Foreign criminals will be deported from the UK immediately after they are sentenced, the justice secretary has said.

The law change proposed by Shabana Mahmood could save taxpayers an average of £54,000 a year per prison place.

The changes would apply to prisoners serving fixed-term “determinate” sentences.

Authorities would also retain their power not to deport a criminal but instead keep them in custody – with examples including if an offender is planning further crimes against the UK’s interests or national security.

The justice secretary’s announcement goes further than a change to the law in June – expected to come into force in September – meaning prisoners face deportation 30% into their sentence rather than the current 50%.

The government will need parliament to greenlight its proposal to bring this down to 0%.

Foreign national offenders make up around 12% of the prison population.

Ms Mahmood said: “Our message is clear – if you abuse our hospitality and break our laws, we will send you packing.”

She added: “Deportations are up under this government, and with this new law they will happen earlier than ever before.”

Almost 5,200 foreign national offenders have been deported since July 2024, a 14% increase on the 12 months prior, according to the government.

Read more:
Inside one of Britain’s most overcrowded prisons
Prison system came ‘within days of collapse’
Prisoners to be moved to lower security jail

According to a Labour source, the previous Conservative government relied on prison transfer agreements with other countries to deport foreign national offenders, in deals which allow inmates to serve their custodial sentence in their “home” country.

This saw 945 prisoners sent to jails abroad between 2010 and 2023, equal to fewer than two criminals per week.

Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: “In Starmer’s topsy-turvy world, investors are fleeing the country in their droves while record numbers of violent and sexual offenders from abroad are put up in our prisons. It’s a farce.

“Yet again Starmer has refused to confront our broken human rights laws.

“He needs to grow a backbone and change them so we can actually deport these individuals.

“The safety of the British public is infinitely more important than the ‘rights’ of sick foreign criminals.

“If countries won’t take back their nationals, Starmer should suspend visas and foreign aid. His soft-touch approach isn’t working.”

Police have made 200 arrests in London after crowds turned out for a Palestine Action demonstration – despite the group being banned.

Organisers Defend Our Juries said up to 700 people were at the event in Parliament Square and claimed police were preparing for the “largest mass arrest in their history”.

The group said those arrested included former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, NHS workers, quakers and a blind wheelchair user.

The Metropolitan Police said a “significant number of people” were seen “displaying placards expressing support for Palestine Action, which is a proscribed group”.

“We have now made 200 arrests in Parliament Square this afternoon,” the force wrote in a post on X.

In an earlier post, it wrote: “While many of those remaining in the square are media and onlookers, there are still people holding placards supporting Palestine Action. Officers are steadily working through the crowd making further arrests.”

Read more
What does proscribing a group mean?

Legislation to proscribe Palestine Action came into force on 5 July, making it a criminal offence to show support for the organisation, carrying a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Defend Our Juries announced the protest would go ahead earlier this week despite the ban, following several other similar demonstrations since the proscription last month.

On Saturday, a spokesperson for the group said that “Palestine Action and people holding cardboard signs present no danger to the public at large”.

Three people have been charged as a result of illegal Palestine Action activity.

Jeremy Shippam, 71, of West Sussex, Judit Murray, also 71, of Surrey, and Fiona Maclean, 53, of Hackney in east London, will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 16 September.

Another march organised by the Palestine Coalition, which is a separate group, set off from Russell Square and assembled on Whitehall.

The Met Police said one person had been arrested there for showing a placard in support of the Palestine Action.

Crowds had assembled in Parliament Square by 1pm, with people seen writing “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” on placards.

Many remained silent while others sang pro-Palestine chants.

A Home Office spokesperson said in a previous statement: “The Home Secretary has been clear that the proscription of Palestine Action is not about Palestine, nor does it affect the freedom to protest on Palestinian rights.

“It only applies to the specific and narrow organisation whose activities do not reflect or represent the thousands of people across the country who continue to exercise their fundamental rights to protest on different issues.”

The ban faces a legal challenge in November after the High Court granted a full judicial review to Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori.

The Department for Work and Pensions will launch an independent review into its handling of prosecutions against Post Office staff, Sky News has learned.

About 100 prosecutions were carried out by the DWP between 2001 and 2006 during the Horizon IT scandal.

The “independent assurance review”, however, is yet to be commissioned and will not look at individual cases.

It comes more than a year after Sky News discovered joint investigations between the Post Office and the DWP during the scandal – leading to suggestions some may be “tainted”.

Hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongfully convicted of stealing by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015, due to the faulty Horizon IT system.

The DWP told Sky News they have “committed” to commissioning the review into prosecutions led by the department, where Post Office staff were investigated for “welfare-related fraud”.

They described cases as “complex investigations” which they said were “backed by evidence including filmed surveillance, stolen benefit books and witness statements”.

They also added that “to date no documentation has been identified showing that Horizon data was essential to these prosecutions”.

The review will look at a period of time spanning 20 years covered by the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024, from September 1996 to December 2018.

The Horizon Act was effectively blanket exoneration legislation which automatically quashed Post Office convictions but did not include DWP or Capture-related prosecutions.

The family of Roger Allen, who was convicted in 2004 of stealing pension payments by the DWP and sentenced to six months in prison, are “frustrated” the review won’t look at his or other cases.

Mr Allen died in March last year, still trying to clear his name.

Keren Simpson, his daughter, describes the review as a “development” but a “fob off”.

“I think it’s just getting us off their backs,” she said, “I’ll believe it when I see it because they’re not taking any accountability.

“They’re not acknowledging anything. They’re denying everything.

“No one’s saying, look, we really need to dig in and have a look at all these cases to see if there’s the same pattern here.”

Mr Allen pleaded guilty to spare his wife – after his lawyer told him in a letter that there had been “an indication from the Crown that they may discontinue the proceedings against Mrs Allen were you minded to plead guilty”.

Despite the Criminal Cases Review Commission deciding Mr Allen had grounds to appeal against his conviction, it was upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2021.

The independent review will look at the “methodology and processes” used by the DWP, and the “thoroughness and adequacy” of efforts to obtain case documents.

The DWP say that the review won’t be commenting on individual cases or those that have been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

Potential reviewers will also be approached with experience “outside of the civil service”.

They will be asked to produce a report with recommendations for any further actions within six months of starting their review.

Lawyer Neil Hudgell, instructed by some of those prosecuted, described the review as “wholly inadequate”, saying the DWP “should not be marking its own homework.”

“Any involvement in the process of appointing reviewers undermines all confidence in the independence of the process,” he added.

He also criticised the DWP’s statement as “strikingly defensive and closed minded”.

“It cannot be anything approaching rigorous or robust without a proper case by case review of all affected cases, including those dismissed by the Court of Appeal.”

He said that where hundreds of convictions were quashed “at the stroke of a pen” a proper and “targeted” review is “the least these poor victims are owed.”

“At the moment there is a widespread feeling among the group that they have been “left behind and that is both legally and morally wrong.”

A Freedom of Information request to the Department of Work and Pensions by Sky News has also found that most cases they prosecuted involved encashment of stolen benefit payment order books.

In response to questions over how many prosecutions involved guilty pleas with no trial, the DWP said the information had been destroyed “in accordance with departmental records management practices” and in line with data protection.