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The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)
I apologise from the outset for several reasons, Mr Caton, not least because, if my voice gives out, I might splutter and cause germs to be spread around the room. However, I thought it was important that I attended this debate, even though I am clearly not the Minister responsible for this issue. I apologise on behalf of the prisons Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who is in prison today; he is visiting a prison and will be released later today. Indeed, I am not a Minister from one of the many other Departments that are involved in this difficult, multi-Government task.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing this debate. I have known him for many years and he will know that probably 90% of what he has said is not only factually correct but is something that I agree with in principle; in fact, I agree with him on nearly everything he said, and so do the Prime Minister and the Government. The frustration that he can hear in my voice was in his voice; I share his frustration.
In the meeting I had with officials this morning to ensure that I stuck to the line and read the speech, which I will not do, I was very surprised—as an MP and just an ordinary member of this country, and not as one of the great and the good—about some things that are being done. I am not a lawyer either, and if I was I think I would still find it mind-bogglingly difficult to work out why, in many cases, things do not happen.
I will just clarify one point. As usual, my hon. Friend was very accurate with his figures. He was absolutely spot on with the figure of 10,834; that is the latest figure that I have. That proves that parliamentary questions and everything else are working. He has asked many, many questions on this issue on behalf of his constituents and I expect more questions to come through—quite rightly so.
Do we keep foreign nationals in specific prisons? Yes, we do. That is because it makes it much easier to work out, one, how we deport them at the end of their sentence and, two, how we work on compulsory as well as voluntary transfers to foreign prisons while they are serving their sentence.
In his speech, my hon. Friend covered myriad different areas and I will try to cover as many as I can; if I cannot cover them all, as usual I will write to him after the debate. He asked about Canterbury prison and Bullwood Hall. I know Bulwood Hall very well; it is not far from where I used to live in Essex. It used to be an establishment for juvenile ladies many years ago, and when I was a fireman we went there on a regular basis, whenever the inmates decided to set fire to parts of the building. The two facilities specifically for foreign nationals are Maidstone and Huntercoombe. It is important that we clarify that. I have asked whether we have specific wings in other prisons for foreign nationals, so that we know where they are and have the right information to enable us to liaise well on how they are dealt with.
My hon. Friend said the situation with Jamaica is not what we would like it to be—absolutely spot on. I think we would all expect Jamaica to be in a position by now to take Jamaican nationals who have broken the law in this country. My note says that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is working to restart discussions. I am not going to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes and say that the discussions are in full flow. However, there are issues to discuss. I assure my hon. Friend for Kettering, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), that, across Government, we are doing whatever we can. I will, as Policing and Criminal Justice Minister, put whatever rocket I can under the separate Departments. It is a challenge in itself having to deal with two completely different Departments, although it works well, because it allows me to ask why a lot more often.
The 10,834 figure is right, and it is also correct that it is down from 11,153, but it is not fair to say that all those people would just disappear, should we put in place some of the plans that we agree should be put in place, not least because my police officers—I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering, a special constable in the British Transport Police—arrest an awful lot of foreign nationals, who are then convicted because they have broken our law and are put in our prisons. Some are going out as others are going in. For instance, in 2013-14, 5,097 were deported and in 2012-13, 4,539 were deported. It is an in-out situation. I am sure my hon. Friend accepts that.
It is not just about what we would like to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham said that we cannot deport people to a prison, because that is not acceptable under human rights legislation. I am sure that both my colleagues know my views on that. I agree completely with the Prime Minister that we need to have a bill of rights for ourselves and we should ensure that our judges abide by that, not by legislation that is now used in the European Court of Human Rights for a purpose it was never created for.
The Department for International Development is paying for improvements in countries that we have been alluding to, particularly Nigeria, although it is not paying for brand new prisons, because that would not be right in most cases—although it might be right to do so in some countries. I was in Washington earlier this month at the global summit on child online protection from paedophiles, an important thing that we do that we cannot do in isolation. Sadly, I missed the Conservative party conference, which I have not done for many years. However, I did bump into the Nigerian Justice Minister, who recently agreed not only with our officials, but with our Ministers, about taking back nationals. Nationals will start going back to Nigeria later this year.
