Serious questions have been raised over 'what the Government is hiding' by not coming clean on the scale of foreign offending

David Lammy's Ministry of Justice is waging a legal battle to stop detailed migrant crime rates being made public.

The MoJ is trying to overturn a ruling by the Information Commissioner (ICO), the information watchdog, which would lay bare the scale of foreign offending in England and Wales from 2018 to 2024.

The Centre for Migration Control had filed a Freedom of Information request to uncover those figures, asking the department to publish the total number of convictions by nationality, broken down by those offences, for those seven years.

The MoJ, however, said revealing the truth would be too expensive, and some of the figures would breach the privacy of some of those offenders.

Last night, Mr Lammy's department admitted to The Telegraph it was in the process of appealing the ICO's ruling.

It is appealing to the General Regulatory Chamber, a first-tier tribunal which hears challenges against decisions by Government regulators.

But the MoJ was soon accused of a "cover-up" by Robert Jenrick - it denied one was underway.

"The cover-up continues," Mr Jenrick warned. "Successive Tory and Labour justice secretaries have refused to publish this basic information.

"A Reform Government led by Nigel Farage would immediately blow the lid on what's really happening and begin deporting these dangerous criminals."

The research director of the Centre for Migration Control, Rob Bates, has vowed to use "every available means" to expose the truth.

"It is clearly in the public interest for this information to be released," he said.

"It is astonishing that the Government is going to the courts in an effort to fight against such important transparency, and raises serious questions as to what they are hiding."

And Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy said: "Labour have consistently refused to publish sex crime data by nationality, even though we know migrants from some countries are much more likely to be convicted of rape and sexual assault.

"Why are they trying to appeal against releasing the data? Do Labour just want to cover up the truth about foreign national offenders?"

In a letter last week, Mr Lammy rejected his shadow counterpart's call for the full data to be published.

MIGRANT CRIME LAID BARE - READ MORE:

In the past, the MoJ has released figures which account for all sex offences - but failed to reveal how many migrants are convicted of specific crimes including rape, murder and arson since 2018.

Department data showed migrants are behind one in seven sex offence convictions in England and Wales.

It has also revealed which nationalities account for the most foreign criminals in the nation - with Albanians right at the top.

Mr Bates's information request wanted a more detailed breakdown, however.

If the MoJ obliged, Britons would be told how many migrants specifically committed "rape" or "child sex abuse", rather than the broad "sex offences" category.

The same would go for "murder" or "manslaughter" instead of "violence against the person".

The Information Commissioner rejected the MoJ's claim it would be a disproportionate cost to provide the data.

"The Commissioner acknowledges that the request is wide in scope and involves the manipulation of a complex dataset," his office said.

"However, complexity alone does not obviate the requirement to provide a properly evidenced estimate.

"In the absence of a coherent explanation of how the estimate has been calculated, the Commissioner cannot conclude that the cost limit would be exceeded."

It also said the MoJ's claim that a full breakdown would risk identifying criminals could be easily worked around.

The MoJ could remove any offence with fewer than five convictions, and lump those together as one total.

The Home Office has publicised figures on asylum claims using this method before when contacted by GB News.

But in his letter to Mr Timothy, Mr Lammy said the MoJ already published a "range of statistical breakdowns" on foreign offenders, and it keeps its publication options under "continuous review".