Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total annual cost of providing legal aid to foreign nationals appealing a deportation order or contesting a criminal conviction.

Information on foreign national offenders contesting a criminal conviction is not centrally held.

Expenditure relating to deportation and removal appeals is published as part of the Legal Aid Agency’s Official Statistics as part of its ‘detailed civil data’ collection. Data for the last ten years can be found in the table below. Please note that due to the way information is recorded it is not possible to distinguish between costs relating to deportation matters (concerning foreign national offenders) and those relating to removal matters (e.g. individual’s whose asylum or immigration applications have been unsuccessful).