London jails ‘clogged with foreign convicts who should be deported’

Ministers were today accused of unnecessarily “clogging up” London prisons with foreign convicts.

New figures reveal that the number of overseas prisoners detained when they should have been deported has doubled in three years. Statistics published in Parliament reveal that 178 foreign offenders who have served their sentences were still in custody in the capital’s jails because officials had not yet managed to send them home.

This year’s figures compare with a London total of 90 at the same point in 2010 — half the current figure — and come despite a shortage of prison places in London. The result is that many local convicts have to be sent to other parts of the country to serve their sentences, taking them far from their families and away from probation and other staff responsible for preparing them or a law-abiding release.

The Ministry of Justice, which issued the figures, insisted that every effort was being made to deport foreign offenders and to overcome the legal difficulties which can delay their departure. Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan, the MP for Tooting, claimed, however, that the statistics were a “scandal”. He added: “London’s prisons are already overflowing. But this is being made worse by prisons being clogged up with those who shouldn’t be there because of the Government’s failure to deport them.”

The largest number of overseas convicts being held pending deportation is in Pentonville where 55 have served their sentences. Another 49 who have served their terms remain in cells at Wandsworth while a further 31 are in Wormood Scrubs.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: “The Government is committed to doing everything possible to remove those foreign national offenders who have no right to remain here at the earliest opportunity. In 2012 over 4,500 were removed from the UK.”