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Written question asked by James Clappison (Conservative) on Monday, 7 January 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 9 January 2008. It was answered by Lord Hanson of Flint (Labour) on Monday, 14 January 2008 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Prisoners

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice which 20 nationalities had the highest number of (a) prisoners and (b) prisoners without leave to remain in the UK in custody in the UK in (i) 1997 and (ii) the most recent year for which figures are available.
Answer

The available information for England and Wales relates to the numbers of foreign national prisoners, not taking account of their leave to remain status, held in prison establishments in England and Wales at 30 June 1997 and 30 June 2007. This is published in ““Prison Statistics England and Wales 1997””, table 6.2, and ““Population in Custody June 2007”” monthly tables available at:"http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/population-in-custody-june07.pdf"The following table is derived from these published tables:

Number
30 June 1997
Irish Republic 734
Jamaica 651
Pakistan 336
India 272
Nigeria 243
Turkey 155
Netherlands 155
Ghana 114
Columbia 100
Italy 92
USA 81
Algeria 73
Cyprus 77
Bangladesh 75
Germany 78
Somalia 67
South Africa 64
France 63
China 51
Portugal 46
30 June 2007
Jamaica 1,276
Nigeria 844
Irish Republic 605
Vietnam 391
Pakistan 375
Somalia 334
China 331
Poland 301
India 279
Iraq 256
Turkey 210
Iran 201
Lithuania 182
Algeria 178
Portugal 178
Ghana 174
Zimbabwe 174
Albania 163
South Africa 158
Bangladesh 157

Information relating to immigration status could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.Comparable information for Scotland and Northern Ireland is the responsibility of the Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Prison Service.These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
470 c955-7W; 177456
Session
2007-08
Subjects
Foreign nationals Prisoners
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk