§ Lord Marlesfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether all persons sentenced to terms of imprisonment have their passports impounded for the period they are in prison; whether the passport issuing authorities are informed of passport holders who are imprisoned; and whether the same arrangements apply to both British and non-British passport holders.
33WA
§ Baroness BlatchThe passport of a foreign national who is sentenced to a term of imprisonment before leave to enter the United Kingdom has been granted will normally be held by the Immigration Service under powers conferred by the Immigration Act 1988. The passports of other sentenced prisoners, whether of British or other nationality, are not required to be surrendered. If, however, a personal passport is found among the possessions of a person on reception into prison, it is not retained in personal possession but it is treated as valuable property and duly recorded and stored in secure conditions for return to the prisoner on discharge.
The passport issuing authorities of other countries are not normally informed of a particular foreign national's imprisonment. The United Kingdom Passport Agency, which provides passport services for British nationals in the United Kingdom, does not require information about passport holders who are imprisoned and is therefore not informed.
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 Jury trials 34,539 32,983 34,618 32,812 30,192 31,182 32,310 Jury convictions1 14,326 12,755 13,472 12,768 11,342 11,442 12,065 Percentage convicted 41.5% 38.7% 38.9% 38.9% 37.6% 36.7% 37.3% 1 These figures do not include jury verdicts where a defendant pleads not guilty before the trial commences and then changes his plea to guilty during the trial. In these cases, the defendant is automatically found guilty.