Foreign National Prisoners

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The purpose of prison, in denying people their liberty, is to be a punishment, but it is also to rehabilitate them so that, when they go back into the real world, they do not reoffend. If we are having to spend such a length of time dealing with people, many of whom do not speak English and do not understand our customs and how we do things in this country, it makes prison officers’ jobs, which are already very difficult, far more difficult and challenging. That will have an impact on the rehabilitation of British prisoners, who are likely to stay in this country for a long time.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way during his very powerful and important speech. Canterbury prison is in my constituency, and it is entirely composed of foreign prisoners. At stake is not only the cost, both financial and in management terms, of the prisoners, whose numbers almost trebled under the previous Government from 4,000 to 11,500, but the issue of deportation at the end of sentence.

We have several bad cases in my constituency. A woman who calls herself Sheena Daniels is perhaps the worst case of a person whom judges recommended for deportation. Somehow or other, she has claimed be a Zimbabwean—although I am told that she has a Nigerian name and a west African accent—and on the strength of that has finally received exceptional leave to remain. The judicial recommendation to deport has been abandoned, so that the community where she and her family have continued to commit criminal offences is suffering.