The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Chairman:
Mrs.
Janet
Dean
Bone,
Mr. Peter
(Wellingborough)
(Con)
Bottomley,
Peter
(Worthing, West)
(Con)
Carswell,
Mr. Douglas
(Harwich)
(Con)
Davies,
Mr. Quentin
(Grantham and Stamford)
(Lab)
Garnier,
Mr. Edward
(Harborough)
(Con)
Gibson,
Dr. Ian
(Norwich, North)
(Lab)
Hanson,
Mr. David
(Minister of State, Ministry of
Justice)
Howarth,
David
(Cambridge)
(LD)
Hurd,
Mr. Nick
(Ruislip-Northwood)
(Con)
Kemp,
Mr. Fraser
(Houghton and Washington, East)
(Lab)
Kilfoyle,
Mr. Peter
(Liverpool, Walton)
(Lab)
McDonagh,
Siobhain
(Mitcham and Morden)
(Lab)
Moffat,
Anne
(East Lothian)
(Lab)
Morley,
Mr. Elliot
(Scunthorpe)
(Lab)
Reid,
John
(Airdrie and Shotts)
(Lab)
Waltho,
Lynda
(Stourbridge)
(Lab)
Willott,
Jenny
(Cardiff, Central)
(LD)
Keith Neary, Committee
Clerk
attended the
Committee
First
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Monday 31
March
2008
[Mrs.
Janet Dean
in the
Chair]
Draft Early Removal of Short-Term and Long-Term Prisoners (Amendment of Requisite Period) Order 2008
4.30
pm
The
Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Mr. David
Hanson):
I beg to move,
That the Committee has
considered the draft Early Removal of Short-Term and Long-Term
Prisoners (Amendment of Requisite Period) Order
2008.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to consider the
draft Early Removal of Fixed-Term Prisoners (Amendment of Eligibility
Period) Order
2008.
Mr.
Hanson:
I welcome you to the Chair, Mrs. Dean.
I thank my hon. Friends for their presence and I look forward to a
useful and interesting debate with all the distinguished members of the
Committee.
Our purpose is
to discuss amendments to the early removal scheme for
determinate-sentence prisoners who are liable for deportation or
administrative removal from the United Kingdom. The orders clearly set
out our proposals to extend the scheme to enable foreign national
prisoners to be removed up to a maximum of 270 days early, rather than
the current 135 days. This is the first time that these specific
order-making powers have been used.
It might assist the Committee if
I set out the background to the early removal scheme and the way in
which it operates. As I am sure that hon. Members are aware, the scheme
applies to foreign national prisoners and has been operating
successfully since 2004. To date, more than 3,000 prisoners have been
removed to their country of origin under the scheme.
The scheme
applies only to those foreign national prisoners who can be removed to
their country of origin. Such prisoners benefit from the scheme only if
their removal from the UK can be given immediate effect. We have been
working to ensure that arrangements are in place to enable us to remove
prisoners to their country of origin.
It might reassure members of the
Committee to know that prisoners serving a life or indeterminate
sentence are not eligible to be considered for removal under the
scheme. Furthermore, under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act
1991, determinate-sentence prisoners serving a sentence of four years
or more for a sexual or violent offence are removed under the scheme
only if the Parole Board considers that they present an acceptable risk
to the community.
Details of prisoners removed
under the scheme will be placed on the Home Offices warnings
index. In the event that they return to the UK during their sentence,
they can be detected by a border control officer on
arrival at the UK border. They can then be returned to prison custody
until the point at which they would have been released had they not
been removed. I hope that that reassures the Committee about the
operation of the scheme.
Given the successful experience
of the past three and a half yearsparticularly our increasing
experience of, and success in, securing travel documents from overseas
countries and making other arrangements to enable us to remove
prisonerswe believe that the scheme can make an even greater
contribution to removing criminals from the shores of the UK.
