To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average period of time taken to deport time-served foreign prisoners held in the UK Border Agency’s detention estate was in each year since 1998. (317663)

For those foreign national prisoners removed in 2007, 2008 and the first three quarters of 2009, the average length of time taken to remove once they have completed their sentence is approximately 27 weeks. This figure includes those who had been detained for a longer period while legal, country specific or documentation issues were addressed. Accurate figures relating before 2007 are not available and could only be obtained by investigating individual case-files. This would incur a disproportionate cost.

This information is from internal management information systems and should therefore be treated as provisional and subject to change.