Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national offenders (a) are eligible for deportation under the Early Release Scheme and (b) have been deported.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Eligible Foreign National Offenders are capable of being removed under the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) once they have served at least 30% of the custodial period of their sentence and are within four years of their earliest release point.
As of 30 June 2026, there were c.4,800 Foreign National Offenders (FNO) in custody sentenced to standard determinate or extended determinate sentences who could become eligible for removal under ERS during their sentence. A precise estimate of the number in the eligible window is not possible as this number includes Irish nationals (who are not routinely considered for deportation), those who may be dual nationals and those that have the right to remain.
Early next year, we will implement the Sentencing Act power to allow the removal of determinate sentence FNOs immediately after sentence. This will not include those in prison for the most serious crimes such as life sentences, rape, or unlawful killing who will still be required to serve time in prison before they are deported.
Monthly removals under ERS going back to December 2022 can be found in the following two Home Office releases:
Returns from the UK between 1 December 2022 and 31 January 2026 - GOV.UK
Returns from the UK between 1 July 2024 and 31 July 2026 - GOV.UK
Within its first two years (July 2024 to June 2026), this Government has increased returns of FNOs by 41% compared to the last two years of the previous Government. Within the FNO returns (up to July 2026), there have been 3,141 early removal scheme returns, a 20% increase compared to the same period 12 months prior.
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of potential impact on local communities of the publication of an interactive map of targets across Britain by a website operating under the Palestine Action name; what guidance and support her Department is providing to local authorities in affected areas; and what steps her Department is taking with (a) the Home Office, (b) police and (c) councils to protect businesses, employees and residents from intimidation, criminal damage and violence.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security) (Jointly with the Cabinet Office)
The Government is aware of online material identifying businesses and other locations as targets. The Home Office continues to work closely with tech companies to strengthen their systems to detect and remove terrorist content and take robust action to reduce the availability and accessibility of terrorist content online.
Following the proscription of Palestine Action in July 2025, alongside the Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperialist Movement, the Home Office wrote to technology platforms reminding them of their obligations to detect, moderate and remove content that would likely be unlawful under the UK's Terrorism Act 2000 & 2006.
The Government works closely with the police and other partners to ensure that communities can go about their daily lives without fear of harassment, intimidation or serious disruption, and to protect businesses and local communities from criminality. The police have a range of powers to maintain public safety and deal with criminal behaviour, and where criminality occurs, those responsible should expect to face the consequences.
Anyone with information about criminal activity should report it to the police. Arrest and charging decisions are a matter for the operationally independent police and Crown Prosecution Service.
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 14 September 2026 to Question 28351 on Offenders: Foreign Nationals, if she will publish the number of foreign national offenders sentenced to less than a year in prison who are in the community as of 1 June 2026.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office announced their intention to publish additional FNO statistics following upgrades to the data collection and infrastructure underpinning data on FNOs.
Additional transparency data on FNOs living in the community require further development to prepare these for a public release. Planned updates for the transparency data include additional breakdowns such as nationality and offence group.
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.
Statistics on FNOs leaving immigration detention and FNOs removed from the UK, including breakdowns by most common nationalities, offence groups and sentence length groups, were first published in the quarterly Immigration system statistics release in May 2026, with FNOs entering detention by most common nationalities first published in August 2026.
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason Palestine Action is able to recruit supporters, provide operational guidance and use established branding online; and what steps her Department is taking to help prevent those activities.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Palestine Action is a proscribed terrorist organisation. Under the Terrorism Act 2000, it is a criminal offence to invite or recklessly express support for a proscribed organisation. It is also an offence to publish an image of an article, such as a flag or logo, in circumstances which arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of that organisation.
Terrorist groups and their supporters seek to exploit the reach of the internet to disseminate material, promote their activities and attract support. The Government is taking action to tackle this. We work closely with technology companies to support the removal of unlawful terrorist content, including material linked to proscribed organisations. Under the Online Safety Act 2023, technology companies are required to have systems and processes in place to reduce the risk that their services are used for illegal activity and to remove illegal content, including terrorist material.
The Police Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit can also review online content which may breach terrorism legislation and refer such material to platforms for consideration of removal.
The Court of Appeal recently found that Palestine Action displayed the continuing intention to promote the use of violence, regardless of the risk that it would result in serious damage to property or serious violence against members of the public.
This Government will continue to take the strongest possible action to protect national security, while fully respecting lawful freedom of expression and peaceful protest. Proscription does not prevent individuals from supporting the Palestinian cause or protesting lawfully, but support for a proscribed organisation is a criminal offence.
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the adequacy of action taken by social media companies to remove accounts and content associated with Palestine Action.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Rt Hon Member to the answer given to Question UIN 29145, tabled on 11 September 2026.
