The Government has been accused of "total incompetence" after it emerged 33 foreign prisoners have escaped from Ford Open Prison since the start of the year.

Home Office figures revealed one was due to be deported and 19 were being considered for deportation when they absconded.

If British inmates are included, a total of 61 prisoners have escaped from the facility in Arundel in 2006 so far.

On May 26, all remaining foreign prisoners were removed from Ford to higher security jails.

The figures were released by the Home Office after Nick Herbert, Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs, tabled a series of parliamentary questions on the subject. Mr Herbert said the figures were "much worse" than the Government had previously admitted.

He told The Argus it had taken a formal complaint to the Speaker of the House of Commons to get the Home Office to release the details.

Even then it had refused to reveal the deportation status of prisoners who escaped in the five years prior to 2006 on the grounds it would be too costly to gather the information.

Mr Herbert said: "Getting this information out of the Home Office was like squeezing blood out of a stone.

"Either the system is chaotic and they are not keeping proper records or they are reluctant to reveal the truth about the situation.

"I want to know what is being done to round up these prisoners and return them to custody. It's clear there has been total incompetence in the Prison Service matched with a reluctance to tell the public what is going on."

The figures also revealed more than 700 prisoners have escaped from Ford Open Prison in the past decade.

A total of 714 inmates absconded between 1997 and the end of March 2006.

It was the fourth highest number of escapes recorded by England's 15 open prisons.

The only detention centres with worse records were Kirkham in Preston, Lancashire, which recorded 1,554 absconds, Thorn Cross in Warrington, Cheshire (1,172), and Wealstun in Wetherby, West Yorkshire (721).

Of the 7,105 prisoners who escaped from open prisons in the past decade the vast majority were caught and returned to jail.

But the Government refused to say how many of the 356 prisoners who remained unlawfully at large had escaped from Ford.

Only prisoners who are category D, the lowest security category, can be placed in open conditions. But the Government admitted 1,018 of the prisoners who had absconded from open prisons since 1997 had been serving sentences for murder, rape or robbery.