The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds) I beg to
move, That the draft Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Removal of
Prisoners for Deportation) Order 2023, which was laid before this
House on 16 October, be approved. Last week my right hon. and
learned Friend the Lord Chancellor made a statement to the House
setting out a number of reforms in which our sharp focus is public
safety. We will ensure that the worst offenders stay locked up for
longer; further...Request free trial
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice ()
I beg to move,
That the draft Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Removal of Prisoners
for Deportation) Order 2023, which was laid before this House on
16 October, be approved.
Last week my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor
made a statement to the House setting out a number of reforms in
which our sharp focus is public safety. We will ensure that the
worst offenders stay locked up for longer; further enlarge our
prison capacity, building on the recent growth that has been
achieved, which is unprecedented since the Victorians; and ensure
that that capacity is put to best use for public protection.
The removal of foreign national offenders is a priority for this
Government. Between January 2019 and March 2023, we removed
14,700 foreign national offenders from the country, but there are
still 10,000 FNOs in our prisons, each of them taking up a prison
place at great expense to the British taxpayer. While my
Department is working closely with the Home Office to increase
removals, there is still more that can be done.
As the Lord Chancellor set out in his statement, it cannot be
right that some of these individuals are sitting in prison when
they could otherwise be removed from the country. The early
removal scheme exists to deport foreign national offenders. This
means that any foreign national who is convicted of a crime and
given a prison sentence—with the exception of those convicted of
terrorism or terror-related offences—is considered for
deportation. We also remove foreign offenders through prisoner
transfer agreements, which enable prisoners to be repatriated
during their prison sentence. Those agreements also operate to
bring British national offenders back to the UK, and we currently
have over 80 such arrangements in place with other countries.
The early removal scheme—the subject of this debate—allows for
foreign national offenders to be removed before the end of their
sentence, subject to a minimum time being served. Once removed,
they are subsequently barred from re-entering the UK, and we are
clear that any illegal re-entry will see them returned to prison,
where they will serve the rest of their sentence. The draft
instrument before us today will ensure that certain foreign
national offenders can be removed earlier.
(Beckenham) (Con)
Could my right hon. Friend the Minister clarify that last point?
Is he saying that someone who is removed at the end of his or her
sentence cannot come back once they are free? They have served
their time here, and therefore, in principle, they have paid the
price for their crime, but if they go back to their country and
want to come back, they are not allowed to do so.
My right hon. Friend is correct that, when someone is deported in
this way, they are not allowed to return. Were there time
remaining on the sentence, as I outlined, that time would be
servable if they did come back illegally.
This instrument will ensure that certain foreign national
offenders can be removed earlier. We seek to extend the removal
window in the early removal scheme from 12 months to 18 months,
meaning that we would be able to deport an eligible foreign
national offender up to six months earlier, still subject to the
minimum required proportion of time having been served. This
builds on changes we introduced last year in the Nationality and
Borders Act 2022, which extended the maximum from nine to 12
months. As I just alluded to, we also added the “stop the clock”
provision, so that anyone removed from the UK under the early
removal scheme will have their sentence paused following removal
and reactivated if they illegally return to the UK at any point,
which means returning to prison to complete their sentence.
(Eastleigh) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is unsustainable that foreign
national offenders in our prisons are costing the taxpayer £500
million a year, and that the actions he is taking will ensure
that there are savings in the system, so that prisons can work
more efficiently?
My hon. Friend is exactly right about the significant costs
involved. It is expensive to keep somebody in custody, at an
average of £47,000 a year, and we want to make sure that the
British taxpayer is not paying unnecessarily for people who do
not need to be here and can be removed to their home country and
not be allowed to return. Extending the window to 18 months will
make it possible to do so for certain foreign national offenders
at an earlier point. In preparation for this change, the Home
Office is increasing the number of caseworkers to facilitate
those removals, and that is the central part of the combined
effort between the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office.
Mr (Old Bexley and Sidcup)
(Con)
On that point, does my right hon. Friend share my concern that
Opposition Members have previously tried to block the deportation
of dangerous criminals, and can he tell me what the Home Office
can do to ensure that does not happen again?
