Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Fullbrook and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

6. What proportion of the cost of accommodating foreign national prisoners awaiting deportation after serving their sentences is provided by his Department.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

Currently, about 40% of the cost of accommodating foreign national prisoners who have completed their sentence and are awaiting deportation is borne by the Ministry of Justice.

[Lorraine Fullbrook]

The Prime Minister has, on a number of occasions, expressed his desire to see such prisoners deported after serving their sentence. Why are they not then transferred to secure immigration centres in readiness for their immediate deportation after their sentence is completed?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend that that is what we should be aiming to do. Wherever possible, detainees should be transferred to immigration removal centres. We are opening a new centre and the majority of detainees are already in those centres. We want to ensure that that number increases.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Fullbrook and Lord Herbert of South Downs

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

8. What recent steps she has taken to make police forces more accountable to local people.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

The introduction of elected police and crime commissioners to hold their chief constable and force to account through a strong public mandate will restore the connection between the police and the people, ensuring that the police are held to account democratically, not bureaucratically by Whitehall.

[Nick Herbert]

Decisions on whether to continue with the basic command unit structure within forces are a matter for chief constables to decide, and not one on which the Government have taken a view. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s concerns about resources and am happy to discuss them with him and to find out from the chief constable when I next see her, which will be this week, what she plans to do to allay them.

[Lorraine Fullbrook]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a partnership between the police force and the local community is the best way to tackle crime?