Clause
13
Consecutive
terms of
mprisonment
Mr.
Hanson:
I beg to move amendment No. 175, in
clause 13, page 9, leave out lines 39 to 41
and insert—
“(1A) Subsection
(1) applies to a court sentencing a person
to—
(a) a term of
imprisonment for an offence committed before 4 April 2005,
or
(b) a term of imprisonment
of less than 12 months for an offence committed on or after that
date,
as it applies to the
imposition of any other term of
imprisonment.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
Government amendments Nos. 176 and 179 to
181.
Mr.
Hanson:
The amendments are minor. They close a
minor loophole in the provisions on consecutive
sentences. The clause was intended to clarify the position on imposing
consecutive sentences on different occasions. However, on closer
inspection, and bearing in mind the fact that the provisions on
sentences of under 12 months in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 have not
yet commenced, it is clear that clause 13 does not yet cover the
restriction on consecutive sentences in cases where the new sentence is
one of less than 12 months imposed for an offence committed on or after
4 April 2005. The amendments will close that minor loophole and I
commend them to the Committee.
Amendment agreed
to.
Amendment
made: No. 176, in clause 13, page 9, line 46, at end
insert—
‘(5) Any saving by
virtue of which section 84 of the Powers of Criminal Courts
(Sentencing) Act 2000 (c. 6) (restrictions on consecutive
sentences for released prisoners) continues to apply in certain cases
(despite the repeal of that section by the Criminal Justice Act 2003)
shall cease to have effect.’.—[Mr.
Hanson.]
12.15
pm
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to consider new
clause 5— Consecutive terms of
imprisonment—
‘(1)
Section 181 (prison sentences of less than 12 months) of the Criminal
Justice Act 2003 (c. 44) is amended as
follows.
(2) For subsection (7)
substitute—
“(6A)
Where a court imposes two or more terms of imprisonment in accordance
with this section to be served consecutively, the court shall have
complete discretion to set the aggregate length of the terms of
imprisonment subject to a maximum of 65 weeks and may suspend all or
part of the total period of
imprisonment.”.’.
Mr.
Garnier:
The Minister mentioned that the under-12-month
provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 are not yet in force.
Clause 13(4)(b) refers to intermittent custody orders. As I understand
it, such orders—for “weekend prison” in colloquial
parlance—have been introduced and used with some success in
certain parts of the country. Under pilot schemes, certain Crown court
jurisdictions—and possibly magistrates courts as
well—have the power to sentence appropriate defendants to a
certain number of weeks in prison, breaking up the custodial period
into separate periods of non-consecutive days or weeks.
Most obviously, for example, a
single father who has committed a sufficiently serious offence to
warrant custody could, to ensure that his family is not broken up and
that he can continue with his job, be sentenced to serve a term of
imprisonment at weekends and carry on Monday to Friday being employed,
paying his rent and mortgage and looking after his children. At
weekends, care arrangements could be made for his children—they
could live with their grandparents, an uncle or aunt or some other
suitable person.
As I
understand it, weekend prison has been used in Manchester and Luton. It
has been used not only for single fathers but for single mothers who
have difficulties with employment and child care and whose children
might have joined the 150,000 children in this country who have a
parent in prison. We know that families break up and that mothers and
fathers lose
touch with their children; we know that reoffending rates rise when that
happens. When contact between the offender and the family is broken,
the chances of reoffending increase. Only one visit a year to an
offender by a family member correlates noticeably with a reduction in
reoffending. Intermittent custody, although it might still be in the
Criminal Justice Act 2003, is no longer in use. Unless I have got it
wrong and the pilot is being continued in other, discrete areas of the
jurisdiction, we need clarification whether intermittent custody is
still available for the courts. New clause 5 deals with the
imposition of consecutive sentences up to a maximum of 65 weeks. The
English in clause 13 is marginally better, but not much better, than
that in clause 12. Clause 13 seeks to limit the total length of
consecutive sentences to 65 weeks. New clause 5 would provide greater
certainty of discretion. I abide by the Government’s maximum of
65 weeks, but within that I give the court clear discretion, and
clearly expressed discretion, to set the appropriate length of
sentence. It gives the court the power to suspend all or part of the
total period in prison, which goes back to our debate on clause
10.
