Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign national offenders have been tagged in each of the last five years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Available information on the number of individuals electronically monitored (EM) in each of the last five years is available here: Electronic Monitoring Statistics Annual Publication, March 2024 - GOV.UK, but is not broken down by nationality.
When an FNO breaches the conditions of their EM, the action taken will consider the nature and frequency of breach, the level of harm posed by the person and any previous history of non-compliance, including potential prosecution where the breach relates to refusal to comply with induction onto electronic monitoring (EM), deliberate attempts to remove or damage a device, or tampering with the device so that it fails to operate correctly.
Further details of potential sanctions for non-compliance with EM are set out on Page 93 of the Immigration bail guidance, available at Immigration bail.docx.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the penalty is for foreign national offenders who breach the conditions of their tag.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Available information on the number of individuals electronically monitored (EM) in each of the last five years is available here: Electronic Monitoring Statistics Annual Publication, March 2024 - GOV.UK, but is not broken down by nationality.
When an FNO breaches the conditions of their EM, the action taken will consider the nature and frequency of breach, the level of harm posed by the person and any previous history of non-compliance, including potential prosecution where the breach relates to refusal to comply with induction onto electronic monitoring (EM), deliberate attempts to remove or damage a device, or tampering with the device so that it fails to operate correctly.
Further details of potential sanctions for non-compliance with EM are set out on Page 93 of the Immigration bail guidance, available at Immigration bail.docx.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what criteria her Department uses to determine which illegal immigrants will be tagged.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
When granted immigration bail, an individual may have specific conditions attached to their bail, such as electronic monitoring, a residence restriction or other conditions appropriate to the individual. A breach of any of the bail conditions that are set is an offence under s.24(1) of the Immigration Act 1971.
The Immigration Act 2016 Schedule 10 Part 1 paragraphs 2(2) and 2(3) place a duty on the Secretary of State, where appropriate and practical, to electronically monitor those on immigration bail who could be detained because they are subject to either deportation proceedings or a Deportation Order. There is a discretion to apply electronic monitoring (EM) more broadly and this is considered on a case by case basis.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of foreign national offenders were released from prison in each quarter since 2012; and of these how many were released because (a) an immigration judge granted bail, (b) her Department granted bail, (c) an immigration judge accepted an appeal against deportation, (d) they were released at the end of a prison sentence and (e) of a mental health discharge.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Home Office publishes data relating to numbers of FNOs released into the community by reason of release in the Immigration Enforcement transparency data. Table FNO_02 of the latest Immigration Enforcement data contains data on FNOs released into the community by reason for release up to the end of December 2021. Please see the ‘Notes’ sheet for information about how to use the data.
Data in this series after the end of 2021 is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
The Home Office also publishes data on people leaving detention by reason for leaving in the Immigration System Statistics release. This includes any detainees held in prisons under immigration detention powers, or in the detention estate under custodial or immigration detention powers. Some of these cases will be FNOs, but not all FNOs who are released from prison will be included in this data. This data is published on a quarterly basis in Det_D03 of the detention detailed datasets. The latest data is for the end of September 2024. Data covering the period of October to December 2024 is due to be published on 27th February 2025.
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.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the section entitled Roles and responsibilities on the About Us webpage for Immigration Enforcement, what options are presented to illegal migrants during face-to-face meaningful conversations.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Those conversations might be, for example, including informing migrants subject to immigration bail of options for fulfilling the Home Office reporting requirements, and consequences of failing to do so.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people on bail for immigration cases have public authorities lost track of in each of the last five years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and could only be collated for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department holds data on where foreign nationals released from prison reside.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are committed to delivering justice for victims and safer streets for our communities.
Any foreign national offender (FNOs) convicted of a crime who receives a custodial sentence in the UK is referred to the Home Office for deportation consideration following sentencing. We are focussing resource on those cases currently serving custodial sentences and maximising removals directly from prison.
Where removal is not immediately possible, electronic monitoring can be used to manage foreign national offenders in the community. Electronic monitoring allows for more effective contact management of individuals, enabling us to manage and correct behaviours so that they comply with their immigration bail conditions until they are removed
We will pursue deportation action against individuals living in the community rigorously, actively monitoring and managing cases through the legal process and negotiating barriers to removal.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following their press release on 1 May stating that individuals are to be detained for removal to Rwanda in the next nine to 11 weeks, how many such individuals they anticipate will be granted immigration bail in the interim.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
As all detention decisions are particular to the individual concerned it would be inappropriate to predict the extent of any related future activity.
The government has repeatedly stated that it will not be providing a running commentary on the removals process.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the commencement of detention operations undertaken by his Department following the passage of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 on levels of contact with people whose asylum claims have been deemed inadmissible.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
The Home Office routinely monitors levels of compliance for individuals who are required to report as a condition of their bail. We have a range of interventions available to us to maintain contact, including face to face reporting, contact by telephone, digital reporting and notifications from the accommodation providers where they reside.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers were subject to electronic tagging as part of his Department's pilot programme between 15 June 2022 and 31 December 2023.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson
The information requested is not available from published statistics.
However, as set out in the Pilot Equality Impact Assessment (available at Equality impact assessment: GPS electronic monitoring expansion pilot - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)), 600 individuals were to be subject to Electronic Monitoring as part of immigration bail conditions.