Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to clause 20 of the Immigration and Asylum Bill, how many deportation cases each year are expected to be prevented on the grounds that removal would have an unduly harsh impact on a qualifying child.

Deportation decisions are taken on a case-by-case basis, and we cannot know in advance what any decision will be. The Bill makes clear that deporting foreign criminals is in the public interest and will be required unless the individual impact is disproportionate to the public interest.

The current system allows the courts to make a decision in the case of “medium offenders” who have been sentenced to less than four years just on the basis of the impact on the criminal or their family. We are changing this so that the courts must also take account of the wider public interest in deportation and in particular the interest in public safety and the prevention of disorder or crime before making a determination as to whether deportation would be a disproportionate interference with Article 8 rights.