Suspected foreign criminals will be deported from Britain before their appeals are heard under Government plans.

Home Secretary Theresa May said the forthcoming Immigration Bill will contain plans to allow the deportation of suspected foreign criminals if they are not at risk of harm. Appeals will then be heard while they are out of the country.

The move is part of Mrs May's plans to slash the number deportation appeals by half, by ending the abuse of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - the right to respect for private and family life.

The Home Secretary said the party's position on the ECHR was clear - the Conservatives will leave the convention if that is what it takes to "fix our human rights laws".

And a commitment to scrap the British Human Rights Act will be in the Tories' 2015 General Election manifesto, she said.

Mrs May told the Tory Party conference in Manchester: "The Immigration Bill will make it easier to get rid of people with no right to be here.

"First, we are going to cut the number of appeal rights. At the moment the system is like a never-ending game of snakes and ladders with almost 70,000 appeals heard every year.

"The winners - foreign criminals and immigration lawyers, while the losers are the victims of these crimes and the public.

"So we're going to cut the number of appeal rights from 17 to four."