Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national offenders were imprisoned (a) in total and (b) by offence type in each year since 2008.

The total number of foreign national offenders who are imprisoned is published in Table A1.11 here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1173712/Population_30June2023_Annual.ods.

Data for the second element can be found in the attached file.

The removal of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) is a Government priority with all FNOs sentenced to custody being referred to the Home Office for consideration of deportation. Both departments are working closely to maximise removals from prison including:

• Expanding the Early Removal Scheme to 18 months so we get them out of the country early and no longer cost taxpayers a small fortune;
• Deploying more Home Office caseworkers to speed up and increase removals from this country, and look at measures to remove foreign nationals accused of less serious crimes more quickly;
• Continuing to sign strike new prisoner transfer deals like the one agreed with Albania.

The Govt has made good progress from removing from prison and the community and published figures show that overall FNO returns have increased in the latest 12-month period (ending September 2023) by 19% when compared to previous 12-month period (3,577 compared to 3,011).   We removed 16,676 foreign national offenders since January 2019 to September 2023.