As of December
2007, as hon. Members will be aware, there were more than 11,000
foreign national prisoners in the prison system, representing 14 per
cent. of the total prison population, and I know that that concern has
been echoed by members of the Committee. That is a significant
proportion of the prison population, and although the figure is low in
comparison with that in other European countries, it presents us with a
number of major challenges. The early removal scheme has a positive
impact on the prison population, as well as making a saving for the UK
taxpayer. The objective is that foreign nationals should face
deportation when they meet the relevant criteria and that deportation
should happen at the earliest point in their sentence. The proposals
are therefore consistent with Government policy and are of help in
dealing with the issue.
On the specifics, the Criminal
Justice Act 1991 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 give the Secretary
of State powers to remove foreign national prisoners from prison early
for the purpose of removing them from the UK. The scheme is known as
the early removal scheme, and to qualify for it, a prisoner must be
liable for deportation or administrative removal in accordance with
immigration legislation.
The orders
amend the relevant provisions in both Acts to expand the removal scheme
to enable foreign national prisoners liable to deportation or removal
from the UK to be removed from the prison and hence the UK at an
earlier point in their sentence than is currently the case. The orders
increase the maximum number of days at which a prisoner may be removed
from 135 days before the halfway point of their sentence to 270 days
before the halfway point of their sentence.
The early
removal scheme provisions under the 1991 Act apply to
prisoners who are liable to be removed and are serving a sentence of
less than twelve months, or a determinate sentence in respect of an
offence committed before 4 April 2005. The order also provides that a
prisoner liable to removal who is serving less than three years must
serve a quarter of the term before being removed from prison.
Therefore, prisoners serving less than three months will be eligible
for the early removal scheme, whereas under the current provisions they
are not. The provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 apply to
determinate-sentence prisoners who are liable to removal and are
serving a sentence of 12 months or more in respect of an offence
committed after 3 April 2005. Section 260 contains the relevant early
removal provisions, which are similar to those in the Criminal Justice
Act 1991.
The draft
Early Removal of Fixed-Term Prisoners (Amendment of Eligibility Period)
Order 2008 will amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to expand the early
removal scheme to enable the removal of foreign
national prisoners from prison up to 270 days before the end of the
custodial period. This is the first time that the order-making power
has been used. The order replaces the current time limit of
135 days with 270 days, which gives the Secretary of State the power to
remove from prison a person who is liable to be removed up to 270 days
before the halfway point of their sentence. Prisoners serving three
years or more will be eligible to benefit by the maximum period of 270
days.
Broadly speaking,
I hope that the changes will be welcome to hon. Members. I am sure that
they will note that there is a great deal of concern about the question
of foreign national prisoners. I believe that the scheme will be
welcome and that it will assist with early removal, an objective that
is shared by the
Opposition.
It
will be clear to hon. Members that the Secretary of State is looking to
amend primary legislation by instruments subject to the affirmative
procedure while the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill is being
taken through Parliament. That Bill will amend the same provisions,
albeit in different ways and with different effects. I hope that hon.
Members will appreciate that, subject to their approval, these
instruments will come into force before the Bill, which is being
considered in another place. I expect it to return to the House of
Commons very shortly, but I want to ensure that we gain the maximum
benefit from this extension to the early removal scheme as quickly as
possible.
I commend the
statutory instruments to the Committee and hope that hon. Members will
support
them.
4.37
pm
Mr.
Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con): Welcome to the
Committee, Mrs.
Dean.
The Government
have come forward with interesting and important statutory instruments.
As the Minister said, they deal with the early release of foreign
national prisoners. As my noble Friend Lord Henley said in the other
place on Thursday, we will not oppose either measure, so if any of the
10 Government Members serving on the Committee wish to release
themselves early, that is entirely up to them. On the day when the
Government are launching the saving of Mayor Livingstone, I
congratulate the Government Whip on managing to persuade eight Back
Benchers to come to the Committee, rather than going out and saving
him.
First, I ask the
Minister whether these provisions are genuinely designed to get foreign
prisoners out of our jails and back home because that is the right
thing to do, or to empty our prisons, the population of which is now
some 82,000 strong. As we all know, there has been a vast increase in
the number of prisoners accommodated in the prison estate since 1997.
The number of people in custody has gone up from just more than 60,000
in 1997 to more than 82,000 in the past few weeks. Our prison estate is
no longer capable of sensibly and humanely incarcerating, let alone
accommodating, those
people.
