Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with which countries and on what dates the UK has (a) signed and (b) ratified prisoner transfer agreements (i) between May 1997 and May 2010 and (ii) since May 2010.

Table 1: Prisoner Transfer Arrangements (PTAs) signed between May 1997 and May 2010:

Table 2: Prisoner Transfer Arrangements (PTAs) signed May 2010 to date:

*Nigerian PTA will shortly be in force. We are awaiting final exchange of diplomatic notes. First transfers are expected by the end of this calendar year (2014).

In addition to the bilateral prisoner transfer arrangements listed above the United Kingdom became a party to the following multi-party arrangements:

The Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons

Signed: 9 February 2009 Entered into Force: 1 November 2009

Council Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA of the 27 November 2008 on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to judgments in criminal matters imposing custodial sentences or measures involving deprivation of liberty for the purpose of their enforcement in the European Union

Adopted: 27 November 2008 Entered into force: 5 December 2011

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.