Apr. 25 2024
Source Page: UK and Italy to build on cooperation to stop migrant crossingsFound: Government’s Rwanda scheme while Italian Interior Minister Piantedosi spoke about Italy’s deal with Albania
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to manage prison population levels.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We continue to focus on the prison capacity challenge.
To meet rising demand, we are building c.20,000 modern, rehabilitative prison places – the biggest prison build programme since the Victorian era. We have already delivered c.5,900 of these, including through our two new 1,700 places prisons, HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way, and c.590 Rapid Deployment Cells across 11 sites. By the end of 2025, we are on track to have delivered around 10,000 places in total.
On 11 March, I announced the next steps in our plan, to allow us to go further and faster in removing FNOs. This includes expediting prisoner transfers with our priority partners such as Albania and the creation of a new taskforce across the HO and MoJ to change the way we process FNO cases radically.
We have also put in place short-term measures across the prison estate to expand useable capacity, while ensuring our prisons remain safe for staff and offenders.
The Government will continue to monitor the evolving situation with demand for prison places carefully, so that we can make sure we have the right approaches in place to maintain the capacity required for a safe and effective criminal justice system.
Apr. 23 2024
Source Page: Rwanda Bill to become law in major illegal migration milestoneFound: Our new agreement with Albania has cut Albanian small boat arrivals by more than 90 per cent; and we
Apr. 22 2024
Source Page: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's statement on the plan to stop the boats: 22 April 2024Found: And because a third of all arrivals were coming from Albania… …we struck a deal that reduced illegal
Laid - 22 Apr 2024 In Force 28 Apr 2024
These Regulations make changes to the operation of official controls during the transitional staging period (“the TSP”), established under Annex 6 to Regulation (EU) 2017/625 of the European Parliament and of the Council on official controls and other official activities performed to ensure the application of food and feed law, …
Found: 10 00 0809 21 00 0809 29 00 0809 30 10 0809 30 90 0809 40 05 0809 40 90 Any third country other than Albania
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make it his policy to publish statistics on the (a) nationality and (b) visa status of offenders convicted in England and Wales every 12 months.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice currently publishes the self-declared nationality of those entering custody as well as those in the prison population as part of their quarterly Offender Management Statistics: Offender management statistics quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
We refer all recorded foreign national offenders awarded a custodial sentence to the Home Office who can carry out immigration checks alongside consideration of each case for deportation. An offender’s nationality and immigration status is not routinely collected by the courts. We are working with the Home Office to explore the potential for the publication of further statistical data related to the nationality and immigration status of offenders.
The removal of foreign national offenders is a Government priority and my department continues to work closely with the Home Office to maximise the number of deportations.
On 11 March, the Government set out a plan to increase the number of foreign national offenders removed through:
the recruitment of 400 additional caseworkers and streamlining the end-to-end removal process;
extending foreign national conditional cautions to foreign national offenders with limited leave to remain; and
amending deportation policy to enable foreign national offenders given suspended sentences of 6 months or more to be considered for deportation.
These actions build on our expansion of the Early Removal Scheme to allow for removal of foreign national offenders up to 18 months before the end of the custodial element of their sentence and expediting prisoner transfers with priority countries such as Albania and seeking to conclude new transfer agreements with partner countries.
Published figures show that FNO returns have increased following the pandemic, in the latest 12-month period (ending December 2023) by 27% when compared to the previous 12-month period. Between January 2019 and December 2023 17,795 FNOs have been removed.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, how many requests for consular support were made to each British Embassy or Consulate in 2023; and how many of those were responded to by officials within a period of 24 hours.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Our consular staff endeavour to give appropriate and tailored assistance 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year, to British nationals overseas and their families in the UK who need support. In 2023, in addition to long running cases, we provided support to around 22,000 British nationals, see breakdown by Post in the table below. The FCDO reports publicly on consular delivery through the FCDO Outcome Delivery Plan [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foreign-commonwealth-development-office-outcome-delivery-plan]. Publishing our transparency data is currently on hold while we embed a new Case Management system.
COUNTRY | 2023 |
Afghanistan | 22 |
Albania | 63 |
Algeria | 23 |
Angola | |
Argentina | 34 |
Armenia | 8 |
Australia | 414 |
Austria | 92 |
Azerbaijan | 12 |
Bahrain | 48 |
Barbados | 113 |
Belarus | 6 |
Belgium | 152 |
Bolivia | 12 |
Bosnia and Herzegovina | 12 |
Botswana | 15 |
Brazil | 88 |
Bulgaria | 166 |
Cambodia | 112 |
Cameroon | 30 |
Canada | 181 |
Chile | 21 |
China | 143 |
Colombia | 73 |
Congo (Democratic Republic) | 22 |
Costa Rica | 39 |
Croatia | 114 |
Cuba | 29 |
Cyprus | 441 |
Czechia | 141 |
Denmark | 88 |
Dominican Republic | 67 |
Ecuador | 13 |
Egypt | 383 |
Estonia | 19 |
Ethiopia | 104 |
Fiji | 21 |
Finland | 49 |
France | 1027 |
Georgia | 27 |
Germany | 662 |
Ghana | 85 |
Greece | 936 |
Guatemala | 43 |
Guinea | |
Guyana | 17 |
Hong Kong SAR | 110 |
Hungary | 131 |
Iceland | 17 |
India | 360 |
Indonesia | 196 |
Iraq | 46 |
Ireland | 104 |
Israel | 39 |
Italy | 411 |
Ivory Coast | |
Jamaica | 179 |
Japan | 167 |
Jerusalem | 61 |
Jordan | 71 |
Kazakhstan | 14 |
Kenya | 146 |
Kuwait | 30 |
Kyrgyzstan | |
Laos | 29 |
Latvia | 20 |
Lebanon | 34 |
Liberia | |
Lithuania | 23 |
Luxembourg | 10 |
Madagascar | |
Malawi | |
Malaysia | 138 |
Malta | 106 |
Mauritius | 14 |
Mexico | 207 |
Moldova | 13 |
Mongolia | 6 |
Montenegro | 33 |
Morocco | 222 |
Myanmar (Burma) | 8 |
Namibia | 9 |
Nepal | 21 |
Netherlands | 287 |
New Zealand | 127 |
Nigeria | 74 |
Norway | 149 |
Oman | 50 |
Pakistan | 376 |
Panama | 17 |
Paraguay | |
Peru | 58 |
Philippines | 283 |
Poland | 242 |
Portugal | 524 |
Qatar | 96 |
Romania | 89 |
Russia | 28 |
Rwanda | 7 |
Saudi Arabia | 166 |
Senegal | 21 |
Serbia | 29 |
Seychelles | 11 |
Sierra Leone | 15 |
Singapore | 105 |
Slovakia | 38 |
Slovenia | 17 |
South Africa | 195 |
South Korea | 40 |
Spain | 4143 |
Sri Lanka | 86 |
St Lucia | 21 |
Sudan | 34 |
Sweden | 110 |
Switzerland | 157 |
Taiwan | 22 |
Tajikistan | 6 |
Tanzania | 36 |
Thailand | 1383 |
The Gambia | 48 |
Trinidad and Tobago | 40 |
Tunisia | 75 |
Turkey | 947 |
Uganda | 52 |
Ukraine | 56 |
United Arab Emirates | 658 |
United States | 1649 |
Uruguay | 10 |
Uzbekistan | 8 |
Venezuela | |
Vietnam | 188 |
Zambia | 22 |
Zimbabwe | 26 |
NB We do not publish data where figures are 5 or below to comply with GDPR
Apr. 18 2024
Source Page: UK and others condemn treatment of prisoners in Russia, including Vladimir Kara-Murza: Joint Statement to the OSCEFound: Chairperson, On Thursday 22nd of March, Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Belgium,
Apr. 17 2024
Source Page: Immigration Rules archive: 11 March 2024 to 3 April 2024Found: or territorial entities (a “*” indicates there are exceptions in VN 2.2 to VN 6.5): Afghanistan Albania
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish a breakdown of offences committed by foreign nationals held in the prison estate.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information can be found in the attached spreadsheet.
The removal of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) is a Government priority and my department continues to work closely with the Home Office to maximise the number of deportations.
Published figures show that FNO returns have increased following the pandemic, in the latest 12-month period (ending December 2023) by 27% when compared to the previous 12-month period. Between January 2019 and December 2023 17,795 FNOs have been removed.
The proportion of FNOs held in custody is 12% of the total prison population and has remained stable in recent years while the overall prison population has grown.
On 11 March, the Government set out a plan to increase the number of FNOs removed through:
These actions build on our expansion of the Early Removal Scheme to allow for removal of FNOs up to 18 months before the end of the custodial element of their sentence, and expediting prisoner transfers with priority countries such as Albania and seeking to conclude new transfer agreements with partner countries.