I very much share that concern. It is all very well for people to
say that they are in favour of making these removals, but their
actions have to follow their words. I am afraid that, all too
often, that is not what we have seen from Opposition Members, as
my hon. Friend rightly points out.
(North West Norfolk) (Con)
I think the Minister said that offenders sentenced to over a year
would be considered for deportation. Is it the case that there is
a duty to remove those offenders and that that would also apply
to anyone with EU settled status convicted for over a year—they
would be returned to their home country and barred from coming
back to the UK?
Of course, the rules are as per the broader immigration rules and
people’s citizenship rights. What we need to make sure is that,
at the earliest opportunity, we are making that move and
deporting those eligible foreign national offenders to their home
country. We estimate that this change will add around 300 foreign
national offenders to the early removal scheme’s eligible
caseload at any one time. In addition to that scheme, as I
mentioned, we have prisoner transfer agreements, including our
new agreement with Albania, which came into force in May last
year. We are looking to negotiate further such agreements.
We are a Government who are unashamedly tough on crime. By
removing more foreign national offenders earlier in their
sentence, we will be saving the taxpayer money, banishing
criminals from our shores, and ensuring we have sufficient prison
places to keep the worst offenders locked up for longer.
2.51pm
(Brentford and Isleworth)
(Lab)
I thank the Minister for his speech, and for a valiant attempt to
defend 13 years of failure, not just within our prisons but
across the wider criminal justice system. The Opposition will be
supporting this order—the change to the timing of release for
foreign national offenders—because the Government have got
themselves into a mess and, once again, it is the job of the
Opposition to help them get out of that mess. We will be
supporting this change because we are a responsible party, and
because we know that the crisis in our prisons needs to be
addressed. The order is a necessary measure to tackle the
overcrowding crisis in our prison estate. However, I want to make
it clear that it is a half-baked measure, cooked up in a panic in
the Department. It is a change that has neither been consulted on
nor planned, one that comes as part of a quick rush to address
the overcrowding crisis—a crisis that has been long coming, but I
will get on to that later.
Mr Deputy Speaker, we are both old enough to know that this is a
theme under Conservative Governments. I recall that, back in the
1990s, prisons were so poor that prisoners were escaping with
ease—the Conservatives are in such dire straits that they have
begun recycling their scandals. It is no wonder that the public,
having been through this, know what failure looks like. That is
what we are confronted with today: a failure to protect the
public, a failure to protect victims, and a failure by the
Government to ensure that our prisons have enough space.
I will cover three areas in my remarks: the lack of planning
around our prison population, the implementation of this new
programme, and the wider issues around victims. Let us first look
at the lack of planning. The overcrowding crisis in our prisons
has been looming for years, with the National Audit Office, the
Justice Select Committee and the Chief Inspector of Prisons all
having warned the Government about it. In 2020, the Government
were told specifically by the National Audit Office that they
were unlikely to be able to build the 20,000 prison places they
promised by the mid-2020s on time, yet the Government ignored
that warning. I guess those 20,000 prison places are in the same
place in the sky as the 40 new hospitals and 50,000 new
nurses.
Back in 2016, the then Conservative Prime Minister said of the
Prison Service that
“the failure of our system today is scandalous”.
If it was scandalous in 2016, I am not sure what word we would
need to use now—perhaps something rather unparliamentary. When
asked about this failure, the Government and the Ministry of
Justice will point to the new prison places they promised, yet
only around 25% of those places have been delivered. Plans for
new prisons have been delayed and I understand from a report in
The Guardian that one MOJ official said that badgers—yes,
badgers—were to blame for a delay in building a new prison. The
crisis has got so bad that the Government have been forced to use
police cells as alternatives to prison places.
We should also remember that this is not the first time that the
Government have made promises about the removal of foreign
national offenders. Back in 2015, the then Prime Minister, the
former Member for Witney, spent £25 million to help Jamaica build
a new prison—of course, like a lot of the promises he made, it
fell through. Successive Conservative Governments have made
promise after promise on foreign national prisoners, and those
promises have fallen through every time. This is not even the
first time that this policy has been looked at: we saw changes
regarding foreign nationals in recent legislation, and the
Government considered changes to the early removal scheme last
year.