Often courts give
sentences for two or three offences that have to be
served at the same time—concurrent sentences. Sometimes if the
offences are different in time, for example if they took place in
January, March and July the court might think it appropriate for the
sentences to follow one after the other, which is called a consecutive
sentence. Under this provision, in the limited circumstances of clause
13, the total length of a sentence is 65 weeks, but the court should
not be hamstrung by the wording of clause 13 in such a way that it
cannot suspend or adjust the length of the total consecutive sentences
as it sees fit, having taken account, in essence but not precisely, the
factors to which I referred in new clause 4. I hope that is a
relatively simple point to grasp, that I have explained it in an
understandable way and persuaded the Committee that it is better than
the provision in the Bill.
Mr.
Hanson:
Again, I am grateful to the hon. and learned
Gentleman for his amendment. The clause is a technical amendment to
correct some anomalies relating to the position on consecutive
sentences in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It amends the 2003 Act in
respect of consecutive custody plus and intermittent custody sentences
and general restrictions on imposing consecutive sentences for release
prisoners.
The policy
intention is to underpin custody plus: there need to be two or more
sentences imposed consecutively, the resulting total sentence should
not be more than 65 weeks and of that 65 weeks a maximum of 26 weeks
custodial time should be imposed. The hon. and learned Gentleman is
correct in the sense that the Criminal Justice Act 2003 indicated the
direction of travel on these matters. We have had the pilots and as he
will know custody plus has been deferred. I am not yet able to examine
when we can bring the full potential of custody plus on stream but it
is still on the statute book and has not been removed; it remains an
option for us to consider. However, we must consider the current
priorities in respect of Government expenditure and proposals
generally.
The deferment of custody plus was
announced as part of the White Paper on rebalancing the criminal
justice system in July 2006. That is not to say that it will not be
introduced at a later date; we are content to consider it and I will
continue to keep it under review. However, clause 13 is about
consolidating the position based on the anomalies that have occurred as
a result of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
The hon. and learned Gentleman
would have us delete clause 13 and replace it with new clause 5 and he
has explained the reasons and thinking behind it. I simply say to him
that the new clause removes the current restriction on the amount of
aggravated sentence that can be delegated to custody, namely, 26 weeks.
I am not entirely clear whether that is the hon. and learned
Gentleman’s intention, because in real terms it will mean that
custody could be applied up to the present 65-week threshold, which
could mean a sentence of 65 weeks in prison if sufficient offences were
being sentenced
together.
The purpose
of custody plus and the 2003 legislation is to strike a balance between
custody and licence, to allow intermittent sentences and the general
restrictions that we have already discussed and to give courts the
discretion, which the hon. and learned Gentleman welcomed, and the
potential to help people to manage a sentence and life outside prison
at the same time. We are continually keeping that under review. We need
to examine it in light of our resource pressures and, as he will know,
the pressures on the Prison Service are intense at the
moment.
The purpose of
clause 13 is to bring the 2003 Act into line with the changes under the
Bill. I urge the hon. and learned Gentleman to reflect on what I said
and to consider whether he intends his new clause to be such as to
extend the potential for custody up to the maximum of 65 weeks. I do
not think that, on reflection, he would be seeking that so I commend
the original clause to the Committee and ask him not to press the new
clause to a
Division.
Mr.
Garnier:
I always reflect on what the Minister says and,
sometimes, I reflect it back at him. Today is not one of those
occasions, but I was interested in his saying that the purpose of
clause 13 is to bring the balance inherent within custody plus into
play. Well, custody plus is not in play, so there is no balance to be
struck. Intermittent custody—a different concept—has been
put in abeyance. We all understand the resource difficulties, but I
urge the Government not only when dealing with the Bill, but when
looking at the history of criminal justice legislation since 1997 not
to rush for headline solutions, but to think more carefully about the
implications of what flows from that
legislation.
Let
us consider schedule 23. It contains pages and pages of amendments to
legislation that is barely two or three years old and some of it
obviously deals with much older legislation. The amount of legislation
that the Government have amended before it has even come into force,
let alone after it has come into force, and the amount of legislation
that the Government have not brought into force—custody plus
being one example—is enormous. It is an incompetent, inefficient
and confusing way in which to run a criminal justice
system.
