UK donated 15 VWs, not Porsches, to Albania as part of prisoner transfer deal

Posts being shared online suggest the UK government donated 15 electric Porsches to Albanian prisons as part of a drive to meet net zero carbon emissions targets. But the donated vehicles were not Porsches, and the claim is missing crucial context.

One post with more than 5,000 shares on X says: “The UK taxpayer paid £499,649 to buy 15 Electric Porsches for the British Embassy in Tirana- to be donated to Albanian Prisons. ‘Part of a drive to net zero.. the required vehicles should be delivered at once’ Contract awarded to Porsche Albania by the FCDO”, which refers to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

The same claim has been shared on Facebook with one post adding: “Angry yet?” while another says: “Tory, Labour or Lib Deb, no matter the party - our MPs spaff money whilst ignoring the needs of the tax payer.”

While the UK did donate 15 electric vehicles to Albanian prisons, they were Volkswagens not Porsches, and this represents only one side of a deal between the two countries in which Albania is accepting the return of 200 Albanian prisoners serving sentences in England and Wales. 

The vehicles were not Porsches 

The social media posts share screenshots of a genuine government webpage showing a contract worth £499,650 awarded by the FCDO to a supplier called Porsche Albania Shpk (‘Shpk’ is Albanian for LLC) in October 2023. It says the contract is to provide 15 electric vehicles to the British Embassy in Tirana, Albania, for donation to Albanian prisons. It adds that “moving to electric vehicles is part of the drive towards net zero and is part of a wider greening initiative”, and that the “required vehicles should be delivered at once”, as quoted in the posts.

But the donated vehicles were not Porsches. Porsche Albania officially represents multiple car brands in the country, including Volkswagen. A Facebook post from the British Embassy in Tirana shared in November 2023 about a ceremony presenting the donation shows a line of 15 white vehicles, which other images and footage from local media show are Volkswagens, not Porsches. The Home Office also confirmed to Full Fact that the vehicles referenced in the contract weren’t Porsches, but Volkswagens. Porsche is a brand within the Volkswagen Group. 

A row of minibuses are also visible in the photos and footage of the ceremony. Twenty-two minibuses worth a reported £1 million were also donated by the UK government to Albanian prisons. 

Prison transfer deal

The donation of 15 electric vehicles was not only a “drive towards net zero” but part of a wider deal between the two countries to return 200 Albanian national prisoners in English and Welsh prisons. This was agreed under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government in May 2023, building on an earlier agreement in July 2021, and intended to “free up prison capacity in England and Wales by speeding up the removal of foreign offenders”. 

Under the two-year deal, 200 prisoners with sentences of four years or more will serve the remainder of their UK sentence in Albania, and will be barred from returning to the UK. This includes criminals jailed for offences such as murder, rape and drug dealing, with 17 of the prisoners reportedly serving life sentences. 

In exchange, the UK Home Office is providing a £4.4 million package to modernise and expand Albania’s prison system, which includes the 15 electric cars and 22 minibuses. The Telegraph reports the money will also go to “refurbishing prisons, extra security, workshops, rehabilitation equipment and training of warders”. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is also providing what is “expected to be in the region of £8 million over two years”, which will be paid per prisoner rather than as an upfront payment. 

A government spokesperson told Full Fact: “Transferring foreign national prisoners to serve their sentences in their home country is one measure to free up space so we can keep locking up dangerous criminals. These vehicles were purchased in 2023 for the transportation of prison staff, to support the capacity and efficiency of the Albanian prison system and enable us to return more foreign national offenders.”

Moreover, an annual report will be produced by a joint oversight group on the prisoners’ welfare and conditions, and either country can end the agreement with two months’ written notice.

A government press release announcing the deal at the time said the cost of housing each prisoner in England and Wales was £109 a day, and the cost of the £8 million to the MoJ per prisoner would amount to £32 a day.

You can find more of our work checking claims relating to immigration on our website, including that 16,400 ‘failed asylum seekers’ have been sent home under Labour, which actually refers to all immigrant returns in Labour’s first six months in office, and analysis of the widely used estimate that one in 12 people in London is an illegal migrant that is based on a number of assumptions.