The government’s emergency measures to free up prison places will reduce deterrents for foreign nationals to commit crime in the UK, ministers have been warned.
Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, announced changes to the law to allow foreign criminals to be deported within 18 months of the end of their sentence. At present, they only qualify within 12 months.
The move means that foreign prisoners will be freed earlier than their British counterparts because they are no longer imprisoned after deportation.
A Lords committee scrutinising the change in the law, which will come into effect from January, suggested that the move could lead to an increase in crime committed by foreign criminals due to the punishment being softened.
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Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, a member of the Lords committee said: “The policy could be seen as reducing the punishment of overseas criminals in order to ensure that UK citizens can continue to be sent to prison.
“In addition, the policy risks reducing the deterrents for overseas citizens to commit crime, potentially undermining confidence in the criminal justice system. That the Department has provided no analysis of these and other operational risks is disappointing and means that it is impossible to assess properly whether the change is appropriate. We have suggested that the House may wish to press the Minister on our areas of concern.”
About 3,000 foreign criminals were removed from the UK last year, compared with a pre-pandemic average of almost 6,000 a year.
Foreign nationals make up more than 10 per cent of the prison population in England and Wales.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Thousands of prisoners have already been removed under this scheme which has been running for nearly 20 years. Our changes simply mean foreign national offenders who cost the taxpayer £47,000 a year to imprison can be deported earlier and prevented from coming back to the UK.
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“They must still serve at least half of the custodial part of their sentence in prison and terrorists, murderers and other criminals serving life sentences are still excluded.”
Meanwhile, Chalk yesterday confirmed that next month’s King’s Speech will include legislation that gives judges the power to force defendants to attend their sentencing hearing.
He said that he was determined to make the change as quickly as he could in the next parliamentary session because there are signs of increasing numbers of criminals copying from high profile defendants who have refused to turn up recently, including Lucy Letby and the killers of Olivia Pratt-Korbel and Zara Alleena.
Asked by the Lords justice and home affairs committee how long it will take to make the change, Chalk said: “We think there is a proper public interest in acting promptly for the reasons I indicated, because copy-cattery — not a word, but you know exactly what I mean — is a real concern.”
