Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether EU nationals sentenced before 5 December 2011 are eligible for repatriation under the EU Prisoner Transfer Agreement.

Council Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA (The "EU PTA") entered into force on 5 December 2011. To date 18 Member states, including the UK, have implemented the Agreement. The remainder are expected to do so by the end of this year (2014). Article 28 (2) of the EU PTA enables Member States to issue a declaration restricting application of the agreement to persons sentenced on or after 5 December 2011. To date 4 Member States (Ireland, Malta, The Netherlands, and Poland) have made declarations under Article 28 (2).

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.