The shadow Minister has mentioned overcrowding in our prisons,
which is a problem. As the Minister outlined, there are 10,000
foreign national offenders in our prison estate. I welcome the
fact that the shadow Minister will vote for the motion today, but
can she explain to this House why at every stage, her party has
voted against legislative measures to ensure that those people
are removed, which would remove the problem that she is
castigating us for?
I am new to this brief, but I do not believe that is the
case.
If the Government considered this change in the past, why did
they not introduce it back then? Did they think it was better to
wait for a crisis? We should remember that this prison
crisis—which has been looming for years—is having an impact every
day on prison staff, inmates and the victims of crime. We still
have prisoners having to use a bucket as a toilet in their cell.
We have prisoners locked up for 22 hours a day, and prisons so
understaffed that prison officers cannot even take prisoners to
the library or to classrooms for education. Education is so
essential to those prisoners’ rehabilitation, and for many of
them, it is a condition of their eventual release. It is no
wonder that the latest figures show that the reoffending rate has
risen: it now stands at 25% for male former prisoners. That cycle
of crime creates more victims.
I now turn to the detail of the order and its implementation. The
policy will require significant input from the Home Office, along
with the MOJ. As one prison governor has said,
“I expect it will require significant numbers of new Home Office
staff for this initiative to be effective.”
We understand that the Home Office already faces huge problems
with staffing, and I am sure I speak for many Members across the
House when I say that I do not have complete faith—or even much
faith at all—in the Home Office after the mess we have seen them
make over the past year. Nor can I say I have much faith in the
Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham
(), who always seems to be
auditioning for the role of the next Leader of the
Opposition.
We also know that this Government have talked a lot about foreign
national offenders, but after 13 years of Conservative rule, the
number of removals of FNOs has dropped by 40%. The Government
will point to the impact of covid, but in 2022, the Government
were removing around half the number of foreign national
offenders that they were pre-covid. What are the Government doing
differently this time? Whether they are removing foreign
nationals with 12 or 18 months left of their sentence, the point
remains that the Government still need to be able to remove
offenders from the UK.
I am sure the Minister will have prepared lines about the
Opposition and our approach, so I will give him advance notice
that we do have a plan. Labour would create a returns unit to
triage and fast-track the removal of those who have no right to
be in the UK, including foreign national offenders. We will
recruit an additional 1,000 Home Office caseworkers to tackle the
drop in removals that we have seen since the Conservatives
entered office in 2010.
Having looked at both the Government’s statement last week and
the memorandum attached to this statutory instrument, I could not
see any information about the estimated cost or the additional
resources needed, including for any legal costs or challenges to
deportation. The Government need to set out exactly how many more
caseworkers are needed and how much this plan will cost the
taxpayer. The prisons crisis is already costing taxpayers; for
example, over £20 million is spent on using police cells for
prisoners, and I suspect that number will rise. A running theme
from last week’s announcement is the large hole in funding. In
particular, the grossly overstretched probation service will be
expected to pick up a lot of the pieces from the Government’s
latest crisis.
I want to finish by speaking about victims, in the context of
both this statutory instrument and the wider criminal justice
system. As a party, we have been clear that we want a justice
system that works for victims, protects them from crime and
supports them. I have one question for the Minister: could
foreign offenders who commit violent or sexual offences be freed
to their home country up to 18 months early because of this
change? Will he take this opportunity to reassure victims that
that will not be allowed to happen? Victims of crime will be
worried that perpetrators will be released early. Over the past
month, I have heard from prison staff, probation officers,
inspectors, non-governmental organisations and so many across the
criminal justice system about just how much of a mess our prisons
and wider justice system are in, and that is because of 13 years
of Conservative misrule and mismanagement.
3.01pm
(Witham) (Con)
Last week, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of
State for Justice and Lord Chancellor announced a package of
measures to address offender management, and I thanked him for
his contribution and the proposals that he outlined. Importantly,
we spoke then, and I want to speak again today, about the removal
of foreign national offenders from our country.
