The UK Ministry of Justice announced on Sunday that foreign nationals will face immediate deportation following conviction in court.
The action is part of the Labor Government’s “Plan for Change” and is intended to deter foreign nationals from committing crimes in the United Kingdom. Although the corresponding legislation has not been made public, the statement clarified that individuals serving a life sentence will not be considered for deportation.
Critical voices, such as the former Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, expressed concerns about the effects on both deterrence and retribution of the new policy, stating that: “The real danger is you’re giving a green light to foreign national offenders. You come to Britain, you’re not going to get punished. You’re thinking: the worst that happens to me is I’m released immediately and put on a plane.”
The Early Removal Scheme for Foreign Offenders “enables the removal of foreign nationals from prison at an earlier point in their sentence than would otherwise be possible for the sole purpose of removal or deportation from the United Kingdom”.
Currently, under Section 260 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a “fixed-term prisoner” can usually only be removed from the United Kingdom once a quarter of their total sentence is served. Specifically, that is generally half of the custodial period as defined under Section 244 (3). Alternatively, if it results in a longer period, the prisoner would need to serve half of his sentence minus 545 days. This provision has been deliberately designed so that a prisoner serves a significant portion of their sentence before being removed, balancing punishment with immigration enforcement.
However, the act provides under Section 260 (6) that the Secretary of State, subject to parliamentary approval according to Section 330 (5), has the power to amend these periods. The Removal of Prisoners for Deportation Order was laid before the UK parliament in June, reducing the required period to be served to the longer of either fifteen percent of their total sentence or half the sentence minus four years. The order is scheduled to come into force on September 23.
In an explanatory note by the Ministry of Justice, the amendment was justified by the current operational difficulties of the UK justice system. Reciting a long-debated issue, it stresses that the “[prison system has] routinely been operating above 99 percent since January 2023”. Hence, the rationale behind the initial change was to, on one hand, reduce the operational burden of the prison system and, on the other, reduce public spending, with foreign imprisoned individuals costing the UK taxpayer more than $500 million per year.
While the statement marks a further tightening of the government’s immigration policy, the exact wording of the measure and a timeline for its implementation have yet to be disclosed.
