Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of offenders from Somalia have been transferred to prisons in Somalia from the UK in each year of the last five years.

The United Kingdom has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Republic of Somaliland which provides for the transfer of prisoners between the two jurisdictions. Only Somali nationals from Somaliland may be transferred to prisons there under this arrangement. To date no transfers have taken place.

We are committed to increasing the number of Foreign National Offenders removed from our prisons, whether they removed through Prisoner Transfer Agreements or the Early Removal Scheme. In 2015/16 we removed the highest number of Foreign National Offenders since records began with a total of 5,810 offenders removed from prisons, immigration removal centres and the community.