Reform UK Wants to Send Foreign Criminals to Prisons Abroad — But Will Other Countries Take Them?
Reform UK has proposed sending foreign criminals held in British prisons to prisons in other countries, naming El Salvador, Kosovo, Lithuania and Estonia as possible destinations, at a news conference on 11 August 2026.
Party leader Nigel Farage said Reform was exploring options to send foreign criminals to prisons in other countries, including El Salvador and Kosovo, and suggested conversations could be had with Lithuania or Estonia. A Reform UK spokesman said the policy was focused on El Salvador, Kosovo and possibly other countries if they were open to the idea. The party suggested 10,000 prison spaces could be freed up if all foreign criminals were sent abroad to serve their sentences. BBC News
Prisons in England and Wales are very full. The average annual cost of keeping one person in a public-sector prison was £60,018 in 2024/25, according to Ministry of Justice data. Governments have looked for ways to create more space without using early-release programmes, which have been criticised.
The idea of renting prison space in other countries is not new. The Conservatives introduced a policy to rent cells abroad while in government in 2023. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the plan was passed into law but Labour did not pursue it. The Conservatives have urged the government to revive the scheme. The Conservatives did not respond to requests to comment on Estonia's rejection of a prison rental deal with the UK. BBC News
Several of the countries named by Reform have either rejected the idea or already have deals with other countries that would make it hard to take British prisoners.
Lithuania's Ministry of Justice said there have been no discussions about accepting the transfer of Lithuanian citizens imprisoned in the United Kingdom. A Lithuanian government spokesperson said the government did not see any scope for entering into practical arrangements of this kind. BBC News
Kosovo has agreed to lease 300 jail cells to Denmark under a deal worth £170m (€200m). A Kosovo government spokesperson said Kosovo would focus on its deal with Denmark before entering into any new agreement of a similar nature. BBC News
Estonia has reached a deal with Sweden to rent prison space and accept up to 600 Swedish inmates starting from July 2026. Sweden agreed to pay up to £52m (€61m) a year, with an additional £7,254 (€8,500) per prisoner per month from the 301st inmate onwards. On 5 August 2026, Estonia's Justice and Digital Minister Liisa Pakosta and Swedish Prison and Probation Service Director-General Rikard Jermsten signed a cooperation memorandum on prisoner living conditions. Reuters Äripäev
The UK government has explored Estonian prison capacity before. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood confirmed at a meeting with Minister Pakosta that British officials had visited and assessed the security of Tartu prison. UK Home Office Minister Dame Angela Eagle did not rule out sending prisoners to Estonia to ease severe overcrowding in UK prisons. In September 2024, however, UK ministers dismissed claims that Labour was considering sending criminals convicted in England and Wales to Estonia to serve their sentences. ERR The Guardian
Estonia's political landscape has also shifted. In August 2026, Estonia's coalition government lost its parliamentary majority after two of its MPs defected, potentially complicating any future negotiations on prison rental arrangements. Reuters
The broader picture is that Reform UK's ambition is running well ahead of what is diplomatically possible. The countries Reform has named face real constraints. Lithuania has ruled out the idea outright. Kosovo's existing deal with Denmark takes up a large share of its available capacity. Estonia's prison infrastructure, particularly the Tartu facility British officials have already inspected, is committed to Sweden from July 2026 onward. El Salvador is the one named country with no public objection, though no talks have been confirmed.
The comparison with existing European deals is telling. The Sweden-Estonia deal took months to negotiate and, while cheaper per prisoner than England and Wales's £60,018 average annual cost, still involves a significant outlay. The Kosovo-Denmark agreement, at £170m for 300 cells, offers another reference point for what renting prison space abroad actually costs. Neither deal involved moving an entire foreign-national prison population, which is what Reform UK's 10,000-place figure implies.
For Westminster, the proposal sits in a crowded field. The Conservatives are pressing the government to adopt their rental power, which was passed into law but never used. Labour ministers have shifted between dismissal and ambiguity on the Estonian option. Reform UK has now put forward the most expansive version of the policy, naming four countries and proposing a wholesale transfer of foreign-national offenders. On the available evidence, three of those four countries are unlikely to accept.
