Immediate deportations but be allowed for the first time but the Conservatives and Reform UK warn human rights laws must be tackled to get rid of criminals.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood plans to change the law to allow immediate deportations (Image: Ian Waldie / Wiktor Szymanowicz / Matt Cardy)
Britain will change the law so foreign criminals will face immediate deportation. Dangerous criminals will be booted out of Britain in a bid to save taxpayers’ cash, free up space in prisons and ensure predators do not return to the nation’s streets. The law has already changed to offenders can be deported after serving 30% of their sentence instead of 50%. But under a new reform it will be possible to kick out offenders right away. They will be barred from re-entering the UK.
However, terrorists, murderers and people serving life sentences will have to serve their prison sentence before being candidates for deportation. Nearly 5,200 “foreign national offenders” have been deported since July last year. Specialist staff have been deployed in nearly 80 jails as part of a £5million mission to speed up removals.
Shabana Mahmood, the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, said: “Deportations are up under this Government, and with this new law they will happen earlier than ever before. Our message is clear: if you abuse our hospitality and break our laws, we will send you packing.”
Her department boasts of returning “35,000 people with no right to be here” since the election. It will be possible to keep a prisoner in a British prison if there is “clear evidence” he or she is “planning further crimes against UK interests such as posing a threat to national security”.
Foreign offenders account for around 12% of the prison population with each place behind bars costing an average of £54,000 a year. The Government promises its Immigration White Paper will include plans to “tighten” the application of the European Convention on Human Rights “make it easier to remove foreign criminals convicted of any offence before the threat they pose escalates”.
Under changes which will come into force in September, prisoners with no right to be in the UK will face deportation once they are 30% into their prison sentence. But legislation will be introduced to reduce this to zero.
Labour claims the system of “prison transfer agreements” – which would see offenders sent to serve sentences in their home countries – has failed to deliver the desired results. It states just 945 foreign prisoners were returned between 2010 and 2023.
Robert Jenrick: Keir Starmer needs to ‘grow a backbone’
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel and Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick (Image: Getty)
Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said that for deportations to become a reality the prime minister must deal with “broken human rights laws”.
He said: “In Starmer’s topsy turvy world investors are fleeing the country in their droves while record numbers of violent and sexual offenders from abroad are put up in our prisons. It’s a farce.
“Yet again Starmer has refused to confront our broken human rights laws. He needs to grow a backbone and change them so we can actually deport these individuals.
“The safety of the British public is infinitely more important than the ‘rights’ of sick foreign criminals. If countries won’t take back their nationals, Starmer should suspend visas and foreign aid. His soft-touch approach isn’t working.”
Reform UK:: Britain needs to get out of the ECHR
Reform UK wants Britain to no longer be subject to the European Court of Human Rights (Image: Getty)
A Reform UK spokesman insisted Britain needed to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
He said: “Until we leave the ECHR, which Labour will never do, the UK will never regain control over who we can and cannot deport. Labour won’t be able to deport foreign criminals and don’t want to deport illegal migrants. This is a weak government that lacks the guts to do what the British people want.”
