Oral Answers to Questions

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

4. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of arrangements on prisoner transfers agreed with Albania.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of arrangements on prisoner transfers agreed with Albania.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

22. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of arrangements on prisoner transfers agreed with Albania.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is an expensive business to incarcerate people. The UK has over 100 prisoner transfer agreements. We are working hard to ensure that existing PTAs work as effectively as possible and deliver value for money for the taxpayer by removing FNOs to their home countries. My Department also has ambitions to secure PTAs with new countries. We are engaging with our counterparts in target countries to advance that. I will update the House in due course.

[Marco Longhi]

May I, too, thank the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister for the difference the agreement with Albania is making in reducing arrivals? Germany, a member of the ECHR, refuses to even allow claims from Albanians. Will the Secretary of State therefore consider derogating from the ECHR, as German appears to have done and as we did over prisoner voting, to further build on that success?

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point. In the five months to the end of May, Albanian small boat arrivals were down by 90% on last year, and we have returned 1,800 illegal migrants and foreign criminals to Albania. Thanks to changes in our asylum system, we have gone from accepting one in five Albanian asylum claims to accepting just one in 50, in line with other European countries such as Germany.