There are “enormous difficulties” in deporting people, with insufficient resources being one of the problems

More than one million illegal immigrants are at large in Britain and most are unlikely ever to be removed, the former head of immigration enforcement told MPs yesterday.

David Wood said that there were “enormous difficulties” in deporting such people, with insufficient resources being one of the problems.

He also said the Home Office would struggle to meet the challenge of Brexit, including registering more than three million European Union citizens, without a boost in cash and manpower.

Mr Wood, who left the department in 2015, told the home affairs select committee: “There’s probably over a million foreigners here illegally at the moment. There’s a large number, so no one could ever remove those, really. What there needs to be is a consequence. [It] needs