The figure that
the Minister was not quite able to speak was over 14 per cent, in that
foreign national prisoners represent more than 14 per cent. of our
prison population. If that is not something that needs to be dealt
with, I do not know what is. As of last
December, there were 11,310 foreign nationals in prison establishments
in England and Wales. That includes those held under the Immigration
Act 1971, including those in the immigration removal centres of Dover,
Haslar and Lindholme, as well as those held on remand or serving
custodial sentences.
As
of 31 December 2007, the largest foreign national population was made
up of Jamaican nationals, with 1,278 people from Jamaica contributing
to the prison population. Jamaica was followed closely by Nigeria,
which provided us with 1,146 people in custody. The Republic of Ireland
provided us with 639, Vietnam with 460 and Pakistan with 406. Since the
Government came to office in 1997, there has been an increase of 152
per cent. in foreign national prisoners, compared with an increase of
only 55 per cent. in British nationals in our
prisons.
In
October 2007, the Government were required to reveal that two British
prisonsCanterbury and Bullwood Hallwere exclusively
dedicated to accommodating foreign national prisoners. As I understand
it, other prisons will be re-roled for that specific purpose before
long. Perhaps the Minister would care to identify them when he replies
to the debate.
Her
Majestys chief inspector of prisons has found that, since April
2006,
many more
ex-offenders have been detained in prisons by
IND
the
immigration and nationality
directorate
after
the end of sentence; and some who had been living law-abiding lives in
the community after their release from prison were arrested and
re-detained. This has placed further pressure on an already overcrowded
prison
estate.
Surprisingly,
at December 2005, there were only 2,153 EU nationals in our prisons,
although I suspect that the figure has gone up a bit since then. I
would not be at all surprised if the number of EU nationals in our
prison estate was getting close to, or even exceeding, 50 per
cent., given the greater number of countries in the EU and the
necessary consequences of freedom of
movement.
Three years
ago, HMIPHer Majestys inspectorate of
prisonsadvised the Home Office that, because of the lack of
basic communication and co-ordination between the IND and the Prison
Service, since 1999, at least 1,023 criminals had been freed from
prisonand possibly hundreds more from secure
hospitalsafter completion of their sentences instead of being
deported to their home countries. In July 2002, the Prison Service
issued an instruction
removing
the blanket ban
on the categorisation and allocation to open conditions of prisoners
subject to enforcement action under the Immigration
Act.
It seems to us that
both those matters added to the problems that successive Home
Secretaries, and now the Justice Secretary, have had to face when
managing the overall prison population, particularly the foreign
national prison population, as well as in relation to public confidence
in the criminal justice system and our prison
system.
The Government
have confirmed that they do not know how many foreign nationals have
escaped or absconded from prisons in England and Wales in the past 10
yearsperhaps they ought to. In addition, despite what the
Minister told us, they have made slow
progress in deporting foreign prisoners whose sentences have expired. On
19 February 2007, approximately 1,300 time-served foreign nationals
were still in either the IND removals estate or
prison.
The
administration of foreign national prisoners does not inspire much
confidence. For example, criminals from Ukraine and Belarus are not
identified as such on prison IT systems but are described as
Russians, even though those two states have been
independent of Russia for the past 16 years. Other examples are almost
as
egregious.
This
is almost funny, but it is not. At the end of September 2007, there
were 919 prisoners in England and Wales whose nationality was not known
by the Government. I tabled a written parliamentary question at about
this time last year because information came to me from somebody who
worked in the Prison Service suggesting that some people within the
prison system claimed that their nationality was that of Antarctica. I
was happy to persuade them that that was not the case and that the
prison system did not contain any residents of Antarctica. However,
lack of confidence in the Governments handling of both the
domestic and foreign national prison population is such that it is
hardly surprising that those sorts of stories get
around.
I urge the
Government, after 10 years, to stop being surprised by their own
incompetence and to start doing things. Although the measures are
welcome, they are being introduced for entirely the wrong reason: to
empty an overcrowded and disorganised prison system. There should be a
much more strategic approach to such issues, as the Minister recognises
only too
well.
