Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, as a result of international conventions and bilateral agreements on the transfer of sentenced persons, how many people have (1) returned to the UK from any such country, and (2) been repatriated from the UK.

Any foreign national who comes to our country and abuses our hospitality by breaking the law should be in no doubt of our determination to punish and deport them. More than 48,000 foreign national offenders have been removed from the UK since 2010, and in the last financial year more than 5,000 were removed from prisons, immigration removal centres, and the community.

Prisoner transfer is one of the mechanisms used to remove foreign national offenders. Between 1 May 2014 and 31 May 2019, 464 sentenced prisoners were transferred from England and Wales to other countries under international prisoner transfer arrangements. During the same period 233 sentenced prisoners were transferred to England and Wales.

The transfer of prisoners into and out of Scotland and Northern Ireland is a devolved matter.