It is absolutely right that the Government do everything they
possibly can to remove foreign national offenders, because they
are living in the UK—often on visas, and using our laws to keep
themselves here when they actually have no right to remain in
this country—while committing offences and posing a danger to the
public. That breach of public safety is a clear violation of
their right to remain in the UK. When an offender is convicted
and given a custodial sentence, it is a high bar to qualify for
deportation. Certainly during my three years as Home Secretary,
as the Minister mentioned, we deported around 12,000 foreign
national offenders, despite the pandemic and the travel
restrictions at the time. With each FNO deported, our streets and
communities become that little bit safer, and that is something
on which we should all be focused. Those who remain in this
country still pose a risk to safety. Sadly, we have seen some
come out of our prisons, stay in our communities and commit
further dangerous offences and serious crimes.
As Ministers on the Front Bench know, some in this House—I have
to say this quite starkly, particularly having listened to the
shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth
()—have campaigned on this year
after year. In December 2020, when I was Home Secretary, 70
Opposition Members wrote to me to stop a deportation flight to
Jamaica, and murderers, rapists, drug dealers—you name it—were on
that flight. Day after day, Home Office Ministers would come to
this House and do a valiant job in speaking about protecting the
public and why the people on these flights had to be removed. It
is quite shameful to hear such a level of denial from the shadow
Minister, which I simply do not think is at all acceptable.
I was lobbied, day in and day out—often through national
newspapers, I should add. Letters were even sent to me by those
on the Opposition Front Bench, in which they relentlessly
broadcast their support for criminals, as they did on social
media. They made the case for murderers and sex offenders staying
in our country and being able to live in our communities. They
made human rights claims to enable dangerous criminals to stay in
our country. They have shown more respect for and interest in the
rights of these dangerous criminals than those of the victims, or
in the public safety of people in our country. That is why I say,
as a former Home Secretary, that the Labour party can never be
trusted on law and order issues, or on offender management, and
its previous track record on them speaks volumes. Living in the
UK is a privilege, and those who come here, break our laws and
commit serious offences should expect to have their rights
removed and their liberty taken away. This is why we should be
unapologetic and robust in our approach to the removal of
FNOs.
The SI will enable FNOs to be deported directly from prisons
sooner—18 months, rather than 12 months, before release point. It
is vital that offenders be removed from our country. Of course,
everyone wants that, including the public, and victims in
particular. I spent time during my period in Government with the
victims of some of the most appalling crimes committed by FNOs,
and those victims’ lives are shattered when they see those
individuals not being removed from our country, but being left to
be released and to rebuild their life in our country at the
taxpayers’ cost, which is just wrong. I would like to ask my
right hon. Friend the Minister a series of questions about the
practicalities of how this scheme will work, as the change is
significant and has an impact on the punitive and deterrent
element of sentencing.
First, what consideration will the Government give to the impact
on a victim of the early removal scheme, and the measures
allowing release 18 months early? Many victims will expect an
offender to be in custody for as long as possible, as punishment
for their crimes, and they will have concerns about an offender
being released and enjoying freedom in the country of their
nationality. Victims of rape, sexual offences and other serious
offences will rightly have significant concerns about the
perpetrators of these horrific crimes effectively receiving back
a degree of their liberty. I have a constituent who was a victim
of such a crime, and prior to this measure coming in—under the
current arrangement, which allows release 12 months early—she was
concerned about the person who caused her the most appalling harm
being at liberty, even if no longer in this country, and she made
representations to me that the offender should not be allowed to
be released early. It would be helpful if the Minister spoke
about the practicalities of how these offenders will be
managed.
Secondly, I would welcome from the Minister details about the
communications that victims will receive. As we know, the Victims
and Prisoners Bill is going through this House. Many of us from
across the House have campaigned for it—in my case, for almost a
decade. It gives a welcome focus on victims, and I back the Bill
for supporting the rights of victims in the criminal justice
system and getting that system rebalanced. That Bill is coming in
because of the concern and frustration of victims, obviously
including the victims of FNOs. I hope that the Minister will
provide assurances and clarity about how victims will be
supported. They do get some communication, but they are heavily
retraumatised when they hear about those individuals being
released from prison, given the implications that that may
have.