4.46
pm
Jenny
Willott (Cardiff, Central) (LD): I have a few comments to
make and a couple of questions to ask the Minister, to which I hope he
will respond when he sums up the debate. I shall not be opposing the
orders today on behalf of the Liberal Democratswe did not
oppose them in the upper House. The hon. and learned Member for
Harborough mentioned my first point, which is on prison overcrowding.
My second point is on access to legal aid and legal advice specifically
in relation to the orders.
As has been said, clearly, the
orders are an attempt to reduce the overcrowding in prisons. New
figures out today show yet again a new high in the UK prison
population. As we have already discussed, 14 per cent. of that
population are foreign nationals. Although around 1,000 were removed
last year under the scheme, it was quite a small proportion of the
82,000 prisoners. The difference in numbers that the measures will make
is likely to be small. Lord Hunt of Kings Heath stated in the other
place that the Government expect the measures to save only around 235
prison places, which is a remarkably small number. Will the Minister
confirm that that is the Governments estimate or whether they
feel that the measures will make a bigger difference? That number seems
paltry.
I believe that
the prison population needs to come down, but the measures seem to be a
small sticking plaster for such a large problem. If the Government are
keen to drive down the prison population, other ways
would be far more successful and effective such as, for example,
tackling the problem of mental health in prisons. Some 70 per cent. of
male inmates and 72 per cent. of female inmates have two or more mental
health disorders; and 20 per cent. have four or more; yet only 1 per
cent. of the prison population are moved into secure mental health
units every year, which seems to be a complete waste of resources.
Tackling that problem would be a much more effective way of bringing
the prison population
down.
What
reductions in the prison population does the Department expect to see
as a result of the changes, and when will the measures have an impact
on the numbers? Will the Minister also address my personal concern that
it will not be long before any benefit of the increased number of
prisoners who are eligible under the scheme is completely overtaken by
the natural growth of the prison population, given its current
rate?
On access to
legal advice, as the Minister will know, prisoners who are eligible for
removal under the scheme are allowed to appeal their removal or
deportation but, in the process, they must sacrifice their right to
early release. The Border and Immigration Agency noted that as of
November 2007, some 1,500 prisoners whose early release deadline had
expired were still in prison. Presumably, many of them had chosen to
appeal and had therefore lost the right to early release. Foreign
nationals have a stark choice between appealing and losing their right
to early release, and going home to serve the rest of their sentence in
their country of origin, or accepting a decision and being removed.
Given that that is a stark choice, I would be grateful if the Minster
could assure the Committee that the increased number of prisoners who
will be eligible for the scheme will have full and timely access to
decent legal advice, rather than having to make the judgment by
themselves.
I would
also be grateful if the Minister could indicate the average time it
takes for a foreign prisoners appeal to be heard so that we
have an idea of how many of the 1,500 prisoners whose early release
deadline has expired are in prison because they are waiting for their
appeals to be heard. Having made those points, I will support the
orders, but I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on those
points.
4.50
pm
Mr.
Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab): I rise briefly
to remind the Minister that he has great support for these initiatives
from the Government side of the Committee. He will recall the situation
when the Labour Government came into office and how the then Home
Secretary was waging war on the head of the Prison Service. Not only
was there a failure to apprehend people such as Azil Nadir, a
well-known Tory party donor, but he seemed to enjoy lifeand
still doessomewhere in northern Cyprus, despite the fact that
the Conservative party refused to restore the money to the
administrators of Poly Peck. I mention that simply because I am
perplexed by the comment made by the hon. and learned Member for
Harborough. He appeared to say that the Government are somehow at fault
for having increased the number of successful convictions of overseas
criminals in this country by 152 per cent. I would have thought that
that was something to be applauded.
Mr.
Garnier:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, of whom I am
a great admirer, for allowing me to intervene, but I think that he
missed my pointperhaps it is my fault for not making it clearly
enough for him. The point that we all need to consider is not that the
police and the courts have apprehended those criminals, but that the
Government appear to have done nothing about the number rising so high
as a proportion. The only thing that they have done is re-role a number
of prisons that are required for British nationals who have committed
crimes, so we are now in the parlous state where the prisons are
dreadfully
overcrowded.
