Overview

• ITV gained rare access to a removal flight carrying 47 foreign national offenders to Romania, with some given prepaid cards worth up to £2,000 under the Facilitated Return Scheme.
• The operation involved nearly 100 staff for roughly 50 deportees and was reported to cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds.
• A Home Office Freedom of Information response says it does not centrally hold breakdowns of voluntary‑return payments, prompting scrutiny of how public money is tracked.
• Shabana Mahmood defends the incentives as cheaper than continued incarceration and says deportations will be stepped up, including efforts linked to the limited UK‑France ‘one‑in, one‑out’ pilot.
• Three people scheduled to fly were removed from the manifest after late legal claims, with officials noting around 5,000 FNO removals last year and more than 10,000 foreign inmates currently in UK prisons.