Removal of Foreign National Offenders and EU Prisoners Debate
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Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the Home Office
Removal of Foreign National Offenders and EU Prisoners
Diana Johnson Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
If we left the EU, the prisoner transfer agreement would no longer stand. How long does the Home Secretary think it would take to negotiate with each EU country a fresh agreement on returning EU prisoners?
Mrs May
The answer is that nobody knows how long it would take to negotiate those bilateral arrangements. Of course, under the arrangements of the treaty—under article 50—two years are set aside for negotiations for a member state leaving the European Union, but that does not necessarily cover the bilateral arrangements that would need to be in place if we were outside the co-operative arrangement of which we are members in the EU. It is very uncertain how long it would take to put any such arrangements in place.