UK Borders Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, the purpose of which is to prevent injustices to those who have already served their full sentence, and to avoid prisons and detention centres being clogged up by these people while the Secretary of State considers their cases and goes through the other motions connected with deportation. I can see, however, that the Government may object to the last line of the amendment, which says, "““and in any event within three months of that date””." Their objection may be founded on the fact that a minority of such prisoners will have appeals still pending against either conviction or sentence, but surely the way to deal with that situation is to provide that those prisoners shall be released unless there is an appeal of the kind I have described. Even then it should be possible for most of them to be granted bail.