Foreign shoplifters, thieves and drug dealers are to be deported rather than prosecuted as part of radical plans by the Justice Secretary to free up prison spaces.
Alex Chalk told The Telegraph that lower level foreign offenders will be spared jail and instead given “conditional cautions” under which they will be expelled and banned from returning to Britain.
Chris Philp, the policing minister, has been put in charge of delivering the deportation scheme which aims to reduce the 3,300 foreign prisoners on remand who have been charged but not yet convicted.
They represent nearly a third of the 10,441 foreign offenders in jails in England and Wales, out of the total 88,000 prisoners.
However, the plans could be frustrated by criminals who mount legal challenges against their deportation.
Mr Chalk revealed he has opened negotiations with Poland and Romania to deport dangerous prisoners to serve their sentences in their home countries.
He is also fast-tracking the expulsion of foreign offenders nearing the end of their sentences and restarting the use of police cells for criminals.
Proposal in the public interest
Ministers have been warned that prison places could run out within weeks as courts ramp up cases and prosecutions are set to increase following the uplift of 20,000 police officers.
As of Friday there were just over 1,000 spaces available out of 89,041.
Outlining in detail his plans for the first time, the Justice Secretary said removing foreign prisoners instead of prosecuting them was in the public interest.
“There is a power that exists in certain lower-level cases, that in place of prosecution, the Home Office deports someone,” he said.
“Now there are some cases where it’s absolutely right that you are going to want to go through the criminal justice process to ensure that that person is properly punished.
“But there will be other cases where actually it’s in the public interest to simply get them out of the country.”
As the power to issue conditional cautions already exists, its extension to foreign prisoners is unlikely to require new legislation.
Speaking to The Telegraph during a visit to HMP Liverpool, where a multi-million pound refurbishment programme will free up more than 350 extra cells, Mr Chalk said his “first, second and third” priority was to increase prison capacity.
Alex Chalk (right) on a visit to HMP Liverpool where an overhaul is underway to free up more cells
Credit: Paul Cooper
“I’ll always do whatever it takes to keep the British people safe,” said Mr Chalk.
“I will focus absolutely on supply, that is my overwhelming priority. I will always make sure that there are sufficient places to give effect to an order of the court to incarcerate people and to ensure that the British people are kept safe with dangerous people behind bars.”
Mr Chalk admitted that his “intense frustration” at the cost to taxpayers of housing foreign prisoners – £47,000 a year for every inmate – had driven his plans.
He has already struck a deal with Albania to transfer 200 of its most dangerous criminals, who are serving four years or more, to see out the rest of their sentences in their home country.
Albanians account for 13 per cent of all foreign criminals in UK jails, the largest proportion, with 1,323 currently incarcerated.
The first deported under the scheme was a “serious” drug smuggler jailed for 17 years, Mr Chalk revealed.
Now the Justice Secretary is turning his attention to Poland, which is the second-highest with nine per cent, and Romania, at seven per cent, where he is seeking to establish similar prisoner transfer agreements. He has already written to his Polish counterpart.
Early removal scheme
The expansion of an “early removal scheme” is also expected to have a significant impact on overcrowding.
Foreign prisoners can now be deported 18 months before the end of their sentences, a year earlier than the six months in the previous policy.
Officials are working to create new blocks in existing jails and refurbish Victorian jails, such as HMP Liverpool
Credit: PAUL COOPER
Criminals are freed early from jail as soon as they are deported, but banned from ever returning to the UK.
However, significant numbers fight deportation, pleading breach of their human rights or that they are victims of modern slavery.
“Some don’t want to leave a British prison or Britain because they will say that they’ve got a child here, or whatever it is,” said Mr Chalk.
On the orders of Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, resources have been “surged” into a new fast-track system for hearing appeals.
It has been set up under new immigration laws which bar offenders from introducing new evidence or claims at the last minute to delay their deportation flights.
However, Mr Chalk pledged to avoid any expansion of the early release of prisoners – beyond the present emergency scheme – where governors can free prisoners up to 18 days before their scheduled release date.
This has now been “activated for an undefined period” because of the crisis, according to documents leaked at the weekend.
He has also authorised Operation Safeguard, where police cells are used for the overflow of newly convicted prisoners to avoid having to transport them “at great cost and inconvenience around the country”.
It was suspended at the end of last year, but the crisis is such that it will now be activated.
Mega prisons delayed
Mr Chalk outlined the plans as he admitted the MoJ’s new building programme to create six “world class” mega prisons, with space for nearly 10,000 prisoners, was a year behind schedule because of “sclerosis” or blockages in the planning system.
The MoJ is spending £400 million on 800 rapid deployment “pop-up” cells in prisons.
Officials are working to create new blocks in existing jails and refurbish Victorian jails such as those in Liverpool and Birmingham to bring hundreds more cells into use.
The Justice Secretary said: “Prisons as well as prisoners can be redeemed.”
He is facing a race against the courts to ensure prison spaces do not run out before a major sentencing reform this summer.
The legislation would mean hundreds of criminals facing up to one year in prison will be spared jail and instead have their sentences suspended.
Mr Chalk hinted that reforms to the planning system to make it easier to build major infrastructure at pace would have his backing.
“I don’t want to tread on the toes of Michael Gove [the Levelling Up Secretary] on these things,” he said.
“All I can tell you is that from my point of view, it is completely unacceptable for us to be in a position where we cannot roll out essential infrastructure like this because of sclerosis in the planning system.
“I think there is a solution within the existing system. It just means building a pipeline. But of course, if there are other ways we can do it, then we at the MoJ will be all ears.”
In the absence of such an overhaul, his current “solution” is £30 million funding for a team of civil servants to identify sites “years and years” in advance and get planning permission further ahead of development.
The Justice Secretary said the overcrowding crisis stemmed from two principled decisions by ministers in the Covid pandemic – the first to spurn the early release of 16,000 prisoners, recommended in contingency plans by MoJ officials, and the second not to abandon jury trials, “one of the most fundamental freedoms of freeborn Britons.”
While other places such as France and California released thousands of prisoners, Mr Chalk said: “Releasing 16,000 people would have been a mistake because it would have prioritised the protection of the prisoner rather than protection of the public.”
Now, however, he said “there is a price you pay for principle”.
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