Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many asylum seekers have been prosecuted for sexual offences in the last year; and what proportion were housed in government-funded accommodation at the time.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of defendants prosecuted for sexual offences. This can be obtained in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, which can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.

However, data held centrally does not include if a defendant was an asylum seeker or where they were housed.

The removal of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) is a priority of this Government, to reduce pressures on prison capacity and mitigate the associated expense to the taxpayer. This is why we are introducing new measures to enable the earlier removal of determinate sentenced FNOs as soon after sentencing as possible.