Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Conservative): It is laudable that the total number of foreign nationals in prison has gone down since Labour left office from 11,000 to 10,000, but does the Minister agree that that is 10,000 too many? Is it not time we sent the whole lot of them home?

The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert): I agree with my hon. Friend that we want to make greater progress and that is why we have set out provisions in the sentencing Bill on, for example, conditional cautions, which will be available as an alternative disposal to remove foreign national prisoners in some circumstances if they agree not to return for a period of time. The question of whether foreign national prisoners could serve their sentences abroad relies on the consent of other countries. We are attempting to negotiate more agreements, but even if we no longer need the consent of the offender, we cannot remove them without the consent of the country that receives them.

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