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Foreign prisoner deportation 'should be sped up' | |
(about 5 hours later) | |
Foreign inmates are not being deported quickly enough to help cut costs and relieve overcrowding, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said. | |
The Commons' committee also said more should be done to prepare UK prisoners for early release. | |
It urged the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) to look at its standards as a "matter of urgency". | |
The government said it was cutting the number of foreign prisoners and this would remain a "top priority". | The government said it was cutting the number of foreign prisoners and this would remain a "top priority". |
NOMS, which manages 116 public prisons in England and Wales and the contracts of 14 private prisons, is responsible for a prisoner population of about 84,000. | |
'Quite shocking' | |
But Labour MP and chair of the PAC Margaret Hodge said its record on reducing the number of foreign national prisoners was "frustratingly poor". | |
"It's quite shocking that the people responsible just can't get a grip of the backlog and deal with this big bulk of people in our prisons," she told BBC Breakfast. | |
"Just deport those people who've chosen to come and live here, who've committed a crime which commits them to prison and who should therefore lose the right to come here." | |
The PAC report said that about 1,000 foreign national offenders were deported per quarter - roughly the same as the number of foreign nationals convicted in the same period. | |
This meant the overall number of foreign nationals in the UK's prisons remained around 11,000 - or 13% of the total prison population. They cost around £300m a year, according to the committee. | This meant the overall number of foreign nationals in the UK's prisons remained around 11,000 - or 13% of the total prison population. They cost around £300m a year, according to the committee. |
The report recommended that NOMS work with the Home Office to identify and remove barriers to removing foreign offenders. | |
Changes, such as the ratification of prisoner transfer arrangements across Europe, could provide an opportunity to remove foreign criminals more efficiently, it suggested. | |
The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick, said lots of foreign prisoners would rather be returned and the failure to deport them was a missed opportunity. | |
"There are some quick wins," he told BBC Radio 5 live. "Prisoners who should go back, who want to go back, whose countries would not have a problem about having them back - and yet they get missed sometimes." | |
Justice Minister Jeremy Wright said: "The foreign national prisoner population is lower than it was in 2010 and reducing it further is a top priority for this government. We are working hard to reduce the numbers in our prison system - in 2012 alone we deported more than 4,500 foreign criminals from the UK. | |
He said the Ministry of Justice was working with the Home Office to make removals as efficient as possible. | |
'Well managed' | |
The committee did praise NOMS for making "significant savings in running costs", estimated to be worth £70m a year, by 2015-16. | |
The service is facing a £650m reduction in its £3.4bn budget. | |
The cuts strategy had been "well managed", Mrs Hodge acknowledged, with "experienced and consistent leadership". | |
Welcoming improvements in value for money, the PAC said new prisons were providing good, modern accommodation. | |
But it said inmates were still having to share cells, sometimes in overcrowded conditions, and that some high performing prisons had been closed before new ones were up to standard. |