Further to that response, this Government is clear that terrorist material including that from Palestine Action, has no place online, and we take the threat of online radicalisation extremely seriously. When a group is proscribed under UK law, it becomes a criminal offence to support or promote that organisation. Platforms are expected to act on this by removing content that glorifies, supports, or is otherwise linked to the proscribed group, in line with their terms of service and legal obligations.
The Home Office works closely with tech companies to strengthen their systems to detect and remove terrorist content. We continue to take robust action to reduce the availability and accessibility of terrorist content online.
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the answer of 20 April 2026 to Question 126358 on Freedom of Expression, whether the independent review into public order and hate crime legislation has reported to her; and when that review will be published.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Lord Macdonald submitted his report to the Home Secretary on Friday 29 May.
The Government is now reviewing the report in detail and will publish the report alongside its formal response shortly.
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign national offenders, sentenced to less than a year in prison, were in the community as at June 2026.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister of State (Home Office)
The number of foreign national offenders (FNOs) sentenced to less than a year in prison and living in the community is not available from published information.
However, the latest published information shows that at the end of Q2 2026 there were 21,294 FNOs subject to deportation living in the community. More information can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK.
11,733 FNOs have been returned from the UK since the 2024 election (1 July 2024 – 31 July 2026). More information an be found at: Returns from the UK between 1 July 2024 and 31 July 2026 - GOV.UK
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the answer of 8 September 2026, to Question 26942 on Asylum: Sponsorship, when the cap on the new community sponsorship scheme will be announced.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister of State (Home Office)
The new safe and legal routes announced in the Restoring Order and Control statement will enable community groups, universities and employers to identify refugees they wish to sponsor.
The routes will be capped. Arrivals under the new community sponsorship route will start small and build over time to align with the UK’s capacity to support refugees. The Home Office will retain overall control on numbers. The government will set out further details in due course.
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national offenders were convicted of any criminal offence but not sentenced to prison, broken down by offence type, in the year ending June 2026.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on convictions and sentencing in the Outcomes by Offence data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal justice statistics quarterly - GOV.UK
However, it is not possible to identify through these statistics whether the offender was a foreign national. This information may be held in court records but to examine individual court records would incur disproportionate costs.
The removal of Foreign National Offenders is a priority for this Government and within its first two years (July 2024 to June 2026), this Government has increased returns of FNOs by 41% compared to the last two years of the previous Government.
Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many “Red” days there have been each month since April 2025.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Met Office provides the Home Office with a daily assessment of the likelihood of at least one small boat crossing attempt which translates into Red, Amber and Green days. This assessment takes multiple factors into account - further detail on the methodology can be found in the previous Home Office publication at www.gov.uk/government/statistics/small-boat-arrivals-and-the-impact-of-crossing-conditions/small-boat-arrivals-and-the-impact-of-crossing-conditions.
The Home Office began receiving the Met Office assessment from September 2019, as such some of the data requested is unavailable. Available data on the number of red days is provided below up to 31 August 2026 – while this goes beyond the periods requested, it is provided in one place for completeness. This data shows that there have been more favourable crossing conditions so far this year than the same period in almost any year since 2020. Red days this year have already exceeded the 106 recorded in the whole of 2022, which saw a record 45,000 migrants arrive in small boats.
To provide additional context to the request, the average number of arrivals per red day per year (to date) has also been provided. This demonstrates a notable reduction in the average number of arrivals per red day in 2026 (to 31 August). The average number of migrants arriving on red days between January and August has fallen by 38% from 232 to 144 over the past year. This represents a 43% drop from the peak of 251 in 2022.
Table 1. Number of red days per month – September 2019 to August 2026
| ||||||||
| Red Days | |||||||
2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
Jan | - | 8 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 5 | 17 | 6 |
Feb | - | 0 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 8 | 5 |
Mar | - | 1 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 9 | 19 | 18 |
Apr | - | 11 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 16 | 14 |
May | - | 12 | 6 | 16 | 13 | 21 | 13 | 20 |
Jun | - | 11 | 18 | 11 | 16 | 20 | 16 | 16 |
Jul | - | 14 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 18 | 22 | 15 |
Aug | - | 14 | 7 | 16 | 14 | 16 | 12 | 16 |
Sep | 3 | 12 | 14 | 13 | 15 | 13 | 9 | - |
Oct | 5 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 19 | 11 | - |
Nov | 2 | 13 | 11 | 4 | 3 | 13 | 8 | - |
Dec | 5 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 5 | - |
Table 2. Average number of small boat arrivals per red day per year to date (1 Jan - 31 Aug)
- | YTD 2019 | YTD 2020 | YTD 2021 | YTD 2022 | YTD 2023 | YTD 2024 | YTD 2025 | YTD 2026 |
Total | N/A | 53 | 136 | 251 | 208 | 194 | 232 | 144 |