To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many foreign national former prisoners were held in the immigration detention estate on 12 January 2009; (251641)

The Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency has regularly written to the Home Affairs Committee in order to provide them with all of the most robust and accurate information available. In her letter of 23 July 2008 she advised the Committee that there were around 1,650 foreign criminals who had completed their sentence and were detained under immigration powers pending deportation action. A copy of this letter is available in the Library of the House. She also recently advised the Public Accounts Committee during her appearance before them on 5 March that, of those who are detained pending deportation action, around 1,200 are held within the UK Border Agency detention estate.

The information relating to the numbers of foreign national prisoners subject to deportation action who are either serving their sentence or are being detained under immigration powers in prisons is not centrally held. In order to obtain the information it would be necessary to examine individual case files at disproportionate cost.