Romanian prisoners have overtaken other nationalities to top the league table of foreign inmates jailed in Britain, shocking figures from the Ministry of Justice reveal.

The statistics, which cover the period when restrictions were lifted on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants in early 2014, will reignite the debate on ‘open-door’ EU immigration as the Election approaches.

Overall, one prisoner in eight in English and Welsh jails is a foreign national, the figures show.

Crackdown: A Roma beggar, who is not accused of theft, is arrested in Westminster, London. Romanian prisoners have overtaken other nationalities to top the league table of foreign inmates jailed in Britain

That proportion has doubled in the past ten years, corresponding with the mass influx of immigration from Eastern Europe.

But a more detailed breakdown by nationality of all inmates shows that Romanians, Albanians and Lithuanians are all proportionately far more likely to be imprisoned than Britons.

The figures reveal that the Romanians’ speciality is shoplifting in organised gangs, leading to suspicions that the much-vaunted EU principle of freedom of movement is being abused by criminals.

Tory MP Philip Davies, who obtained the figures, called them ‘staggering and unacceptable’.

The tables, which cover prisoners jailed between October 2013 and March 2014, represent the most comprehensive breakdown of inmates’ countries of origin.

Crime by crime: Who are the biggest culprits? Foreign prisoners in UK jails ranked by offence

They also reveal marked differences in the likelihood of different nationalities to be jailed, when adjusted for the number of those nationals living in Britain.

Whereas Poland, which has the largest population of 617,000 in the UK, ranks high in the table, with 573 prisoners imprisoned, it comes second to Romania, which saw 760 of its 126,000 population incarcerated.

It means Romanians are more than six times as likely as Poles to end up in jail, and eight times as likely as Britons.

The bulk of those jailed – 34,168 out of 39,773 – are Britons and only a tiny minority of foreign nationals fall foul of the law.

Overall, the most likely foreigners to be imprisoned were Vietnamese and Albanians – with more than one per cent of their respective populations in Britain (10,000 and 11,000) jailed in that time.

Pictured above: How we highlighted the pickpocketing issue in the UK, and a police warning sign

A previous National Audit Office study, showing the top ten nationalities of foreign prisoners in 2013-14, placed Romania fourth behind Poland, Ireland and Jamaica.

The growing numbers of Romanian criminals entering the British justice system is underlined by separate data obtained from police forces, showing about 11,000 Romanians are arrested each year.

That works out at about two per cent of total arrests – the vast majority of them for shoplifting – even though Romanians only make up 0.2 per cent of the general population.

Our figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, showed that in every force area, Romanians committed more shoplifting offences than any other crime.

Mr Davies, MP for Shipley, West Yorkshire, said: ‘This lays bare that free movement of people in the EU also means free movement of criminals within the EU.

‘We are unnecessarily opening our borders to lots of people to commit crimes, who create unnecessary victims of crime in the UK. That is one of the reasons why we would be better off out of the EU – so we could control immigration and stop some of these criminals before they get into the country.

Nation by nation: Eastern Europeans take top three slots for most people jailed here who are from abroad

‘It is absolutely staggering. It has created unnecessary victims of crime, is costing us a fortune in police time and prison places. It is completely unacceptable.’

Lord Green, Migration Watch chairman, said: ‘These statistics strengthen the case for tightening the arrangements within the EU for the removal of convicted criminals to their countries of origin, as the Government have proposed.’

The MoJ figures also provide an insight into the types of crimes favoured by different foreign criminals.

While Poland tops the league for violence, with 156 jailed for these offences, 18 Romanians were imprisoned for sexual offences, ahead of Pakistanis and Poles.

Robbery offences saw Irish prisoners take the top spot, with 15 custodial sentences, and Romanians and Somalis came a close second with 14 each.

Romanians feature in the top five for most offence categories – in crimes involving burglary, theft and handling, and fraud and forgery, they are out in front.

Second in the fraud and forgery stakes were Nigerian prisoners, who came seventh in the table of all crimes committed.

For drugs crimes, the Vietnamese were ahead with 118 of their prisoners jailed for, predominantly, being in charge of cannabis farms.