Amber Rudd scraps targets for removing immigrants from UK

Home secretary initially denied that quotas were in place

Amber Rudd has admitted that some immigration officers do use targets (PA)

The Home Office will scrap its targets for removing people from the UK, Amber Rudd has said.

The home secretary was forced back to the House of Commons to answer an urgent question from Diane Abbott, after it appeared that her comments to a committee of MPs contradicted evidence from another witness who said targets were in place.

After denying it less than 24 hours earlier, Ms Rudd admitted that some immigration officers do use targets for the number of people they should deport.

But she insisted she would no longer set them moving forward.

“I have not approved or cleared any targets for removals looking ahead, and looking ahead, I will not be doing that,” Ms Rudd told The Independent.

“I will be approaching having removals in terms of illegal immigration put in place, but I won’t be doing it with individual targets for different regions or areas.”

She claimed she had not been aware of any targets.

The instruction to scrap the target will now be be sent out from Immigration and Enforcement, a division of the Home Office.

But Diane Abbott, Labour's shadow home secretary, said she was "trying to blame officials" and the "direction will have come from the centre".

The overall target of reducing net migration to under 100,000 a year will however stay in place.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The Home Secretary has asked the Director General of Immigration Enforcement to ensure that local teams do not continue the practice of using targets."