Violent Crime Reduction Bill

moved Amendment No. 118B:"Page 28, line 42, at end insert—" ““(   )   After subsection (2) insert— ““(2A) In the case of an offender who is a foreign national, the Secretary of State shall give directions for such an offender to be deported immediately following his release from custody. (2B) The Secretary of State shall lay annually before each House of Parliament a report on deportations carried out under subsection (2A).”””” The noble Baroness said: In moving the amendment, the temptation to criticise the Home Office overcomes me. The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that foreign nationals who are imprisoned for firearms offences should be deported immediately at the end of their sentence. By confining the scope to those who have committed firearms offences, this amendment is properly permissible within the scope of the Bill. It would also put a duty on the Secretary of State to make an annual report to Parliament on the deportations that happen as a result. I tabled this amendment on 27 April when it became clear that the Home Office was in a shambles over the release into the community since 1999 of 1,023 foreign prisoners without the prior consideration of deportation that should have taken place. I gave notice during our first day in Committee on 26 April that I would take this step. The following week the Government made a Statement which revealed that the position was even worse than anticipated—288 more foreign criminals were released after August 2005; that is, after the then Home Secretary explicitly knew that there was a problem. The rate of release therefore accelerated while Mr Clarke was Home Secretary. When he made his Statement to Parliament on 3 May, giving details of the number of serious foreign criminals who had been released without consideration of deportation, he said that the number was about 90. On Monday 8 May, his replacement as Home Secretary, the right honourable John Reid said:"““The number of released prisoners who fall into the category of having committed the most serious offences is not 90; it could be as high as 150 and, indeed, depending on what definition you use, if you were to include in that armed robbery, it could be several hundred””." At Prime Minister’s Question Time on 3 May the Prime Minister made a clear promise:"““I think that it is now time that anybody who is convicted of an imprisonable offence and who is a foreign national is deported””.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/5/06; col. 960.]" Not to be outdone, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, popped up later on BBC’s ““Question Time”” and repeated the commitment. On the afternoon of 3 May the then Home Secretary, Mr Charles Clarke, stated:"““The guiding principle will be that foreign nationals guilty of criminality should expect to be deported””.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/5/06; col. 971.]" The story continues in the same vein. The Prime Minister at his weekly briefing of journalists on Monday 8 May repeated the pledge that he had made at Prime Minister’s Question Time on Wednesday 3 May:"““If somebody commits a serious enough criminal offence to go to jail in this country and they are not a British citizen, I think it is perfectly reasonable for the country to say at the conclusion of that sentence, you leave the country””." The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor then threw doubt on whether Mr Blair knew what he was doing, by saying that he doubted whether all foreign prisoners could be deported automatically. But after the noble and learned Lord had said that, the Prime Minister rebutted it and said,"““I am absolutely sure we can deliver on this””." The Prime Minister said that he would consider introducing new laws to override the criminals’ human rights and enable them to be deported. He said that the rights of British citizens should be more balanced with those of foreign criminals or terror suspects. Throughout the past two weeks, the Prime Minister’s commitment has remained the same in all his comments, including, I understand, those made today. During our dinner break I checked the BBC news, and confirmed that the Prime Minister was clear in his commitment to deport criminals. There was a fascinating rider that stated that Downing Street later issued a communiqué to ““clarify”” the position; in other words, Downing Street thought that the Prime Minister had got it wrong. In this amendment, I am simply trying to help the Government to carry out the Prime Minister’s commitment. As I said, my amendment covers only those who are subject to imprisonment for firearms offences, but they are exactly the kind of people that the Prime Minister wants to deport. The Government should put up or shut up. I beg to move.