时间：2006年5月3日下午
地点：英国议会下院
时段：Prime Minister’s Questions
事件：托尼·布莱尔辩论戴维·卡梅伦监狱问题
Mr. David Cameron (Witney) (Con): The Home Secretary was told last July about the scandal of dangerous prisoners released on to our streets instead of being considered for deportation. The Prime Minister has now had a week to find out what is actually going on in the Home Office. Can he explain why the rate at which prisoners were released and not deported actually accelerated after the Home Secretary found out about it?
The Prime Minister: Yes, I can explain that. Back in August 2005, before any parliamentary questions were raised about the issue, the practice of the immigration department changed so that instead of relying on the prisons to notify it of the release dates of prisoners, it sent immigration officers directly into prisons. That, therefore, meant that many more cases were identified and I can give the right hon. Gentleman the figures. After that point, there were 1,000 actual removals and deportations and 3,000 cases considered, so the rate at which cases came to the immigration and nationality department increased dramatically. However, from 30 March, every case is considered before release and that, let me tell the House, is the first time that has happened for decades.
Mr. Cameron: That is absolutely no explanation why the rate accelerated. Is not the reason why the number accelerated made clear by a senior immigration officer? He said:
"There was an unwritten rule that immigration officers could not go to prisons because senior officials knew that most of the prisoners up for deportation would automatically claim asylum. This was one of several 'creative' solutions thought up by senior officials to please ministers",
so that the official asylum numbers would come down. Can the Prime Minister give us an absolute assurance that that was not the case?
The Prime Minister: Yes, I can, for the reason that I have just given. The whole number of cases being considered increased. The right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that somehow the system was changed and weakened by the Home Secretary is wrong. About 1,500 prisoners are being deported a year. If we go back, not just over the period of this Government, but over the past couple of decades—[Interruption.]
I say this not in excuse or mitigation but to show that the system has had faults from the beginning. If, for example, we take the time when the right hon. Gentleman was a special adviser at the Home Office—[Interruption.] I am not expecting him to take responsibility; I am simply saying that whereas the system now deports 1,500 a year, at that time, the number of people removed on court recommendation, or as not conducive to the public good, was 370. At that time, only one in five failed asylum seekers were removed; now, we remove more than the number of unfounded asylum claims every month. The backlog of cases was 60,000; it is now a few thousand.
If the right hon. Gentleman would like to know how many cases were not considered then, I cannot tell him and neither can he tell me, because there were no such records. Incidentally, at that time, according to Government figures at that time from Earl Ferrers, there were at least 6,000 prisoners at any one time who were in our prisons whose nationality we did not know.
All I say to the right hon. Gentleman is this: this system has not worked properly for decades, and it is actually working now. We have to work through the backlog of cases, which we will do, but it is completely wrong to say that this problem was created or began under this Home Secretary.
Mr. Cameron: People listening to that answer will, frankly, think it pathetic. This scandal has happened on the Prime Minister’s watch and he cannot run away from responsibility for it. His assurances are worth so little, when last week at the Dispatch Box, he admitted that he did not even have the figures.
I have a letter from another immigration officer who has worked in the service for 30 years. He says that we
"are under instruction not to get involved in assisting the police with offenders . . . because these offenders are likely to claim asylum and tip the scales the wrong way. Thus are the figures massaged."
Should we not believe the people who have been working on the front line for nine years rather than a Prime Minister who did not know about this nine days ago?
The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman talks to people on the front line, they will tell him that there have been problems with this system for a very long time. The important thing is how we now overhaul not just the way the system works, but the system itself, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will deal with that in a few moments. The fact is that we have not deported all those convicted of imprisonable offences from the very beginning of this system. I think that it is now time that anybody who is convicted of an imprisonable offence and who is a foreign national is deported.
I just remind the right hon. Gentleman that, when this Government introduced a provision in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 to say that anybody convicted of any offence carrying more than two years’ imprisonment should not be eligible for asylum and therefore could be deported, his party opposed that amendment. In addition—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but if we want to take the measures, let us take the measures. Let me also point out that, when we introduced the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that allowed us to carry out the early removal of these prisoners—in other words, instead of waiting to the end of their sentence, we could remove them early—his party also voted against that Act. So I suggest that we now take the measures necessary not just to improve the way the existing system works, which the Home Secretary has done, but to change it fundamentally for the future.
Mr. Cameron: I look forward to the Home Secretary’s statement. I stuck around to listen to his statement last week when the Prime Minister scuttled out of the building.
In March this year, the Home Secretary was told that a significant number of the criminals released and not deported had committed the most serious offences, including murder and rape. It is now clear that he did not tell the Prime Minister for three weeks. Does the Prime Minister agree that this is the sort of information that a Prime Minister should be told at once?
The Prime Minister: The important thing was that, from 30 March onwards, the new system that was put in place meant that the cases were considered prior to release. That has now been done; the backlog is now being dealt with.
I return to the point that I have made. On any basis, for years we have not been deporting all those people convicted of a serious criminal offence. I say now, “Let us deport all those people”, and I hope that we can get support for that right across the House. Up until now, every time we have taken these measures, they have been opposed by the Conservative party.
Mr. Cameron: Let us just be clear about what we have heard: murderers, rapists, paedophiles released from prison—and the Prime Minister does not want to know immediately. What sort of Government is that? At the weekend, the Prime Minister was asked whether the Home Secretary should resign. He said, “It depends.” On what does it depend?
The Prime Minister: I do not believe that the Home Secretary has created the problems of this system. I believe that those problems have existed for a very long time, in the way in which I have described. I think that it is important that we take the measures necessary to sort out the existing system. That has been done and that is why, since 30 March, the cases have been considered prior to release. But I think that there is a far bigger question, which was raised by the shadow Home Secretary earlier. The fact is that even if all the cases are considered prior to release, we do not at the moment deport all those people convicted of a serious criminal offence. The truth is that even if we take those cases that have been considered, there are still a significant number that, having been considered under the existing system—which has, as I say, been in place for decades—do not result in deportation. Therefore, in my view, it is not just a question of the existing system; it is about making sure that that system is radically overhauled so that those who are convicted of a serious criminal offence are deported automatically. If we do not do that, we may consider all the cases in time, but we will not deport all the people who should be deported.
Mr. Cameron: The fact is that 1,000 people were released from prison and their deportation was not even considered. This Home Secretary will for ever be associated with the scandal of releasing foreign prisoners on to our streets. While the Prime Minister keeps him in office, his claims to be tough on crime will be completely hollow. Are not people now paying the price for the arrogant attachment to office of a leader who has completely lost control?
The Prime Minister: That was the right hon. Gentleman’s pre-arranged soundbite.
Let me just tell him that, as I have just pointed out to him—I notice that he did not come back on any of the facts that I gave—this is a system that has not considered all those cases prior to release at any point. Even if those cases were considered, significant numbers have always not been deported. As I said to him a moment or two ago, at the time when he was working in the Home Office, it had to admit that about 6,000 prisoners in the system at any one time did not even have their nationality identified. All that I am saying, very simply, is this: there are faults with the present system in its implementation, which have been corrected since 30 March, but the real issue, which we have to face in this House if we want to deal with the public concern, is to change the system itself.
