The bodies of nine British victims of the Tunisian beach massacre were this afternoon being flown home, as the final UK death toll was confirmed at 30.

The Foreign Office said an RAF C17 transport plane was returning the remains of Lisa and William Graham, Philip Heathcote, Trudy Jones, Ann and James McQuire, Janet and John Stocker, and David Thomson to Brize Norton air base in Oxfordshire.

Eight Britons killed in the terror attack were brought back to British soil yesterday, and further flights are expected tomorrow and Saturday.

British nationals made up the majority of the 38 killed by gunman Seifeddine Rezgui when he opened fire on holidaymakers on a beach in the resort of Sousse on Friday - along with three Irish nationals, two Germans, one Belgian, one Portuguese and one Russian.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: “We now have all 30 British victims positively identified and we can say with a high degree of confidence that is now the final death toll of British nationals killed in this incident.”

As the hunt continued for accomplices believed to have helped Rezgui carry out the atrocity, the Tunisian government said it had arrested 12 suspects.

According to Tunisian officials, the gunman trained at a Libyan jihadist camp at the same time as the two gunmen who attacked the Bardo museum in Tunis in March, killing 22 people.