Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether it is his policy that offenders to be deported under Clause 32 in the Sentencing Bill would be required to serve any custodial sentence in their home country.

The Sentencing Bill will amend the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) to allow eligible Foreign National Offenders (FNO) serving determinate sentences to be removed from prison for the purposes of immediate deportation any time after sentencing. FNOs removed under ERS are not subject to further imprisonment after they are removed from the UK but are barred from ever returning to the UK. If they return unlawfully, they will be liable to serve the rest of their sentence from the point they were deported.

Those serving life and other indeterminate sentences are not eligible for removal under ERS. Offenders serving a terrorism or terrorism-connected offence are also excluded from removal. ERS can be refused by HMPPS in certain circumstances for example if there is serious evidence an offender is planning a further crime.

Prisoner Transfer Agreements, where prisoners continue to serve their sentence in their home countries, will still be used in certain circumstances where we have an agreement in place and there is cooperation with the receiving country. Enhancing our prisoner transfer capability with partner countries remains important to the Ministry of Justice.