Asked by: Ian Davidson (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what measures her Department has put in place to track foreign national offenders upon release back into the community since May 2010.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Tough enforcement is the cornerstone of this Government’s immigration policy.
Those who break our laws should be removed from the country at the earliest
opportunity, and we will seek to remove any foreign national who
receives a custodial sentence for a criminal offence.
We removed almost 5,100 foreign national offenders in 2013/14 and over 23,000
since 2010. We are removing more offenders straight from prison, which saved
the taxpayer £27.5million in the last financial year. This is all despite a 28%
increase in appeals.
We are dealing with offenders who do not want to go home, and in some cases
whose home country does not want to take them back. This presents challenges
which we are determined to overcome. Chief among the challenges are the legal
barriers we face.
That is why this Government is the first to have a strategy for dealing with
foreign national offenders, including overcoming obstacles to their removal. We have
also introduced new powers in the Immigration Act (2014) which have cut the number
of grounds on which criminals can appeal deportation. More than 500 foreign offenders
have already been removed under the new ‘deport now, appeal later’ provisions.
The majority of foreign national offenders in the community were released by an
Immigration Judge, despite our strong opposition. Most offenders are subject to
reporting conditions and, where possible, electronic tagging. If a foreign
national offender fails to comply with these conditions by absconding, our
dedicated national absconder tracing team works with the police, other
government agencies and commercial companies to track down, arrest
and return absconders to custody. The Home Office is using intelligence
and working more closely with partners to maximise the impact of enforcement
activity.
Asked by: Ian Davidson (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the preventative and early intervention measures trialled in the foreign national offenders action plan.
Answered by James Brokenshire
This government is the first to have a strategy to remove foreign national
offenders.
Last year, this Government removed 5,097 foreign national offenders, and we
have removed over 22,000 FNOs since 2010. We have already removed over
500 foreign national offenders under the 'deport now, appeal later' provisions of the
Immigration Act which came into effect in July 2014. This is alongside FNOs
already being removed during their early removal scheme period. In 2013/14 we
removed more than 1,800 such FNOs.
Additionally we have introduced Operation Nexus, a joint endeavour between the
police and Immigration Enforcement officers, leading to the removal of over
3,200 individuals, joined the Schengen Information System (SIS II), extended
the use of checks of overseas criminal information and are working with the
Ministry of Justice to implement compulsory prisoner transfer agreements within
the EU.
Asked by: Ian Davidson (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what comparative assessment her Department has made of the costs of managing foreign national offenders in (a) Scotland and (b) the UK.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office has not made a comparative assessment of the costs of managing foreign national offenders in (a) Scotland and (b) the UK.
Asked by: Ian Davidson (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to develop and standardise its approach to Foreign National Offenders casework since May 2010.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Last year, this Government removed 5,097 foreign national offenders, and wehave removed over 22,000 FNOs since 2010.
The Government introduced the Immigration Act (2014) which allows us to serve quick decisions, earlier in the process. It places the emphasis on the foreign criminal giving us information at the outset. This is a fundamental change in the process and we have already removed over 500 foreign national offenders underthe 'deport now, appeal later' provisions of the Act.
The Act also introduced new powers to prevent criminals using family life arguments to delay their deportation.
We have also introduced Operation Nexus which is a joint initative between Immigration Enforcement and police forces. Nexus identifies offenders that are foreign nationals at the point of arrest and allows Immigration Enforcement to consider those criminals for administrative removal or deportation. This has contributed to the removal of over 3,200 individuals so far.
Asked by: Ian Davidson (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much compensation her Department has paid for unlawfully detaining people under immigration powers in Scotland in each of the last five years.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Detention is used as a last resort when we consider that there is a risk of harm to the public, or of detainees absconding before they can be removed. We have a robust process for reviewing detention decisions to ensure that they are
justified and necessary; occasionally, the courts will disagree with a particular decision and award compensation, but this happens in less than 1% of all detention cases.
The amounts paid by the Home Office in compensation following claims for unlawful detention in Scotland were as follows:
Financial Year No. of Claimants Amount Paid
2011-12 3 £39,300
2013-14 2 £13,500
It is not possible to provide similar information for earlier periods, as data are not held in the appropriate format and to extract them would incur disproportionate cost.