Send foreign prisoners abroad to end early releases, says Reform

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has proposed that all foreign prisoners are sent to serve their sentences abroad in order to scrap Labour's early release scheme.

Farage said his party was exploring options with third countries over renting prison spaces, including El Salvador, which he said Reform chairman Lee Anderson would visit soon for initial talks.

Reform said removing foreign nationals from the prison estate, as well as building emergency "Nightingale" prisons, would enable changes to be made to sentencing laws so that serious criminals serve out their full terms.

Labour said Reform had "no serious answers to the Tory prisons crisis and would lead the system to collapse".

Under Reform's plans, foreign criminals handed non-custodial sentences would be deported to their country of origin.

Those with custodial sentences would serve all of it out in their home country, or a third country offering rented prison spaces if they refuse to take them.

The party has previously suggested Kosovo and El Salvador as possible options, with Farage suggesting on Monday that Estonia and Lithuania presented "Baltic state options as well".

There were 10,134 foreign nationals held in custody in England and Wales at the end of June, representing 12% of the total population.

Reform claims its proposals for foreign prisoners would free up more than 10,000 prison spaces, but its policy document does not explain whether it would apply to remand prisoners awaiting trial, which make up around a third of that number.

Both Farage and home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf did not address this point when asked to do so at a press conference to unveil the plans on Monday.

When proposing similar measures last year, Farage said El Salvador was an "extreme example" of a country where the party could send foreign prisoners.

On Monday, he played down accusations of human rights abuses in the Central American country, saying: "Not all of the prisons are cages."

El Salvador has the highest incarceration rate in the world, following a government crackdown on gang-related crime, and is home to the notorious mega-jail, the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot).

Farage added: "To house a foreign national offender in El Salvador will be half the cost of housing a foreign national offender in this country, and will give us more prison spaces."

Reform says on completion of their sentence, foreign national offenders would return to their home country and be barred from re-entering the UK.

The idea of renting prison places from third countries has reportedly been looked at by successive UK governments.

Other countries have pursued similar arrangements - in 2021, Denmark agreed to pay Kosovo an annual fee of £12.8m for an initial five-year period to rent 300 of their prison spaces.

It comes as the government comes under increasing pressure over its early release scheme, which is now due to start in October in England and Wales when the first batch of a total 5,000 prisoners are due to be released.

Last week, Andy Burnham announced that prisoners convicted of rape, grooming, and serious child sex offences would be excluded from the scheme, adding that he wanted to exclude more but prison overcrowding prevented this.

Under the plans, two of PC Andrew Harper's killers remain eligible to be freed halfway through their 13-year sentences after they were convicted of manslaughter in 2020.

More than 850,000 people have signed a petition calling for Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers to remain in prison.

On Monday, Downing Street said it was "not possible" to exempt "one or two offenders" convicted of manslaughter from early release.

Farage said that "Labour have inherited a very, very difficult situation" from the Conservatives, but added: "They don't appear to have the imagination or the will to solve it."

Deportation automatically applies to foreign nationals who are sentenced to at least 12 months in prison, though there is an appeals process.

The UK returned 5,858 foreign national offenders in the year ending March 2026, up 13% on the previous year and the highest observed since 2017, according to the latest Home Office figures.

A further 15 countries were added to the Home Office's "deport now, appeal later" scheme last year, allowing the government to send foreigners who commit crimes in the UK back to their home countries before they can appeal the decision.

As well as freeing up places, Reform's home affairs spokesman said: "There will be a lot more people in prison under a Reform government."

He said that "killers, rapists and thugs will never be released a day early".

The party's proposals include reinstating short sentences for shoplifters and ensuring serious offenders serve their full sentences.

The party claims its proposed sentencing changes would increase the prison population by 18,000, which would be covered by the 22,000 places made available under its deportation and Nightingale plans.

The Nightingale label is a reference to the network of emergency temporary hospitals set up during the Covid pandemic.

The prison population in England and Wales on 3 August was 86,495, which was 97% of useable capacity.

The Ministry of Justice has warned the prison population will overtake capacity as soon as this November.

A Labour Party spokesperson said the government was "working at pace to deport foreign criminals" and was building more prison places.

They added that Reform's plans would "lead the system to collapse", resulting in a "free for all for dangerous and violent offenders".