Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Albanian nationals have voluntarily been transferred from UK prisons to detention in Albania in the last year.

More than 10,000 foreign national offenders have been returned to their home countries in the last three years.

The Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Albania. This agreement came into force in May 2022. We are working closely with our counterparts in Albania to begin transferring prisoners – with or without the offender’s consent – as soon as possible, as outlined in our new bilateral prisoner transfer agreement.

Justice is a devolved matter in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Scottish Prison Service (SPS), an agency of the Scottish Government, operates Scottish prisons. Similarly, the Northern Ireland Prison Service is responsible for the management of prisons in Northern Ireland. The MoJ therefore does not hold this information in relation to prisoners in Scottish or Northern Irish prisons.