I shall not
press the new clause to a Division nor shall I resist clause 13 stand
part. I urge the Government not to get themselves into such muddles
because it spreads confusion
elsewhere.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 13,
as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 14
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
15
Application
of section 35(1) of the criminal justice Act 1991 to prisoners liable
to removal from the
UK
Mr.
Garnier:
I beg to move amendment No. 12, in
clause 15, page 10, line 25, at
end add—
‘(2A) For the
avoidance of doubt there is a rebuttable presumption that any such
prisoner will be removed from the United Kingdom following his release
without prejudice to any existing rights not to be, or protections from
being, removed under British or European Union
law.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 87, in
clause 19, page 14, line 38, at
end add—
‘(10) For the
avoidance of doubt there is a rebuttable presumption that any prisoner
of a category referred to in section 46ZA will be removed from the
United Kingdom following his release without prejudice to any existing
rights not to be, or protections from being, removed under British or
European Union
law.’.
No.
88, in
clause 20, page 15, line 38, at
end add—
‘(9) For the
avoidance of doubt there is a rebuttable presumption that any prisoner
of a category referred to in section 259A will be removed from the
United Kingdom following his release without prejudice to any existing
rights not to be, or protections from being, removed under British or
European Union
law.’.
Mr.
Garnier:
Subject to minor differences, the wording of
amendment No. 12 is pretty well the same as the wording of amendments
Nos. 87 and 88. The principle behind the amendments is the same.
Amendment No. 12 would affect clause 15, while amendments No. 87 and 88
would affect clauses 19 and 20. However, I wish to concentrate on how
amendment No. 12 touches on clause 15. It sets out a proposed new
subsection (2A), which
states:
“For the
avoidance of doubt there is a rebuttable presumption that any such
prisoner will be removed from the United Kingdom following his release
without prejudice to any existing rights not to be, or protections from
being, removed under British or European Union
law.”
I am happy for
“United Kingdom” to be inserted in place of
“British”, if that is thought to be more appropriate in
statute law.
Clause 15
deals with the potential for the removal of prisoners from the United
Kingdom. It brings into play provisions in relation to the early
release of prisoners and so
forth.
12.30
pm
Of the 81,547
people inside prison as of last Friday, there are approximately 12,000
foreign nationals, some of whom are EU citizens. During Prime
Minister’s questions three or four weeks ago, the Prime
Minister, when questioned on the matter, said that there were
quite large numbers of Jamaicans, Nigerians and other foreign nationals
in prisons in England and Wales. The Committee is probably in agreement
that many of those people ought to be living in their own country,
either in prison or not, but not at our expense. By removing a number of foreign
national prisoners who have served at least a part of their sentence in
this country, we would free up a number of valuable prison spaces. The
prison population is bigger than the space available inside the prisons
to house them by about 250 people. Modernisation of the prison estate
means that there is now sanitation inside the cell. An unintended
consequence of overcrowding is the ridiculous set-up whereby cells
designed for one person now have two men, sometimes three, sleeping in
a space that is also used as a lavatory. There is no privacy or
dignity. If one of the cell’s occupants wishes to use the
lavatory, he must do so in front of the others.
I have been to some prisons
where prisoners rig up a string and make a curtain using a sheet or a
towel, although there are obviously difficulties in allowing prisoners
to have string in their cells, as the suicide rate in overcrowded
prisons is enormous. There were about 57 suicides by the mid-point of
this year, although the figure may be higher. However, the number of
suicides in our prisons is gross and something of which we should be
ashamed. If we want to ease overcrowding, one answer is to ensure that
an appropriate number of foreign national prisoners is removed quickly
from our prisons once they have served their sentences.
Amendment No. 12 was tabled to
act as a spur to the Government to do something about the matter. Our
knowledge of the European Union legal system has shown that expelling
EU citizens to their country of origin is not an apt way to prevent
these people from coming back into the country, because the free
movement directive and other regulations allow them to return. Some
European Union prisoners have been here so long, or were here so long
before they were found guilty of a crime, that under EU law or the
European convention on human rights, they can claim a long-term
connection with this place that prevents them from being deported. That
is not necessarily the case with nationals of countries
outside the European
Union.
