Robert Jenrick

The hon. Gentleman is on rocky ground, because the Justice Secretary literally put his name to a letter stopping the then Government deporting foreign criminals from our country back to their own countries. [Interruption.] He did, I am afraid, as I think did the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. You literally could not make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker. What is the answer to the question from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell)? It is simple: change our human rights laws and address the European convention on human rights so that it is possible to remove each and every foreign national offender in a timely fashion, and then use every lever of the British state—whether it is revoking visas or suspending foreign aid—to achieve that. Let me give the House an example of just how ludicrous the present situation is. When the Justice Secretary was Foreign Secretary, it was reported that he got into a debate with Pakistan over whether it would take back three grooming gang perpetrators—rapists—to their home country. Pakistan held out, saying that in return for taking back its own citizens—despicable rape gang perpetrators—we needed to agree to resume flights from a disreputable airline that has had safety challenges in the past. How weak is this country? How weak is this country that we will not stand up to that? We are giving more than £100 million a year in foreign aid to Pakistan. We should be using every lever of the British state to get these people out of our country and our prisons so that we do not have to carry out the early release of dangerous people, which is what this Bill will do.