Removal of Foreign National Offenders and EU Prisoners

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Of course there are costs involved with people who come to the country. Indeed, there are British citizens who commit crimes, and the criminal justice system obviously bears costs to ensure that they are brought to justice and given custodial sentences in our prisons. I urge caution, however, because questions this afternoon have focused on foreign national offenders from other EU member states, but many foreign national offenders in prisons in the United Kingdom come from countries outside the European Union. We make every effort to return those foreign national offenders and deport those people, as we do for those from the EU.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

As a former special constable with the police parliamentary scheme, I was involved at first hand in arresting eastern Europeans on the streets of London for crimes that they were in the process of committing. I saw at first hand the wave of crime from eastern Europe following the accession of those countries in 2004. Does the Home Secretary believe that the situation will get better or worse with the admission of Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Turkey? To ensure that she does not inadvertently mislead the House, given that she has attended today to answer a question on the removal of foreign national offenders and EU prisoners, does she seriously expect us to believe that she will not tell the House the number of prisoners transferred under this super-duper EU prisoner transfer agreement? She attends today with seven officials in the civil servants’ box and her entire ministerial team. Will she now disclose that number?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend did great service as a special constable, and has referred to foreign national offenders from particular countries whom he was involved in arresting. Something like a third of the population of London are foreign nationals, and I think I am right in saying that the figures show that about a third of the criminals arrested in the Metropolitan police area are foreign nationals. I might draw a different lesson from that than the one drawn by my hon. Friend, but that is an important fact.

I am sorry if my hon. Friend is disappointed that I do not happen to have the figure he asks for in front of me. I indicated to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) that I will write to him with it.