Mr.
Kilfoyle:
I am afraid that I take a very different view
from that of the hon. and learned Gentleman, because I see the
Government as being the victims of their own success in making the
provisions available for the courts so that the police can go out and
apprehend those people and then get a successful conviction. My right
hon. Friend the Minister ought to be esteemed, along with his
colleagues, past and present, for the efforts that are being
made.
4.53
pm
Mr.
Douglas Carswell (Harwich) (Con): I welcome any measure
that will remove foreign criminals, particularly any measure that will
remove them earlier, but I am not sure that these measures will do so.
Rather than an early removals scheme, is not it in fact an early
release scheme? For this scheme to work, measures need to be in place
to ensure that people who are removed do not simply return. If people
are removed from this country, what steps are in place to ensure that
they will not simply come back? The Minister claims that the Home
Office warnings index and UK border controls will ensure that those
removed do not return, but unfortunately that ignores the fact that the
UK does not have effective border controls. It would be a case of easy
go, easy come back in.
The Government are simply not in
a position to give assurances that those removed to foreign
jurisdictions would not then be at liberty to try to come back in, as
there are few effective border controls. How many serious criminals who
have been removed under the scheme have re-entered the UK? I suggest
that the Minister simply does not know and that this is more a question
of deport and hope. The real motive for the orders is not to get tough
on criminals or deport more of them; it is to make space in UK jails.
The Government have not built enough prisons, there are not enough
places in UK jails, and the orders are a cynical attempt to create more
space.
4.55
pm
Peter
Bottomley (Worthing, West) (Con): Will the Minister tell
us in which order events take place? I am working on the presumption
that prisoners do not apply for early removal, but that it is the
result of administrative action in the Prison Service: a foreign
prisoner becomes eligible for consideration, and that consideration
takes place whether or not the prisoner asks for it. I also presume
that the prisoner is not asked for permission, but that contact is made
with their country of origin to ask, Will you issue travel
documents so that this person will be accepted if we put them on a
plane or train and send them back?
Is contact
with the country of origin the first thing that happens, or is the
prisoner told that they will be considered for early removal before
that contact is made? What would happen to someone who left their
country of origin at the age of six months before spending the next 20
years in a different country? What counts as the country of origin: the
place where they were born, the place where they first held nationality
or the place where they currently hold nationality? If the Minister
does not find it convenient to answer those questions at the moment, I
should be grateful to have a letter stating what
happens.
My last point
deals with paragraph 7.5 of both sets of the helpful explanatory notes,
which refers to prisoners who
present an acceptable risk to the
community.
Presumably
that refers to the community here or in their country of origin. There
would be no point putting it in the explanatory memorandum if there
were no possibility that a person released from jail and sent abroad
would be free in this country, or is there some gap to which the
paragraph is
relevant?
4.57
pm
Mr.
Hanson:
I thank hon. Members for their contributions. I
shall deal with them in turn. I am grateful to the hon. and learned
Member for Harborough and the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central for
their support of the order. I am also grateful to my hon. Friends not
only for supporting me but for remaining in the Committee when the
Opposition indicated that they could leave. It is a great pleasure, and
it shows the power of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden
in her capacity as a
Whip.
The hon. and
learned Member for Harborough mentioned a figure of 14 per cent. for
the proportion of foreign nationals in the prison population of England
and Wales. Although that figure is high and I am not content with it,
it is significantly lower than in many other European nations. There
are a considerable number of countries with much higher proportions of
foreign national prisoners than us, and I am happy to inform him of the
detailed
figures.
Mr.
Garnier:
It is very kind of the Minister to make that
offer. His noble Friend the Lord Hunt of Kings Heath provided the
figures in the other place last Thursday. I am not entirely sure that
they are particularly relevant or helpful; what we are concerned about
is the 14 per cent. of our prison population. Other countries may well
have higher or lower proportions of foreign nationals in their prison
populations, but what is important is whether we do the right thing in
this country.
Mr.
