Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to make the data on the number of foreign national prisoners who are eligible for deportation but remain in the United Kingdom due to Article 8 European Convention on Human Rights claims and human rights claims publishable.

The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering these questions, at a disproportionate cost.

We deal with significant and complex challenges when seeking to return those who have no right to be in the UK to their country of origin.

The deportation of a foreign national offender is subject to the UK’s obligations under the ECHR and the Refugee Convention. Where an Article 8 claim is made, consideration is given to the public interest in deportation to determine if it is outweighed by a foreign offender’s private or family life. The more serious the offence committed by a foreign national offender, the greater the public interest in deportation.

Sometimes the UK’s current obligations under international law such as the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights ultimately prohibit us from returning certain individuals despite their criminality. Legal or re-documentation barriers can frustrate immediate deportation. Despite the barriers we face, we remain resolute in our commitment to deport those who would abuse our hospitality and make our communities safer for everyone.

We currently do not have plans to publish the information requested.

However, official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, as well as quality and availability of data. These reviews allow us to balance the production of our regular statistics whilst developing new statistics for future release.