Contribution
My Lords, almost daily we are subjected to ever more horrific stories of foreign nationals committing horrendous crimes in this country, who are all too often permitted to stay in the United Kingdom. Fahad Al Enaze, an asylum seeker from Kuwait being housed in a hotel in Liverpool, sent sexual messages to a person he believed to be a 14 year-old girl. He was sentenced to eight months in jail, but the sentence was suspended for 24 months. Consequently, he will be spared jail time and, under the current law, he will not be subject to automatic deportation.
Section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007 as it stands permits the automatic deportation of a person sentenced to at least 12 months’ imprisonment or who is convicted of an offence which is specified in an order made under Section 72(4)(a) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. The individual just cited was convicted of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, which is an offence under Section 15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 but is not specified under Section 72(4)(a) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Since he was convicted of an offence that is not specified and was not sentenced to more than 12 months in prison, he will not be automatically deported. This is obviously wrong. This is a man seeking to obtain asylum status in the UK who is being housed at the taxpayers’ expense. He is a convicted paedophile and yet the law will permit him to stay. There are many more examples of this and it cannot be right. We cannot claim to be protecting the British public when we permit people like this to remain in the country.
The amendments in this group in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough would change that. Amendment 34 would ensure that, where any foreign national is convicted of an offence, regardless of the sentence, they will be deported. The amendment does this through two avenues. First, it proposes an alteration to Sections 3 and 24 of the Immigration Act 1971. Proposed new subsection (2) in my amendment would change the current discretion in Section 3 for a court to recommend deportation where a person over the age of 17 is convicted of an offence to make that recommendation mandatory. The change to Section 24 would ensure that, where a person commits the offence of entering the UK illegally, they will be liable to deportation and the Secretary of State must make the necessary arrangement for that person’s removal.
Secondly, my amendment would amend Sections 32, 33 and 38 of the UK Borders Act 2007 to remove the condition that a person must be sentenced to a custodial sentence of at least 12 months to be eligible for automatic deportation. Government figures show that 12% of the current prison population are foreign-national offenders—that is nearly 11,000 people. Not only this, but a further 19,500 foreign-national offenders have been released from jail but not deported. We know that this Government have released almost 40,000 prisoners before the end of their sentences. Their Sentencing Bill, which introduces the presumption that any sentence shorter than 12 months will be suspended, will mean that another 40,000 people will avoid jail every year. The Government claim this is necessary due to prison capacity. Of course, if the Government were to adopt our proposals to remove all foreign-national offenders from UK prisons and deport them, and ensure that any foreign national convicted of a criminal offence was also swiftly deported, we would have thousands of spare prison spaces.
The British public does not want foreign nationals who commit criminal offences to remain in the United Kingdom. A poll from March this year found that over 80% of people want them deported. Unfortunately, under the law as it stands, this will not happen. Even after the Government bring in changes to the early removal scheme via Clause 32 of the Sentencing Bill, a significant proportion of foreign criminals will not be deported, and that is to say nothing of those foreign-national offenders who have served sentences and then been released. Amendment 72 tabled by my noble friend Lord Jackson would ensure that they were given a deportation order within seven days of their release from prison. When the time comes, if my noble friend decides to test the opinion of the House, he will have my full support.
Where this Government have acted, we will support them. They have increased the rates of removal for foreign-national offenders, and that is welcome, but it is not enough. I beg to move.