Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I will think that I have a problem in our prisons when I am forced through bad planning, as the last Government were, to release tens of thousands of prisoners weeks early to commit crimes that they should not have committed. I will know that I have a problem when I have to hire thousands of police cells when we do not have enough space in our prisons. The truth is that we have space in our prisons. They are less overcrowded. We are increasing education. They are less violent than they were under the last Government. We face challenges given budget pressures but we are doing a much better job than they did.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

T6. It is an intolerable burden on British taxpayers that they should be funding the cost of so many foreign prisoners. Can the Secretary of State inform us what action is being taken to reduce the number and return more of them to their home country?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern about the issue. Reducing the foreign national offender population is a top priority for the Government. Last year, we removed 5,097 foreign national offenders compared with 4,072 in 2012-13 and 4,539 in 2011-12. Whereas this Government have begun to reduce the foreign national population in prison, the number of foreign nationals in our prisons under the last Government more than doubled.