Jo Stevens
Main Page: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)Department Debates - View all Jo Stevens's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrew Selous
If a prisoner is deported, they are not allowed to return to the United Kingdom during the period of their sentence.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
Is it not the case, as the former Chancellor and Justice Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), put it, that if we left the European Union we would go back to a system of prisoner transfer where we had absolutely no ability to deport anybody to their country of origin unless we could persuade the Government of that country to accept them? Why would we risk losing that progress?
Andrew Selous
The hon. Lady is right in that if this country leaves the European Union, we will lose the compulsory prisoner transfer agreement that we currently have, and that will cause issues when it comes to trying to return the current EU prisoners in our prisons.
Jo Stevens
Does the Minister agree that rather than sniping from the sidelines on these issues, we should be playing our full part in co-ordinated international security frameworks such as the prisoner transfer agreement, the European arrest warrant, Eurojust—the body that leads judicial co-operation between member states—and the Schengen information system, as all of them ensure that our EU membership continues to help protect us against crime, terrorism and threats to our security—yet more reasons to vote to remain on 23 June? [Laughter.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not know what the source of merriment is among the little troika on the Back Benches—the hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope), for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). I do not know whether some sort of powder has been applied to them, but they are in a very happy state.