The short
point—and I apologise for getting to the church by way of the
moon—is that our prisons are woefully overcrowded. The
Government could relieve some of that overcrowding if they pulled their
socks up and started to negotiate, implementing bilateral treaties with
non-EU countries to ensure that a proportion of the foreign national
prisoners in our prison estate is sent home. More urgently, foreign
national prisoners who are released but remain in this country as
illegal immigrants or are here unlawfully should not simply be released
back onto our streets. They should be taken directly from the prison
and deported. There is no excuse for having such people pushed out into
our streets, where they remain unlawfully and undetected.
Bullwood Hall in Essex and
Canterbury prison in Kent are two prisons dedicated exclusively to
housing foreign nationals who have not yet completed their sentence
and—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—foreign
nationals who have completed their sentence but who have been detained
pending deportation. Either way, something is wrong with the
system if it cannot ensure the removal of a foreign national who would
be deemed to remain in Britain unlawfully but for the fact that he has
been detained. The presence of such people is not conducive to the
public good, and in the right cases and in the right numbers we should
relieve prison overcrowding by doing something along the lines
suggested by the amendment.
Mr.
Heath:
I simply wish to add a few comments. We undoubtedly
have a problem with foreign prisoners who should have been deported,
but that is more of an administrative problem than a legal one. I am
not convinced that there is a gaping loophole in the present statutory
provisions, but I am utterly convinced that there is
a huge administrative loophole, which I hope will be addressed, given
the inability of the Prison Service and the immigration authorities to
work closely together to ensure that proper measures are taken to label
prisoners due for imminent release so that they know where there is a
recommendation for deportation, and can effect that removal on release.
That should not be the most difficult thing in the world.
I found myself defending the
Minister of State on the question of prisons used for
foreign prisoners, which I regard as a positive move. If one can
congregate those prisoners in one place, it is administratively easier
to effect their removal. That is an entirely proper and sensible thing
to do, and I do not have a problem with it. However, there are some
countries with which we have a substantial problem, including Jamaica,
and I think that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon.
Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) travelled to Kingston to
discuss it.
Maria
Eagle:
No, I did
not.
Mr.
Heath:
In that case I am misinformed, I
apologise.
Maria
Eagle:
I am willing to
go.
Mr.
Heath:
They are all willing to go. I have never been to
Jamaica, but I am not convinced that Kingston is one of the most
salubrious places in the world, although perhaps that is unfair. We
have a problem with Jamaica, and I ran into it when I was involved with
policing in Avon and Somerset. There was a large turnover of Jamaican
drug runners—youths—coming into Bristol airport. On
virtually every aeroplane from Kingston, Jamaica that touched down
there was a significant number of people who were arrested because they
were found to be carrying drugs. That significant problem resulted in
an increase of Jamaican nationals in our prison population. Other
countries are similarly involved in the drugs trade.
It makes sense for some of those
prisoners to be returned to custody or given an appropriate sentence in
their state of origin. Often, these people are not the Messrs. Big of
the drug world. They are poorly advised to carry a limited amount of
drugs on to a plane and get off at the other end, only to find
themselves arrested and put in prison in this country. Of course, they
should not do such things, and they should be deterred, but
nevertheless the real villains of the piece
are the people who pay them to act as carriers. If there are ways of
reducing that population, we should adopt them. I do not, however, accept that
we should deliberately set out to remove as many foreign prisoners as
possible from our jails—particularly if they end up in a
non-secure jail in another country or if we are not convinced that they
would not reoffend. In countries with which we have bilateral
agreements, we must be careful to ensure that we do not create further
work down the line for police and customs officers. I am not convinced
that the statute contains a lacuna. I am convinced, however, that, as
is often true of matters that were the provenance of the Home Office
and which partly still are, and whether or not the Department of
Justice needs to work in conjunction with the Home Office, there is a
huge problem in the management and organisation of the administrative
process. The Government have not yet put that right, and they need to
do better in future.
Mr.
Hollobone:
I very much support any measures that are
intended to return foreign national prisoners to their country of
origin, either towards the end of their sentence under present
arrangements or preferably towards the beginning, provided that they
are returned to secure detention. I am sure that my hon. and learned
Friend the Member for Harborough is better informed than me, but I
tabled a parliamentary question on the subject not long ago, and my
understanding is that there are 8,000 foreign national prisoners in our
jails, which is about 10 per cent. of the British prison population.
