Dr Julian Lewis: One of the problems with removing convicted foreign prisoners is an interpretation put by the courts on their rights, such as their right to a family life – they are absolute, rather than conditional. What steps are the Government taking to recognise in law that people have rights which can be qualified by their own bad behaviour?

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert): I am aware of my hon. Friend's concern and that of the House about this issue and about whether it is appropriate in such circumstances that the removal of offenders is being blocked. I hope that the commission we have announced on the Human Rights Act 1998 will pay the closest possible attention to the operation of the human rights legislation in such cases, because it is in the public interest that we remove foreign national prisoners who have forfeited their right to remain in this country.]