Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with which countries the UK is currently negotiating prisoner transfer agreements.

Prisoner transfer agreements can be a sensitive issue for some countries and it could be counter-productive to reveal details of discussions before they are concluded. However, I can assure you that my Ministerial colleagues and I are actively engaging with a number of countries and remain determined to secure compulsory agreements wherever possible.

All foreign national offenders sentenced to custody are referred to the Home Office for them to consider deportation at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Prisoner Transfer process is just one mechanism for removing Foreign National Offenders. The number of FNOs deported under the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) has increased under this Government. In 2013, we removed nearly 2,000 FNOs under ERS and under the Tariff Expired Removal Scheme (TERS), which we introduced in May 2012, we have removed over 240 FNOs to date.

Whereas this Government has begun to reduce the foreign national population in prison since 2010, between 1997 and 2010, the number of foreign nationals in our prisons more than doubled.