Prisoners: Repatriation

(asked on 30th November 2016) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with which countries the UK has compulsory prison transfer agreements; and how many foreign national offenders have been returned to prison in their own country under those agreements.


Answered by
Phillip Lee Portrait
Phillip Lee
This question was answered on 3rd February 2017

We are committed to increasing the number of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) removed from our prisons. Prisoners should serve their sentences in their home countries wherever possible, reducing the burden on the taxpayer. To this end the United Kingdom is a party to over 100 multi-national and bilateral agreements which provide for the transfer of a prisoner either on a voluntary or compulsory basis. Prisoner transfers are one of three mechanisms available for the early removal of FNOs; the others being the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) and the Tariff Expired Removal Scheme (TERS).

In 2015/16, 2,071 FNOs were removed via ERS, 52 via TERS, and 62 via PTAs. The EU PTA came into force in December 2011; Member States implemented the agreement at various dates between 2011 and 2015 (2 Member States have not yet implemented the Agreement). To date we have transferred 154 EU national prisoners to their home countries under this Agreement. Compulsory PTAs are also in place with Albania, Georgia, Libya, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, Norway, Russia, Rwanda, San Marino, Serbia, Somaliland, Switzerland, Turkey, and Ukraine. A total of 18 FNOs have been returned under these arrangements. A further 103 prisoners have been transferred on a voluntary basis to a range of countries across the world over this same period since December 2011.

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