Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what the total cost to the public purse was of supporting the modernisation of the Albanian prison system.

In addition to work to disrupt Organised Immigration Crime and address the long-term drivers of migration, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Home Office and the Ministry of Justice work together to enable the return of eligible Albanian foreign national offenders to serve the remainder of their sentence in Albania. As part of an arrangement signed under the previous government in 2023 to implement the 2021 Prisoner Transfer Agreement, £4.3 million was committed over three years to support the modernisation of the Albanian prison system. We are reviewing the operation of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Albania signed by the previous Government to understand how more prisoners can be sent back to serve their time in Albanian prisons. During 2024,1,610 Albanian FNOs were removed from England and Wales - the highest number of any nationality and up 7% from the previous year.