Independent Sentencing Review

Charlie Dewhirst Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we are already deporting more foreign national offenders than the previous Government. We are taking forward the measures from the Gauke review to speed up and get more foreign offenders out of our system and back to their countries of origin.

[Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly support my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) in his call for the immediate deportation of foreign criminals. What is the Lord Chancellor doing to ensure that the courts are not holding up those deportations, and that once deported, those criminals are never allowed back on these shores?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The hon. Gentleman may have seen that just last week, when the Home Secretary set out the immigration White Paper, we announced that we are reviewing the use of article 8 in relation to immigration cases, and we will bring forward our proposals on that in due course. We will not allow the misuse of our courts and the use of article 8 to enable people who have no right to be in this country to stay in this country. That will require changes to the immigration rules, which the Home Secretary is working on.