That is an absolute scandal.
There ought to be scope for
genuine international agreement, perhaps co-ordinated by the United
Nations, on where prisoners should serve their time. A reciprocal part
of that arrangement would be a requirement that we take in British
nationals jailed abroad. From memory, I think that the number of such
people is about 1,500—a lot less than the number of foreign
nationals
here.
Mr.
Hollobone:
In any event, there are few issues that incense
people more than British taxpayers’ money being spent on
accommodating foreign national prisoners in our jails. The issue of EU
nationals should not be passed over either. The Italians recently came
to some sort of arrangement on Romanian nationals convicted of offences
on Italian soil, and found a way of returning those people to their
country of
origin.
Given that one
of the principles of the European Union is freedom of movement, I do
not see why that should not apply to convicted prisoners. I support the
amendment tabled by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for
Harborough, and I am glad that the Committee is addressing the genuine
and growing concern in the country that we are far too generous to
foreign nationals in our jails. People get very cross when they are
told, “We would deport them but we have to get their
consent.” We should have appropriate international agreements so
that, whether the prisoner consents to being deported or not, we do not
spend taxpayers’ money on detaining prisoners here if they can
be detained in their own country.
Mr.
Hanson:
I am grateful for hon. Members’
contributions. This is an important issue, given the concern about
foreign national prisoners in jails in my jurisdiction of England and
Wales. I hope that I can reassure all hon. Members that foreign
national prisoners are in jail because they have been caught, tried and
convicted of crimes and are therefore serving a sentence. There are
approximately 11,000 such prisoners in British jails, which is about 14
per cent. of the total. As has been mentioned, certain countries
represent a significant proportion of those
figures.
Mr.
Hollobone:
I am fascinated by the Minister’s
answer. He gave a figure of 11,000, and I am grateful for that
clarification. Perhaps his officials could advise him how that figure
has changed in the past few years, because it seems to have increased
significantly.
12.45
pm
Mr.
Hanson:
Although I do not have the figures on performance,
I am happy to reflect on that matter and will, if the hon. Gentleman
will allow me, drop him a letter on those
points.
As I was
indicating, there are significant areas of difficulty regarding that
figure of 11,000. I draw the Committee’s attention to the points
that were mentioned by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome. As of 31
August 2007, there were just over 1,300 Jamaican prisoners in British
jails, just over 1,000 Nigerian prisoners, 449 prisoners from
Vietnam—a significant number—369 from Somalia and 371
from China.
Perhaps I
can offer the hon. Gentleman and the Committee some reassurance. An
important key point is that, as of 23 October 2007, we have agreements
with 97 countries to repatriate prisoners to serve sentences in their
home country. The countries range from Albania and Australia, in the
a’s, through to Venezuela and Ukraine at the other end of the
alphabet. Those countries and they have operational transfer agreements
in
place.
Mr.
Hollobone:
Is it the case that those repatriation
agreements require the consent of the prisoner concerned? The Minister
says that there are 1,300 Jamaican nationals in British jails. Surely
the British Government should have been making an agreement with
Jamaica for the mass deportation of those people to a suitable
detention facility in Jamaica. I would be surprised if it were not
cheaper to pay the Jamaicans to hold those people in their own jails
than to house them in this
country.
Mr.
Hanson:
Again, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will bear with
me. We have a facilitated return scheme, under which we are encouraging
individuals to return to their home countries. We are also helping with
transfer costs. We recently discussed the matter with the Jamaican
Government and decided on an agreement at official level, which awaits
ratification by the Jamaican Parliament, in respect of the transfer of
such people.
We are
negotiating prisoner transfer arrangements with the major countries,
some of which I mentioned earlier. They include Nigeria, Vietnam, Laos,
China,
Ghana, Libya, Botswana and Russia, which are the main areas for which we
need prisoner transfer agreements at official and ministerial levels.
This afternoon, I am meeting the South African Minister of Correctional
Services and I will be raising with him again the need for an agreement
with South
Africa.
Mr.
Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): What arguments will
lawyers use to prevent those transfers? It is all very well having a
deal with Libya, but I am sure that some slick lawyer will argue that
such a transfer might impinge on his client’s human rights or
something. Even with these agreements, is it likely that prisoners will
be deported to their country of
origin?
