Britain’s new justice secretary has left in place a legal challenge designed to stop the publication of criminal conviction figures broken down by offenders’ nationality.
Alex Norris took charge of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on July 20, 2026, when Prime Minister Andy Burnham succeeded Keir Starmer and dropped David Lammy from the Cabinet.
The appeal that Lammy’s department lodged three days earlier remains before the First-tier Tribunal. There has been no public indication that the new minister intends to withdraw it.
The case stems from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Centre for Migration Control (CMC), a think tank that campaigns for lower immigration.
It asked for the total number of convictions in England and Wales between 2018 and 2024, broken down by nationality and by individual offences such as rape, murder and weapons crimes.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ruled on June 22, 2026 that the ministry should release the material. It rejected departmental arguments on both cost and the risk of identifying individual offenders.
The watchdog said any residual privacy risk could be handled by suppressing categories containing fewer than five convictions.
The MoJ instead took the case to the tribunal, a move that drew accusations of a cover-up from opposition politicians and campaigners.
Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy accused Labour of withholding information on politically sensitive offences. Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick said successive Conservative and Labour justice secretaries had refused to publish the figures.
The CMC said the government had since requested a 28-day extension to prepare its case, pushing the timetable back further.
The think tank has launched a crowdfunding appeal to pay for legal representation at the hearing.
“It is clearly in the public interest for this information to be released,” CMC research director Robert Bates said.
An MoJ spokesman said the department did not recognise claims of a cover-up and would not comment on live legal proceedings.
Norris served as border security and asylum minister before his promotion, a brief covering Channel crossings and asylum policy.
The ministry already publishes broad statistical breakdowns on foreign national offenders, though not by individual offence.
Figures reported by The Telegraph showed foreign nationals accounted for one in seven sexual offence convictions in England and Wales.
Foreign nationals also make up around one in eight prisoners, a share well above their proportion of the wider population.
The CMC said the MoJ had additionally failed to answer a separate request for conviction data covering 2025.
The tribunal ruling is expected to carry wider weight, setting out how departments should balance transparency duties against claims of cost and privacy.
