Family Migration

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an extremely important point. As he will have noticed, the current Justice Secretary is in the Chamber and will have heard what he has said. I am sure that we can consider the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the confidentiality of judgments.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the terrible case involving the actions of Mohammed Ibrahim. Obviously, Paul Houston has been campaigning for changes for some time, and we expect the changes that we are introducing to deal with such cases. The House of Lords in 2007, and the Court of Appeal in more recent cases last year and this year, have made clear the need for a statement from Parliament about where the public interest lies. The right hon. Gentleman is right, and I am grateful for his support.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I urge the Home Secretary to take the advice that if, peradventure, a motion is not sufficient, this House will be very happy to legislate to deal with the foreign prisoner problem, and will she also explore with the Justice Secretary whether there are more foreign criminals in our jails who could serve their term elsewhere, and not at our expense?

[Mrs May]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those questions, and they serve to remind me that I did not answer the point made by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) about the next steps we might take if what we are doing does not lead to a change in the sorts of decisions coming from the courts. If that is the case, we will, indeed, look at further measures, and they could, of course, include primary legislation. I can assure my right hon. Friend that both the Justice Secretary and I have an interest in trying to ensure that as many foreign national prisoners as possible are removed from this country, including being removed to serve their sentence elsewhere.