David Lammy is taking legal action to block publication of foreign nationals’ crime rates in England and Wales, provoking claims of a “cover-up”.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is seeking to overturn a ruling by the Information Commissioner that data revealing the full scale of foreign offending in England and Wales from 2018 to 2024 should be published.
The Centre for Migration Control (CMC), a think tank, asked the MoJ to reveal the total number of convictions broken down by nationality and offences for the seven years under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws.
But the MoJ claims the cost of providing the information would be disproportionate and that some of the data could lead to the identification of individuals in breach of their rights to privacy if it was published. Both arguments were rejected by the information watchdog.
On Sunday night, opposition parties claimed that the MoJ’s actions amounted to a “cover up”.
Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, said: “Labour have consistently refused to publish sex crime data by nationality, even though we know migrants from some countries are much more likely to be convicted of rape and sexual assault.
“Why are they trying to appeal against releasing the data? Do Labour just want to cover up the truth about foreign national offenders?”
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s economics spokesman, said: “The cover-up continues. Successive Tory and Labour justice secretaries have refused to publish this basic information.
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Robert Bates, CMC’s research director who submitted the FOI request more than a year ago, said he would use “every available means” to secure publication.
“It is clearly in the public interest for this information to be released,” he said. “It is astonishing that the Government is going to the courts in an effort to fight against such important transparency, and raises serious questions as to what they are hiding.”
(UKR)