Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to facilitate the deportation of foreign criminals.

The Government is clear foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them.

We make every effort to ensure that a Foreign National Offender’s (FNO) removal by deportation coincides, as far as possible, with their release from prison on completion of sentence. Since January 2019 we have removed 8,441 FNOs and since April 2020, we have utilised over 99 charter flights to deport FNOs and other immigration offenders to countries across Europe and around the rest of the world.

The Home Office operates the Facilitated Return Scheme (FRS) which offers non-European Economic Area FNOs the opportunity to volunteer to return to their country of origin early. From 1 April 2021, this has been extended to allow more FNOs to benefit from reintegration support which will lead to an increase in take up and the speedier removal of FNOs accepted onto the scheme, including any immediate qualifying family members.

Our New Plan for Immigration will make it easier to remove foreign criminals and those with no right to be in the UK and keep our citizens safe. The Nationality and Borders Bill will extend the period an FNO can be removed from prison under the early removal scheme (ERS) from a maximum of 9 months to 12 months, providing the minimum requisite period has been served. The Bill will also streamline the appeals process by introducing an expanded one stop process aimed at reducing the extent to which people can frustrate removals through sequential or unmeritorious claims, appeals or legal action. The Bill will also create a new power to impose visa penalties on countries who do not cooperate with the UK on the removal of their nationals who do not have a right to be in the UK.

Further information can be found in the New Plan for Immigration Policy Statement and the factsheet Nationality and Borders Bill: - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).