Andy McDonald
Main Page: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough)Department Debates - View all Andy McDonald's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Andrew Selous
We have 10,834 foreign national offenders in our prisons. We have signed prisoner transfer agreements with the European Union, Albania and Nigeria and, as I said in an earlier answer, we removed 5,097 foreign national offenders last year. I can assure my hon. Friend that this is a priority for me, as it is for him.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
The number of prison suicides has risen by 50% since the coalition came to power. The Secretary of State sits on his hands and simply says that the numbers go up and down; he has no explanation for that. However, his own chief inspector of prisons says that this is down to overcrowding. Is he wrong?
Chris Grayling
We have looked carefully at this matter, as have the ombudsman and a number of others. There is no common pattern to the suicides.