Foreign National Offenders
Debate between Lady Hermon and Philip Hollobone(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Hollobone
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The figure I have for Jamaica is 567, and I, like him, would like the Minister to update us.
In a minute, I will come to a list of shame, of those countries that have the most foreign national offenders in our prisons.
Mr Hollobone
I would be honoured and delighted to give way to the hon. Lady.
Lady Hermon
The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that dissident republicans continue to wage a very violent campaign in Northern Ireland. These are individuals who claim they want to achieve a united Ireland through violence. At present, some of them are relaxing at Her Majesty’s pleasure in Maghaberry prison in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Gentleman have any facts and figures relating to such prisoners who have requested to go back to the Republic of Ireland?
Mr Hollobone
I do not have the answer to the hon. Lady’s question, but I hope that the Minister does, because he is paid to have that sort of information. I can tell her, however, that according to my figures, southern Ireland—Ireland—has 783 nationals in UK prisons and is No. 2 on my list of shame.
Some 80% of the world’s nations are represented in our prisons. A third of those prisoners have been convicted of violent and sexual offences, a fifth of drug offences, and others of burglary, robbery, fraud and other serious crimes, yet we have the privilege of paying for them to stay in our country. The National Audit Office, in a report just a couple of years ago, looked at how much that is costing our nation. The average annual cost of incarcerating a prisoner is £33,000, so the very least this costs us is something like £330 million a year. The National Audit Office estimated that if things such as police costs, Crown Prosecution Service costs, legal aid costs and prison costs were added in, the total bill would be between £769 million and £1 billion a year, with its median estimate being £850 million.
I come now to my list of shame, the list of the top 10 nations, according to the latest figures I have, on the basis of how many of their nationals are in our prisons. At No. 10 is Nigeria with 385, No. 9 is Somalia with 430, No. 8 is India with 458, equal sixth are Lithuania and Pakistan with 471, No. 5 is Albania with 472, No. 4 is Jamaica with 567, No. 3 is Romania with 629, No. 2 is Ireland with 783 and No. 1 is Poland with 951.
Cancer Drugs
Debate between Lady Hermon and Philip Hollobone(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Order. I encourage Lady Hermon to grab the Minister and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on the way out.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the availability of cancer drugs.