Foreign prisoners to get £1,500 and early release if they agree to be deported

Foreign prisoners will get £1,500 if they agree to be freed early to be deported to their home country in a major expansion of a scheme to tackle the jail overcrowding crisis.

Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, has extended a scheme so that foreign offenders can go back to their home country 18 months before their release date, an increase of six months from the previous 12 months.

They are entitled to £1,500 each and a further £1,500 each for their partner, spouse and any of their children aged under 18 as long as they agree to deportation and a ban on returning to the UK. Once home, they do not have to serve any more jail time.

The early removal scheme which was originally set up 17 years ago is being expanded as a central part of Mr Chalk’s efforts to double the number of foreign prisoners cleared out of jails in England and Wales from 1,800 to 3,600 in the next year.

It comes after it was announced on Tuesday that failed asylum seekers would be offered £3,000 to move to Rwanda under a voluntary scheme drawn up by the Government to help clear the backlog of migrants stuck in Britain.

The new agreement with Rwanda, which is separate to the stalled deportation scheme, is aimed at removing thousands of migrants whose claims have been rejected and cannot remain in the UK but are unable to return to their own country.

In return for the £3,000 support normally offered to repatriated migrants and the prospect of citizenship in Rwanda, they would be able to opt to be sent to the central African state, deemed by the Government a safe third country.

Rwanda flights still grounded

The move comes as the Government is attempting to get deportation flights off to Rwanda with the scheme blocked by legal challenges since June 2022 and amid criticism of the £350 million cost of the agreement with the African state.

The Safety of Rwanda Bill, which is designed to secure the deportation flights, returns to the Commons next week when the Government will reverse Lords amendments in a ping pong battle to get it onto the statute book.

Rishi Sunak has made stopping the boats across the Channel one of his key five pledges with the deportation flights central to his strategy of creating a deterrent to further crossings. New laws mean anyone who arrives illegally will be deported to their home state or a safe third country like Rwanda.

The prisoner scheme is not designed to deter further illegal crossings but instead mirrors the existing voluntary returns system that enables failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals and other migrants with no right to remain in the UK to return to their home country.

There are currently more than 10,000 foreign offenders in jails, accounting for 12 per cent of the prison population at a time when the number of spare places in men’s jails has fallen below 250, or just 0.3 per cent of the 85,000 capacity. It follows warnings that prisons could run out of space within weeks.

The move comes on top of a major expansion of an early release scheme for UK prisoners under which they will be freed up to 60 days before they are due to be released. It had previously been limited to only those who were up to 18 days from release.

In a statement to the Commons on the crisis on Tuesday, Mr Chalk said: “These foreign criminals are not only putting a strain on the public purse, they are reducing the capacity of the prison system. They should, wherever possible, be removed back to their own countries of origin.”

The Ministry of Justice said the scheme would save the taxpayer up to £70,000 over 18 months as it costs £47,000 a year to accommodate a foreign prisoner. The scheme was originally set up by the Labour government in 2006 when it faced a similar prisons crisis.

It is one of five measures put in place by Mr Chalk to try to prevent prisons running out of space.

Foreign criminals will also become eligible for deportation for any offence where they face a suspended sentence of more than six months, down from 12.

The Government will create a unit of 400 case workers in an effort to increase the number of foreign criminals deported. They will be tasked with dealing with prisoners seeking to avoid deportation by claiming breaches of their human rights or modern slavery.

Mr Chalk confirmed plans, first revealed by The Telegraph, to allow foreign shoplifters, thieves and drug dealers to be deported rather than prosecuted if they agreed to a conditional caution under which they will be expelled and banned from returning to Britain.

He is also seeking new prisoner transfer agreements emulating Albania which has agreed to take up to 400 of the most dangerous criminals held in UK jails so that they serve the rest of their sentences in a prison in their home country.

Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary, said the 60-day early release scheme was “unprecedented” and the “most drastic” the country had ever seen.

“This is a measure which will cause shockwaves and deep concern across our country, and the Secretary of State seems to think a quiet written ministerial statement published late last night and one paragraph today is good enough - it is not,” she said.

“The Government has refused all requests to be transparent about the scale and the impact of this scheme, this is no way to run the criminal justice system, or indeed the country.”