Thirdly, given that some offenders will be dangerous, and will
show no signs of remorse or make any efforts to rehabilitate,
will there still be a process for keeping dangerous offenders
locked up, rather than eligible for early release?
Fourthly, can the Minister explain how the Government will deal
with the enforcement of this scheme when an offender—and I am
sorry to say this—makes human rights claims to try to block and
frustrate their deportation from the UK? Again, that brings me
back to the appeals I used to receive from the Labour party when
I was Home Secretary.
On the other measures announced by the Secretary of State for
Justice and Lord Chancellor last week, I hope that, in his
summing up, the Minister can give further details and assurances,
particularly on the offender management package and the proposals
for staffing. I appreciate that I am asking for specific
information on staffing, but that has implications for overall
offender management. This statutory instrument is of course part
of a wider package, and we are not discussing that entire package
today, but Ministers on the Front Bench will know of my concerns
about the possibility that we will see a repeat of what happened
under the early release schemes of the last Labour Government,
when offenders committed crimes and absconded. That caused
serious concerns and had serious implications for public safety.
I am looking for reassurance from the Minister about how the
Government’s approach will differ from that of previous schemes,
and how we will ensure that victims feel that justice is done,
and reassurance that there will be a solid effort to reduce
reoffending and its causes.
3.09pm
(Poole) (Con)
I congratulate the Government on bringing forward this statutory
instrument. The programme set out by the Lord Chancellor for
managing the prison population is proportionate and sensible.
There is a big backlog and delays in court because of covid;
having 10,000 foreign nationals in our prisons is very expensive,
and if we are to make place for others, this seems a logical
place to start. I have heard some people speak about the crisis
of having record numbers in prison, but we were elected to put
record numbers into prison, so most of my constituents will be
rather pleased.
We need to build more prisons, which we are doing, but the
planning system is sometimes painfully slow, and we need to
manage what we have. Foreign prisoners seem to be a sensible
place to start; we can clear out those places and send more
people to prison. What we have here is sensible, and if we work
through the measures announced by the Lord Chancellor, and are
given some of the reassurances that my right hon. Friend the
Member for Witham () asked for, I think
Conservative Members will be very pleased indeed.
3.10pm
(Bromley and Chislehurst)
(Con)
This is a perfectly sensible measure. I support it, as I hope
will the whole House. It is a modest measure that will not make a
vast difference, but it is worth while and part of an overall
very sensible package that the Justice Secretary announced. We
must be honest: the pressure in our prisons is the result of
decades of underfunding. All parties have responsibility for
that. It is not a question of blaming one Government or another;
there has been a long period of this. We must also level with the
British public: whenever we in this House demand longer prison
sentences, or to lock more people up, it comes at a cost to the
public purse. We must be up front with the public. Locking
someone up in prison is sometimes necessary for public
protection, but it is also exceedingly expensive, at £45,000 to
£47,000 or so per annum.
As well as introducing this discrete measure, and the other
measures in the package announced last week, we must think
seriously about who should be in prison. Prison ought to be for
those who are a threat or who are dangerous, but as anyone who
has dealt with the system will know—some of us have done so for
most of our working life—many people in prison are there because
of inadequacy or failures earlier along the track. There are
failures in education or in mental health, failures in parenting
or social services, and failures in a raft of other areas around
addiction and so on. People are there because their life is in a
mess. They have done wrong and committed crimes, and they
certainly need a degree of punishment, but lengthy periods of
prison are not the answer; that is a very expensive way of
dealing with things. We have to use prisons sensibly, and be
honest about the fact that a degree of rationing is required.
The SI takes a sensible approach, and as I think the Minister
will confirm, it does not alter the requirement that a prisoner
should have served at least half their custodial sentence prior
to release. The pre-release custodial period—the punitive bit—is
not changed by this measure, but once someone has gone past that,
we can bring forward their release date by 18 months, rather than
by 12 months. That is a modest and sensible proposal, but we need
a serious debate later in this House about the right way to make
use of an expensive, necessary, valuable, but very pricey
institution.3.13pm
(Eddisbury) (Con)
I remind hon. Members of my declared interest, in that my brother
is chair of the Prison Reform Trust. The statutory instrument is
a sensible step forward. A number of measures have been taken to
try to alleviate the pressure on our prison system, not least
given the large numbers—disproportionate numbers, one could
argue—of foreign nationals still in custody in England and Wales.
