Andrew Turner
Main Page: Andrew Turner (Conservative - Isle of Wight)Department Debates - View all Andrew Turner's debates with the Ministry of Justice
Foreign National Offenders
Andrew Turner Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hollobone
I do think we should get the situation sorted out once and for all. I pray in aid the excellent report by the right hon. Gentleman’s previous Committee, which looked into the issue. I quote, I think, from that report:
“The public would expect our membership of the EU to make it easier to deport European offenders, but this is clearly not the case, and we continue to keep thousands of these criminals at great and unnecessary expense.”
There is in place an EU prisoner transfer directive, which means that countries can compulsorily return prisoners to their country of origin within the European Union. The last time we managed to wheedle a figure out of Her Majesty’s Government on how many EU nationals we had returned to their country of origin, I think the number was 101—pathetically low. Legislation, in the form of that directive, exists with which to do that, but we are simply not getting on with it. Perhaps the Minister in his response will confirm how many EU nationals are in our prisons, how many we have returned to their country of origin, and why we are not sending thousands more of these individuals back.
I have to tell the House that, beside EU nationals, there are representatives of 160 nations from around the world in Her Majesty’s prisons. Not only are we a cosmopolitan society at large, we are also a cosmopolitan city in Her Majesty’s jails.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Would my hon. Friend also like to elicit the numbers for Jamaica? I believe they are the highest in the world.
Mr Hollobone
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The figure I have for Jamaica is 567, and I, like him, would like the Minister to update us.
In a minute, I will come to a list of shame, of those countries that have the most foreign national offenders in our prisons.