Foreign criminals are given £2m in 'bribes' to go home

The payments helped the Home Office to meet the Prime Minister's pledge to repatriate 4,000 prisoners by the end of the year.

But 850 of the criminals went home only after they were offered a "resettlement" deal worth up to £2,500 each.

The handout - a package of healthcare and financial support - is paid only when a criminal agrees to go home without fuss and makes no appeal against their removal.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "It is disgraceful but not surprising that, given their utter inability to remove offenders who have no right to be here, the Government has had to resort to bribing them to leave.

"The Government should not crow about meeting this artificially set target. Over 500 foreign prisoners have been released early by this Government and our prisons are still at bursting point with record levels of foreign prisoners in them.

"Gordon Brown's claim that 'If you commit a crime you will be deported from our country' remains a piece of cynical spin."

The Prime Minister promised in July, days after taking office, to remove 4,000 immigrant prisoners by the end of the year.

But officials have struggled to achieve the goal and confirmation that the target had been met came only yesterday.

In the frantic final push, increased numbers of prisoners - around 300 in the past two months - were given the "bribes".

The payments are on offer to convicts from non-EU countries.

But take-up was initially slow because inmates preferred to take their chances with the appeal system.

Hundreds of foreign prisoners are allowed to stay each year by claiming that deportation would breach their right to a family life.

Similar bribes of £4,000 have been paid to failed asylum seekers who agree to go home.

Officials are supposed to deport more failed refugees than there are new claims each month.

But the target, introduced by Tony Blair, is certain to be missed in 2007 after removals slumped to their lowest level in five years.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: "We should be deporting all foreign national prisoners, not just the few who tick the boxes.

"Unfortunately, we are hamstrung by EU law and the Human Rights Act, which seems to put the rights of these people above those of lawabiding Brits.

"To put it into perspective, in 2006-07, only about ten per cent of prisoners deported were from European Economic Area countries, despite them being a much larger percentage of the foreign prisoner population.

"Let's have a real look at the state of our prison systems, and a real debate on the issues rather than letting the Government pat themselves on the back for another bodged job."

Officials said the 4,000 figure for removals was 50 per cent up on 2006.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said those deported included more than 20 killers, at least 200 sex offenders and more than 1,100 drug offenders.

She added: "Foreign law-breakers should be first in line for the first plane out of Britain.

"We promised to remove 4,000 foreign national prisoners this year and we meant it.

"People in Britain want to see changes to our immigration system and in 2008 we'll see them. It's the biggest shake-up for 40 years."