I support the statutory instrument, but I ask the Minister to
look at some of the agreements in place for prisoner transfer, to
see whether the SI will have an additional, hopefully positive,
effect on the statistics.
Last week, the Justice Committee meet an Albanian Minister who
was very receptive to the compulsory arrangement put in place
between our country and his. It seems that there is scope to go
further with some of the measures that we are introducing. Will
the Minister confirm how many of those whom we seek to remove
through these measures will be women, and how many will be people
in youth custody? It would be helpful to get those numbers as
part of the overall package, so that we can understand what
support and additional resources may be needed to ensure that the
removal happens in the appropriate way.
3.15pm
I am grateful for all the contributions to this SI debate,
including from the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth
(), the former Home Secretary my
right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (), my hon. Friends the Members
for Poole ( ) and for Bromley and
Chislehurst ( ), and my hon. and learned
Friend the Member for Eddisbury ().
The Chair of the Justice Committee rightly spoke about the need
to combine punishment and rehabilitation. Ultimately, the system
is for public safety, and both those sides are incredibly
important. He rightly said that we must use the system sensibly.
He asked me specifically to confirm that this measure does not
alter the minimum 50% of time in custody, and he is correct about
that. On the point about Albania, we need to make all our
prisoner transfer agreements work as effectively as possibly, and
with Albania we have a particularly good partnership. It is a
very innovative transfer agreement and I am sure there is further
that we can go. I will write soon to my hon. and learned Friend
the Member for Eddisbury on the question he asked about
women.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham rightly raised points
about victims, and victims must always be at the heart of what we
do. I confirm that the victim contact scheme applies in these
cases, and I confirm again that the minimum proportion of time in
custody also applies. It is not just that the sentence is longer;
the proportion of time served will be longer, and it is important
that we see that in the context of longer sentences. The average
sentence in custody is now considerably longer than it was in
2010. Critically, the move for some of the worst offences from
the automatic halfway release point to two thirds of the sentence
interacts with this measure, and means that many people will be
spending longer in prison than they would otherwise. Overall
there is discretion not to remove someone, and that is exercised
in certain cases.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth rightly pointed out
that the prison population has grown. She is correct about that.
Last week a comprehensive plan was set out by my right hon. and
learned Friend the Justice Secretary, which ensures that the
worst offenders will stay in prison for longer, and that we also
make best use of the capacity we have. The hon. Lady also talked
about overcrowding, and I gently remind her that prison
overcrowding is lower than it was at the time of the change of
Government in 2010, and that there are 2,000 fewer people in
overcrowded conditions in our prison population than there were
when the Labour party was in government. I also gently ask: where
are her Titans? If the Labour party’s build programme had taken
place as planned, many of these things would not have come to
pass.
The plan set out by my right hon. and learned Friend builds on
what has already been achieved, first in the rapid increase in
capacity that we have seen, with 5,000 places over the past year,
and tougher sentences for the worst offenders, and also with the
progress on rehabilitation and what has been done on drugs,
employment and housing. That has resulted in the reoffending rate
coming down. That is so important, because most crime is repeat
crime, and when the reoffending rate comes down, overall crime
comes down. That is exactly what we have seen.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth asked why we have not
done this before, and the answer is that we have, given the
changes that we made in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022,
including the stop-the-clock provisions, and the new prisoner
transfer agreements, including the agreement that I alluded to
with Albania. That combination of factors has seen an increase of
14% in the number of foreign national offenders removed recently,
year-on-year.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Removal of Prisoners for
Deportation) Order 2023 will extend the benefits of the scheme by
bringing forward the time from which a foreign national offender
can be removed. This draft instrument is a critical part of the
approach of the Ministry of Justice and Home Office to removing
foreign national offenders from our prisons and our country. It
will ensure that taxpayers’ money is best used to protect the
public, and I therefore commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
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