Second Delegated Legislation Committee
21 July 2025
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Second Delegated Legislation Committee House of Commons
00:03 - 02:47
Speaker 1
Chair again, Miss McVey. I beg to move that the committee approves the draft Criminal Justice Act 2003 Removal of Prisoners for Deportation Order 2025. As the committee knows, when this government came to power, it inherited a prison system in crisis. From January 2223 to September 24, the adult male prison estate routinely operated at over 99% capacity. Had we exceeded the maximum capacity, the consequences would have been unthinkable.
With nowhere to put new prisoners, the police would have stopped making arrests, and courts would have suspended trials. It could have led to the total breakdown of law and order, with criminals running amok on our streets. This government carried out a series of emergency prisoner releases to prevent the disaster. At the same time, we launched the independent censusing review with one clear goal: to make sure we never again run out of prison places. David Gork and his expert panel published their recommendations on May 22, and the government responded the very same day, accepting the majority of them in principle.
One of the specific areas we asked the review to look at was how we tackle the number of foreign national offenders in our prisons. They currently account for around 12% of our prison population and cost British taxpayers millions of pounds every day. This government has made it very clear that foreign nationals should be in no doubt whatsoever that the law will be enforced, and, where appropriate, we will work with the Home Office to pursue their deportation. I am pleased to say that in our first year, we have removed more foreign national offenders than in the preceding twelve months or any other July-to-July period. But we must go further, Miss McBay.
This draft instrument before us today implements the sentencing review's recommendations to reduce the minimum period that foreign national offenders have to spend in prison to 30% of the custodial term and to increase the window in which they can be removed from prison for the purpose of immediate deportation. As the committee will be aware, the Secretary of State has the power to remove eligible foreign national offenders, those serving a determinate sentence who are liable to be removed from the UK from prison for the sole purpose of immediate deportation. This is referred to as the early removal scheme. Foreign national offenders serving indeterminate sentences, life sentences, and sentences of imprisonment for public protection are outside the scope of this scheme, and rightly so. Prisoners serving any type of sentence for a terrorism-related offense are also excluded.
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