Hanson:
I shall come to that in a moment, but it is
important that we place the point on record, because one of the
criticisms that we face from the hon. and learned Gentleman is that
there has been a rise in the number of foreign nationals in the prisons
of England and Wales. The 14 per cent. figure is accuratethere
were 11,211 foreign nationals in prison in Septemberbut it
compares with 43 per cent. in Austria, 42 per cent. in Belgium, 23 per
cent. in Denmark, 36 per cent. in Estonia, 21 per cent. in France, 28
per cent. in Germany, 42 per cent. in Greece, 20 per cent. in Portugal,
33 per cent. in Spain, 27 per cent in Sweden and 69 per cent in
Switzerland, so although it is a
problem
Mr.
Hanson:
I am just putting this in context. Although there
is a problem, it is a problem shared by other countries in the European
Community. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton pointed
out, that is entirely down to the fact that more offenders than ever
are being brought to justice, that people are being given longer
sentences more than ever, and that there is a greater detection rate of
offences than in the past. Those are signs of success in the difficult
areas that we face.
Peter
Bottomley:
All those assertions might be true, but this is
not the right place to test the proof of them. It is clear from the
Ministers list that other countries would be able to benefit by
taking the kind of action that the Government are proposing under the
orders.
Mr.
Hanson:
I accept that. As I have already said, I am
grateful for the support of Committee members from all parties for the
orders.
The hon. and
learned Member for Harborough asked me whether the orders have been
introduced for the purpose of doing the right thing, or simply for
prison expediency. It is right to ensure that individuals serve their
sentence in their home countries, or are deported from this country at
the earliest
opportunity.
The hon.
and learned Gentleman will know, because we debate such matters
regularly, that the United Kingdom has prisoner transfer agreements
with some 100 countries. He will also know that we are in the process
of negotiating further prisoner transfer agreements with some of the
countries from which there are big foreign national prisoner
populations, such as Vietnam, Jamaica and Nigeria. He will also know
that there are countries with which there are difficulties in securing
a prisoner transfer agreement, such as Iran and South Africa. However,
he will also know that we are doing all that we can, and increasing our
efforts, to secure the early removal of prisoners by either prisoner
transfer agreement, or the early removal scheme that we are
discussing.
The hon.
and learned Gentleman asked whether there were further plans to re-role
prisons in England and Wales. I am not aware of any further plans. We
never rule anything out, but there are no current plans to re-role
further prisons for foreign national
prisoners.
The hon. and
learned Gentleman mentioned the number of foreign national time-served
prisoners in prison, which was 389 as of 25 March, and the number of
European-area prisoners in England and Wales, which was 2,503 as of the
last day of 2007. I am grateful for his support and I hope that he will
continue to take an interest in such matters because I believe that the
Government have a good story to tell about them. Work with the BIA
estate has resulted in a massive increase in the deportation of
prisoners over the past few years. Indeed, in 2007, the BIA removed
over 80 per cent. more foreign national prisoners than in
2006. That was a major achievement in difficult times and under
difficult
circumstances.
The hon.
Member for Cardiff, Central raised some important points. First, she
mentioned the question of prison building programmes. The policy that
we are discussing will save approximately 235 additional
prison places, once fully implemented, but it is not being introduced
for only that purpose. We are doing this to try to ensure that foreign
national prisoners serve their sentence abroad as part of the foreign
national transfer programme, or are released under the scheme to return
to their country. It is also being done, to refer to what the hon.
Member for Harwich said, to put in place secure defences to ensure that
those individuals do not return to the United
Kingdom.
I said that a
number of significant steps are in place, through the Home Office and
the Border and Immigration Agency, to ensure that individuals are
tested prior to deportation so that if they return to the United
Kingdom by legitimate means at airports, ports or other points of
entry, they will be picked up by the appropriate machinery and returned
to prison. The deterrent effect of that means that individuals do not
return to the United
Kingdom.
There have
been two instances of individuals being deported to the Irish Republic
and returning to the United Kingdom, although they were picked up and
returned to prison after that information came to light. However, those
instances related specifically to the fluidity of the border between
Northern Ireland and Ireland. I am not aware of any other instances to
date out of the 3,000-odd cases in which individuals have been
returned.