Mr.
Hanson:
Let me put the success of the transfer agreements
and work in context. Two years ago, approximately 1,500 people were
transferred by the Government out of prisons in England and Wales to
foreign prisons. Last year, 2,784 prisoners were transferred out. In
the current year we are on target to meet my right hon. Friend the
Prime Minister’s aim of removing 4,000 prisoners from prisons in
England and Wales. I accept that there is more to be done, which is why
I am investing ministerial time in trying to secure agreements with the
countries that I have mentioned, and why I will be trying to raise that
issue this afternoon with my South African counterpart. There will be
engagements across the board to ensure that that is done, because it
needs to occur. However, the speed of transfer to date has been
significant.
Hon.
Members mentioned the two prisons that we have allocated entirely to
foreign prisoners—Bullwood and Canterbury—to ensure that
we transfer out prisoners at the end of their sentences much more
efficiently and speedily. Border and Immigration Agency staff are
working in those prisons with the Prison Service to effect a speedy
transfer either to a final destination, or to a holding camp in the BIA
estate. I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome
for that measure.
Mr.
Heath:
The Minister will have my support for that measure,
although the mind boggles as to why we did not have a proper
relationship between the immigration and prison authorities years
ago.
I would like to
return to what the Minister was saying because it is important that the
Committee does not get the wrong impression about the agreement with
the Jamaican Government. Is not the scale of that agreement extremely
modest, simply because there are not enough prison facilities in
Kingston to deal with the sort of numbers of prisoners that we have in
the British prison estate?
Mr.
Hanson:
The agreement has the potential for expansion. We
are trying to secure agreements with countries with which we do not
have agreements at present. Any agreement, such as the one negotiated
in August with Jamaica, must be welcomed.
Some of these issues are not as
easy as they might at first seem. There will be people in each of our
constituencies with Jamaican citizenship who may have lived in the
United Kingdom for 20 or 30 years, who may have married British
citizens and who may have
children who are British citizens, but who are Jamaican passport
holders. The situation is not always as simple or clear as some of the
“let’s deport” arguments
suggest.
Mr.
Hanson:
I will give way to the hon. Member for
Ruislip-Northwood first because he has not had a go
yet.
Mr.
Hurd:
I think that we all understand some of the
difficulties underlying the headlines, but the stark reality is that 14
per cent. of an overcrowded prison population are foreign nationals
who, frankly, have relinquished their right to our hospitality. All our
constituents would expect the Government to be extraordinarily robust
in shifting those people
on.
I would like to
press the Minister to answer the question put to him by my hon. Friend
the Member for Kettering. Do these international agreements still rely
on the underlying agreement of the individual prisoner? If they do, are
the Government happy with that status
quo?
Mr.
Hanson:
No, they do not. This is a complex area and it is
difficult to discuss individual cases, but those agreements do not
automatically rely on the consent of the prisoner. There are people who
have been deported and have not consented to that deportation.
Obviously, in the European Union context, that is very difficult,
because in that context a prisoner can be deported to Krakow tomorrow,
walk across the airport and fly back to the UK under their European
rights—rights to which they are perfectly entitled to. So, the
situation is difficult, but the intention is to speed up the
deportations, to effect prisoner transfer agreements, especially with
countries outside the European Union, and to ensure that we put in
place measures to increase the number of
deportations.
Mr.
Walker:
The Minister is right that this is a complex area.
Regarding the 11,000 foreign nationals in our prisons, in how many
cases has the Home Office been able to establish whether those people
had previous criminal records in their country of origin—in
other words that they are serial offenders who have a criminal record
in their country of origin and have then come over to this country and
offended here?
Mr.
Hanson:
I am grateful for the question, but I am not in a
position to answer it now. If the hon. Gentleman will let me, I will
consider the question. Given that this matter is also the
responsibility of the Home Office and that I am a Minister in the
Ministry of Justice, I do not have those figures to hand, but I will
ensure that we look at the issue again.
Mr.
Hollobone:
May I try to assist the Minister—if I am
thinking along the right lines—in answering the question put by
my hon. Friend the Member for
Ruislip-Northwood? Is it not the case that consent is not required from
a prisoner for them to be deported on completion of their sentence, but
is required for deportation during their
sentence?