We are leading the world in what we are doing in this regard. Most countries are not doing this and are not even trying to do it, because it is particularly difficult. We need—our rationale should be—to ensure that Departments, including the Home Office, the Foreign Office, DFID and the Ministry of Justice, work together to make sure that we get as many to go as possible.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering was right to say that his constituents would not understand this subject unless they were legally trained or took a particular interest in it, because of all the different narratives out there: voluntary, non-voluntary, compulsory, end of sentence or end of the statutory part of the sentence. For instance, with regard to longer sentencing, in most cases we do not even start to consider releasing people until we are getting close to 18 months before it would be possible in any circumstances for them to be released. That is probably understandable, because of the sheer amount of work that needs to take place. If that were done too early, we may find ourselves in a situation a bit like the one we have seen in Jamaica, where we thought we were in a position to do something, but were not.
In a nutshell, we would like as many foreign nationals as possible in our prisons to serve their sentence in their country of origin. That would be slightly difficult if they had dual passports; I will not discuss that in this debate, as it is a separate issue for debate. We want as many people as possible to go at the end of their sentence. It is also important that our friends in Europe fulfil their commitments. I do not know why Poland got a derogation to the end of 2016: it seems to have negotiated pretty well on lots of different things on joining this wonderful club. There are 18 countries that have implemented the provisions, but many of the countries that my hon. Friend mentioned in his list of shame have not. Interestingly, Jamaica was at No. 1, but is now No. 3. There is a lot of work to do on implementing this—we have done very well in Jamaica with the compulsory side of things—in other parts of world, as my hon. Friend said. To date, we have transferred 31 people to countries inside the EU agreement—this is purely the EU; not the EU and connected countries—which is a tiny number, but it is a start. That is something that we need to work on.
I do not think that anyone in the House would disagree that we should not let people who have committed a crime abroad into this country. Most other countries in the western world have the same attitude; Australia and America are classic examples. We are working on that. Information transfer is particularly difficult, especially with some of the newer member states. For instance, I understand that information from other EU countries is not transmitted directly to us, but to the EU, and then disseminated to member states. Clearly, that is not working well. We need to work harder at that.
The truth of the matter—I return to what our Prime Minister has said—is that we need to have better control of who is going in and out of this country. That is an issue, particularly in respect of EU treaties, although it is a negotiated position that I agree with. There are probably members of the coalition who do not agree with that position, but I do. One thing that we can do for all our constituencies is ensure that we know who is going in and out of our country and decide who does so. Once they are in this country and they commit a crime, the full force of the law needs to come down on them, and that is probably where my side of things is involved, through the police and the criminal justice system.
I agree that we need to work much harder, because this matter was ignored for too many years. It used to be a case of saying, “They committed a crime in the UK, so they end up spending their time in the UK.” Of course, they have human rights and family rights, and all the other different things. It was fantastic to read about a case recently where the judge—for the first time, I think—said, “No, that’s not what that legislation was implemented for. This person’s human rights are not going to be affected by this and I do not agree with the way that it has been implemented before.” I think that if more judges were doing that, we would all be a lot happier.
More work needs to be done. I am sure that we will get increased pressure from my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering. I will certainly do my bit, even though I fully admit that it is probably the police and criminal justice system, which is in my portfolio, that is filling up the prisons. However, once justice has been seen to be done, as many of these people as possible need to be in their country of origin. If prisons in those countries are not quite up to the standard of prisons in this country, but they meet the human rights requirements, so be it, and there they should go.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I apologise that I am not the Minister with full responsibility. I have answered as many questions as I can, as candidly as I always try to do. I will write to my hon. Friend responding to questions that I have not answered. I hope that I feel a little bit better in the morning than I do at present.