The
hon. Member for Cardiff, Central suggested that this was a prison
population-saving measure. She referred to alternative options
involving mental health, prison building, and community sentences. We
are urgently making progress on those matters. My noble Friend Lord
Bradley is examining mental health. We have a major prison building
programme of £1.3 billion over the next three years and
£2.5 billion over the next six years. Only six weeks ago, I
opened HMP Kennet near Liverpool, which is almost in the constituency
of my hon. Friend for Liverpool, Walton. That prison was commissioned
last year by my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts,
when he was Home Secretary. We have a major prison building programme
and there is major investment in mental health. There are other
measures to reduce the prison population. The purpose of the orders is
to deal with foreign national prisoners, but they will also have an
impact on the prison
population.
The hon.
Member for Cardiff, Central mentioned legal representation. All
prisoners will receive whatever legal representation they are due, as
under normal practice. The order will not change any representation or
legal requirements that those individuals have had to date. I do not
have to hand the figures on the average time for appeals to be heard,
but I will write to her on that point, if she will allow
me.
Jenny
Willott:
I would also be grateful if the Minister would
indicate how many of the 1,500 prisoners who are still in prison after
their early release date are waiting for appeals to be heard, and how
many are there because they decided to appeal and therefore lost their
right to early
removal.
Mr.
Hanson:
I will certainly look at that. Most time-served
foreign national prisoners in jails in England and Wales are there
because we are waiting for
space in the BIA estate, which is run by the Home Office, to become
available for their deportation to their country of origin. To answer
the point made by the hon. Member for
Southend
Peter
Bottomley:
Worthing.
Mr.
Hanson:
Apologies. The hon. Member for Worthing, West has
changed constituencies. I almost called him the hon. Member for Eltham,
which shows how long we have been here. That is one of the problems of
longevity.
Our job in
the Prison Service and in the Ministry of Justice is to ensure that the
moment an individual within the foreign national estate has served
their sentence, and is time-served, we remove them to the BIA estate,
which prepares them for deportation. As of 25 March 2008, we
hadas I mentioned in response to the hon. and learned Member
for Harborough389 time-served foreign national prisoners in our
estate, whom I am anxious to remove. We are in discussion with the BIA
about doing that as soon as possible. The Prime Minister has been
extremely focused on removing people from the BIA estate to countries
of origin. We have successfully met the target that he set of removing
4,000 people by December
2007.
The
hon. Member for Worthing, West asked whether a prisoner gets opted in
to the early removal scheme. He also asked about the order of
precedence of that administrative scheme regarding receiving countries.
Prisoners who are liable for deportation or administrative removal from
the UK cannot opt out of the schemeit is compulsory. They are
opted in before contact with the receiving jurisdiction is made. That
has the advantage that prisoners know that they are potentially to be
deported at a set point in their sentence, so they can
begin to make plans for that with any family and contacts that they have
back home. Those serving longer sentences will know the deportation
date with certainty, and we have an opportunity to progress that
deportation as early as
practicable.
The hon.
Gentleman also mentioned paragraph 7.5 of the explanatory notes, which
refer to risk to the community. He asked whether that community is here
in the United Kingdom or abroad. Case law has established that the
Secretary of State must consider the risk to the public and that
extends to the public in both the United Kingdom and the overseas
jurisdiction. When a decision is made, that will be taken into
account.
I believe
that the scheme is valuable and I think that the Committee agrees. It
will increase the removal of foreign national prisoners. As my hon.
Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton said, I believe that it is
testament to our success in catching more criminals. I am sure that the
orders will be welcomed by not only Labour Members, but Opposition
Members. I commend them to the Committee.
Question put and agreed
to.
Resolved,
That
the Committee has considered the draft Early Removal of Short-Term and
Long-Term Prisoners (Amendment of Requisite Period) Order
2008.
Resolved,
That the Committee has
considered the draft Early Removal of Fixed-Term Prisoners (Amendment
of Eligibility Period) Order 2008.[Mr.
Hanson.]
Committee
rose at ten minutes past Five
oclock.