Section:GDN 1N PaGe:5 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 20:29 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Wednesday 31 July 2019 The Guardian •Dream home 5
Ownership now out of
reach for the young
Page 12Sterling slump
Pound’s slide hit s
holidaymakers
Page 14UK spends £250,000 on fl ights to
deport people, but none take off
Diane TaylorThe Home Offi ce has spent more than
£250,000 on charter fl ights to deport
people in the last three months with-
out a single plane leaving the runway.
About 12,000 migrants are for-
cibly removed from the UK each
year, with a further 20,000 removed
through the voluntary returns route.
Approximately 2,000 of those forcibly
removed are put on planes privately
chartered by the Home Offi ce.
The government has used charter
fl ights regularly since 2001 to remove
people to countries including Alba-
nia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Ghana.
After a pause following the Windrush
scandal , charter fl ights to Jamaica
controversially resumed in February
this year.
Between October 2016 and May
2018 more than 80 charter fl ights tookoff. According to research by Corpo-
rate Watch , Mitie has a 10-year, £524m
contract to provide security guards for
Home Offi ce charter fl ights.
In March this year, the Home Offi ce
was forced to suspend charter fl ights
following the launch of a high court
challenge by the charity Medical Jus-
tice. The charity argued that the Home
Offi ce’s policy of not informing people
of exactly when they will be removed
is unlawful because it fails to give peo-
ple time to instruct lawyers and gather
new evidence that may prevent their
removal.
At a preliminary high court hearing
in March, Mr Justice Walker issued an
injunction ordering the Home Offi ce
to suspend its policy of removing
migrants from the UK without ade-
quate warning until the policy could
be fully considered by the court.
The judge said: “There appears to be
grounds for real concern about access
to justice.”The injunction required the Home
Offi ce to give 72 hours’ notice and full
fl ight details. A full hearing was held
in June and a judgment is awaited. It is
understood that the Home Offi ce’s use
of charter fl ights resumed on 11 July.
The three-month suspension of the
fl ights has been revealed in Freedom of
Information requests obtained by the
organisation No Deportations.
In the response the Home Offi ce
confi rmed that £268,463 had been
spent on charter flights in April,
May and June of this year although
no fl ights ha d taken off during that
period.
The response states that this fi g-
ure does not include escorting costs.The Home Offi ce declined to confi rm
whether those costs were for penalties
for charter fl ights that were booked
but not used.
A spokeswoman for End Depor-
tations said: “Any pause is welcome
in the process of secretive and brutal
mass deportation fl ights. While it’s
shocking that the Home Offi ce was
spending hundreds of thousands of
pounds when the fl ights were not run-
ning, it’s even more shocking that this
controversial and inhumane practice
is still happening at all.”
A spokesman for No Deportations
said the group ha d been monitoring
deportation charter fl ights since the
Home Offi ce began the operations in- “This is the fi rst time that the
Home Offi ce has gone three months
- April, May, June – without a single
charter fl ight. We were aware that
there were charter fl ights scheduled
for April which were cancelled at short
notice.”
A Home Offi ce spokeswoman said:
“The Home Offi ce makes enforced
returns by both charter fl ights and
regular scheduled fl ights. Charters are
an important means to return foreign
national off enders and immigration
off enders where there are limited
scheduled routes or where returnees
may be disruptive.”
▲ The vegan sausage roll, launched in
January, has driven Gregg s’ successPower of fl owers Jennie Humphries, a horticulturist, makes fi nal preparations on blooms for
the 10th anniversary fl ower show at RHS Garden Hyde Hall, which begins today. The garden, near
Chelmsford, Essex, is open from 10am to 6pm until Sunday, and is an extravaganza of summer
colours. Experts are on hand at the show to off er advice to green-fi ngered visitors.PHOTOGRAPH:
OLIVER DIXON/RHSGreggs plans
late opening
after vegan
sausage roll
lifts profi ts 50%
Sarah ButlerThe baker Greggs unveiled ambitious
expansion plans yesterday, including
moves to open a number of shops until
9pm off ering evening meal deals. A t
the same time, the UK’s largest bak-
ery chain underlined the power of the
product that has become a moneyspin-
ner and its not-so-secret weapon: the
vegan sausage roll.
Greggs handed shareholders a £35m
special dividend after profi ts jumped
more than 50% to £40.6m in the six
months to 29 June, a performance
driven by the unexpected success of
the sausage roll launched in January.
Sales at established stores leapt
10.5% as the chief executive, Roger
Whiteside , said the vegan roll had
helped change the perception of
Greggs from “an old -fashioned bakery
from the north” to a “modern food -on -
the -go brand ”.
Whiteside said Greggs had now
overtaken Starbucks to become the
UK’s third largest takeaway coff ee
seller, behind Costa and McDonald’s,
as total sales for the chain rose 14.7%
to £546m.
One in eight new customers bought
a vegan sausage roll, which has over-
taken some doughnuts and other
pastries to become one of the chain’s
best sellers. Traditional sausage rolls
remain the number one item , however.
More vegan products are in develop-
ment, although Greggs is not revealing
details yet. After a small test, Greggs
is also planning to open a number of
sites across the UK until 9pm, off er-
ing evening meal deals and hot food.
“We want to see whether or not
people will choose Greggs instead of
another fast -food outlet, a takeaway or
going home and heating up lasagne in
the microwave,” Whiteside said.
“We want to try and do the same
for evening as we did in breakfast. We
weren’t in breakfast a few years ago
and now we’re number two [in the
takeaway market].”
Shares in Greggs slid more than 5%
to £22.56 as the company said it was
not upgrading profi t guidance for the
year, after a series of upgrades.t s
12,
The number of people forcibly
removed from the UK yearly, 2,
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