To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many foreign national prisoners are detained in the prison estate.

The number of foreign national prisoners held in all prison establishments in England and Wales by nationality is published quarterly in the population in custody bulletin, found under the following link:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/population incustody.htm

From the most recent available data, end of March 2010, the foreign national prisoner population in all prison establishments in England and Wales is 11,367.

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.