains a chronic lack of the sort of official data which would enable us to call the Government to account. Other European nations regularly publish crime statistics by nationality and immigration status, including the Left-wing government of Denmark. There, figures from Statistics Denmark show that, while legally resident foreigners made up 11 per cent of the population in 2024, they committed 25 per cent of murders and 26 per cent of rapes. Yet here, in a nation that prides itself on transparent democratic debate, our political class has made no attempt to give the electorate similar information. There have been calls from MPs such as Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick for the Home Office to present an annual report to Parliament, setting out the nationality and visa status of convicted offenders. Yet as recently as last October, Labour MPs voted down an amendment to the Sentencing Bill that would have required the Government to do just that. And following the appointment of a new Justice Secretary on Monday, the chances of this information being made available appears more remote than ever. Alex Norris – whose time as Border Security minister saw nearly 30,000 Channel crossings – is unlikely to commit to the release of data that will shine a spotlight on the consequences of his own failure. Even before the October vote, it was clear the Government had no intention of producing any meaningful facts and figures on migrant crime. This was why, in June 2025, the Centre for Migration Control (CMC) – of which I am research director – submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the Ministry of Justice in a bid to extract the necessary data. Our request called for the publication of the number of convictions for each offence type, broken down by the self-described nationality of the offenders, for the years 2018 to 2024. This data does exist. Indeed, it is sitting on the Police National Computer. Some of it has been published before but only split into broad offence groups, such as ‘violent’ or ‘sexual’ crime. Unfortunately, these groups mask the severity of specific crimes contained within them. A drunken shouting match in the street, for example, would fall into the same category as infanticide. What the country deserves to know is how many of the most serious crimes – such as murders, rapes and weapon offences – are committed by people who should not be in our country. The information requested by the CMC would have been the single biggest, and most detailed, release of migrant crime data in British history, and would have enabled us to answer these questions. Unfortunately, while the Ministry of Justice – then under the leadership of David Lammy – recognised that the release of this data was in the public interest, it rejected the request on the grounds that there was a remote risk of a foreign national offender being identifiable by the release. It did not explain how, it simply asserted it as fact. Two internal appeals failed and so the CMC lodged a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Britain’s data watchdog, in late July 2025. It was accepted in August, and an investigation was commenced in March this year. Under the leadership of David Lammy, the Ministry of Justice rejected requests for the release of migrant crime data – something the Centre for Migration Control had asked for Initially, the Ministry of Justice refused to engage with the process, with the result that the ICO was forced to take enforcement action in May via an ‘Information Notice’ that legally compelled the MoJ to provide it with the information. Upon receipt of that data, the ICO ruled last month that the Government ‘has not demonstrated’ how an individual could be identified by the release of the information requested. It added that the MoJ had also ‘failed to demonstrate’ that the cost of providing the data would be disproportionate. It duly ruled that the MoJ ‘disclose the requested information’. A landmark victory, you might think. But, even now, the Labour Government is refusing to agree to the publication of the data. Last week, nearly a year since the FoI request was first submitted, the Government Legal Department declared its intention to appeal this ruling to experts known as the first-tier tribunal, adamant that its initial – unproven – concern over protecting the rights of foreign criminals was the right one, and doubling down on its claim that the costs of producing the data would be excessive. It is clear it intends to use the might of the state to stop this data seeing the light of day. The publication of this data matters. If Labour is going to argue that it is ramping up the deportation of foreign national offenders, then we need to know how many there actually are and whether the numbers being removed are sufficient. Right now, there are roughly 20,000 foreign crooks wandering Britain’s streets, a number that has been allowed to surge in recent years due to a lack of accountability. If certain nationalities commit crime at a greater rate than others, knowing this would allow us to adjust our visa policy accordingly and, when appropriate, introduce blanket bans on immigration from certain countries. None of this is possible without migrant crime data. This is a legal battle that gets to the heart of voters’ concerns. The fact that we have a Government going to these lengths, on such spurious grounds, to carry out a cover up shows just how great the chasm is between Westminster and the country at large.