David Lammy’s Ministry Reveals Why It Cannot Release the Nationalities of Migrants Who Commit the Most Rape Crimes in the UK

Fresh questions have been raised about what the Government may be trying to keep hidden after the Ministry of Justice launched a legal challenge to stop detailed figures on crimes committed by foreign nationals from being released to the public.

David Lammy’s Ministry of Justice is now appealing against a ruling that would require it to publish more detailed crime statistics covering foreign national offenders in England and Wales between 2018 and 2024. The case has reignited calls for greater transparency, with critics arguing that the public has a right to know the full scale of offending by nationality.

The dispute began after the Centre for Migration Control submitted a Freedom of Information request asking the Ministry of Justice to release the total number of criminal convictions by nationality over the seven-year period. The organisation also requested a detailed breakdown showing the specific offences for which people from different countries had been convicted.

However, the Ministry of Justice refused to release the information. Officials argued that gathering and producing the data would exceed the legal cost limit under Freedom of Information rules. They also claimed that publishing detailed figures could risk identifying individual offenders in cases where conviction numbers were very small.

Both of those arguments were rejected by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent watchdog responsible for enforcing Freedom of Information laws. The watchdog ruled that the Ministry had not provided enough evidence to show the request would be too expensive to fulfil and suggested that any privacy concerns could be addressed by removing categories where there were fewer than five convictions.

Despite that ruling, the Ministry of Justice has confirmed it is appealing the decision. The case will now be heard by the General Regulatory Chamber, a First-tier Tribunal that considers challenges against decisions made by Government regulators.

The appeal has prompted accusations from opposition politicians that ministers are trying to prevent important information from becoming public. Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick claimed the Government was continuing what he described as a cover-up, accusing both Conservative and Labour administrations of refusing to publish what he called basic information about foreign national offending.

Jenrick argued that the public deserves to know the facts and said a Reform UK government led by Nigel Farage would release the data and pursue the deportation of foreign criminals convicted of serious offences.

Rob Bates, Research Director at the Centre for Migration Control, also criticised the Government’s decision to appeal. He said the information was clearly in the public interest and questioned why ministers were willing to take legal action instead of complying with the Information Commissioner’s ruling.

According to Bates, the Government’s decision raises serious questions about why it is resisting greater transparency on such an important issue. He said the organisation would continue using every legal avenue available to obtain the figures.

Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy also questioned Labour’s position, arguing that ministers have repeatedly refused to release detailed crime statistics by nationality, particularly for serious sexual offences. He said the Government should explain why it is fighting to prevent the release of the information rather than making it available to the public.

In a recent letter responding to Timothy, David Lammy defended the Ministry’s approach, saying it already publishes a range of statistics relating to foreign offenders and regularly reviews what additional information should be released.

At present, the Ministry of Justice publishes figures showing broad categories of offending by foreign nationals, including overall numbers for sex offences. However, critics argue that these figures do not reveal how many people were convicted of specific crimes such as rape, child sexual abuse, murder, manslaughter or arson.

Existing Government data has shown that foreign nationals account for around one in seven convictions for sex offences in England and Wales. Separate official figures have also identified which nationalities make up the largest numbers of foreign offenders in the prison system, with Albanian nationals among the most represented groups.

The Centre for Migration Control says its request goes much further than the statistics already published. It wants offence-by-offence figures that would show exactly how many convictions there were for specific crimes, rather than grouping offences into broad categories like “sex offences” or “violence against the person.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office rejected the Ministry’s claim that the work required would automatically exceed the legal cost limit. The watchdog acknowledged that the request involved analysing a complex dataset but said complexity alone was not enough to justify refusing disclosure.

According to the ICO, the Ministry failed to provide a clear and properly supported explanation showing that the legal cost threshold would actually be exceeded.

The watchdog also dismissed concerns that detailed data could reveal the identities of individual offenders. It suggested the Ministry could simply combine any categories containing fewer than five convictions into a single group, preventing individuals from being identified while still allowing the majority of the information to be published.

This approach has already been used by the Home Office when publishing asylum-related statistics, allowing detailed information to be released without compromising personal privacy.

The outcome of the tribunal could determine whether the Ministry of Justice will ultimately be required to release the detailed conviction figures, a decision that is likely to remain at the centre of the wider political debate over transparency, immigration and crime.