Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people serving prison sentences in England and Wales as of January 29 2024 were born outside of the United Kingdom.

Data on the nationality of prisoners serving sentences in England and Wales are published in the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly, which is available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/offender-management-statistics-quarterly.

As the data requested in relation to the place of birth of prisoners in custody on 29 January 2024 relates to nationality data for future publication, we cannot release it at this time.

The removal of Foreign National Offenders (FNO) is a Government priority and we removed 16,676 FNO between January 2019 and September 2023. Published figures show that FNO returns have increased in the latest 12-month period (ending September 2023) by 19% when compared to previous 12-month period (3,577 compared to 3,011).

We have recently announced measures to further increase removals including the extension of the Early Removal Scheme window to 18 months; working closely with Home Office to facilitate timely removals and using diplomatic pressure to conclude bilateral Prison Transfer Agreements with specific countries.