Mr.
Hanson:
No. The situation, essentially, is that a number
of strands of consent are required. The bilateral agreements that I
have mentioned—there are 97 in total—require the consent
of the prisoner. So, with the 97 countries that I have listed, an
element of consent is required. Under the EU framework decision, which
we have already agreed at an EU level and which comes into effect in
2009 or 2010, consent will not be required. Also, under domestic
legislation, we do not require consent, and where there is no bilateral
agreement, we can deport individuals without their consent, and we have
done so.
The reason
why the figure has risen from 1,500 to 4,000 over the past two years is
because my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Minister for
Borders and Immigration, and other Ministers dealing with these
matters, including me, have all recognised that we need to improve the
performance of the BIA estate on deportation and to free up people from
prison into the secure BIA estate ready for deportation. The purpose of
Bullwood and Canterbury was to achieve those
things.
Clause 15 is
designed simply to give the Parole Board the power to determine parole
for all prisoners serving sentences of less than 15 years, regardless
of their immigration status. It is designed to address the decision in
the case of Hindawi, about which hon. Members might be aware, which
provided that applications for the early release of foreign national
prisoners serving between four and 15 years who are liable to
deportation or removal from the United Kingdom can be determined only
by the Secretary of State. That procedure was incompatible with article
5(4) of the European convention on human rights, and clause 15 is
designed to make us compatible with that
convention.
Clauses 19
and 20 are designed to make certain changes to the operation of the
early removal scheme. At the moment, the Secretary of State is
empowered to remove from the country, up to 135 days before the halfway
point of a sentence, fixed term prisoners serving a sentence of three
months or more, but not life, who are liable for deportation or removal
from the United Kingdom. The purpose of the three clauses is, first, to
extend the scheme to make it available to offenders not liable for
deportation; secondly, to streamline the existing scheme by removing a
number of restrictions on eligibility; and, thirdly, to remove a
potential anomaly in the treatment of prisoners released under the
Criminal Justice Acts 1991 and
2003.
I wish to draw
the Committee’s attention to the fact that in pursuing the aims
that I have outlined, clause 20 inadvertently makes a change that I do
not support and that we want to rectify on Report. It would remove the
existing provision requiring prisoners who are entitled to be released
under the provisions of the 2003 Act to serve at least one quarter of
their sentence before they can be removed early under the scheme. We
have reflected on the unintended consequence that that creates a
disparity. I will table an amendment on
Report to reinstate the requirement, and I hope that right hon. and hon.
Members will bear with me on that
point. In conclusion, I
commend the clauses to the Committee and I urge it to reject the
amendments tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough. We are
already doing a considerable amount, and are trying to do even more to
effect the changes that I think are sought by all Committee members to
ensure that the 11,000 prisoners either serve their sentences abroad
under repatriation terms, or are at least deported at the end of their
sentence.
Mr.
Garnier:
We have had an interesting discussion about the
impact of foreign national prisoners on the English and Welsh prison
estate. It is important that the Government make their position clear.
Obviously, we must consider the situation involving some foreign
nationals. For example, a person could be deported back to China after
serving a relatively short length of time in custody for a relatively
minor offence. Such people could get into considerable difficulty on
their return to China because the Chinese are not noted for accepting
back, let alone treating kindly, criminals of their own
nation.
That being said, I think that I
am right that since the Government came to office, the foreign national
prison population has gone up by 155 per cent.—three times that
of the British prisoner population—which gives rise to all sorts
of questions about language facilities and the need for interpreters in
prisons and courts. The bill for interpreters in London courts now runs
into millions a year. I have no idea what that bill is in the Prison
Service, but it must be quite
significant.
I do not
know the Government’s thinking about this at the moment, but
they were proposing to give EU nationals £1,500 to go away. Of
course, those EU nationals would take the money, go back to France,
Italy or Greece, and return under the free-right-to-travel
arrangements.
This is a
convenient moment to unburden the Committee by letting them know that I
do not wish to press my amendments to a Division. I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 ordered to stand
part of the Bill.
It being One o’clock,
The Chairman
adjourned the Committee
with
out
Question put, pursuant to the Standing
Order.
Adjourned
till this day at Four
o’clock.
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