Shabir Ahmed, 73, who has been stripped of his British citizenship leaving him with only Pakistani nationality, cannot be deported due to a 1971 law that forbids the removal of a small group of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago.

Reports have also suggested Pakistan might not accept Ahmed because he had previously renounced his citizenship.

Officials have been holding talks with the Pakistani authorities to try to find a way to put Ahmed on a plane out of the UK.

Ahmed, known to his victims as “Daddy”, was released from prison on July 2 after serving 14 years since his conviction in 2012 for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls.

Health Secretary James Murray told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “I want this man out of the country, I think we all do.”

He added: “I know that this is a job for the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary to work out the exact way of getting him deported. I’m not going to step on their toes by suggesting exactly how they should do that.

“But I don’t think they would object to me saying that as a government we should leave no stone unturned.”

Asked if that could mean threatening to withhold aid money from Pakistan or blocking remittances being sent by Pakistanis in the UK back to their home country, Mr Murray said: “I’m not going to speculate on exactly what mechanisms the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary might use.

“That is their responsibility to think through the best way of getting the outcome we all want, which is this man to be out of our country.”

Health Secretary James Murray said the Government would leave ‘no stone unturned’ (Ben Whitley/PA)

PA Wire

Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick, a former Tory home office minister, said the UK should be pausing aid and visas to Pakistan and “putting maximum pressure” on the Islamabad government.

Read More

“You’ve got to use all the levers of the British state to get these despicable people out of the country,” he told Sky News.

“And I’m afraid to say successive governments, Conservative and Labour, have just been too weak.

“We are not a weak country.

“We do have ways of doing this – we’re giving around 80 million quid every year in aid to Pakistan.

“The Home Office issues tens of thousands of visas to Pakistanis.

“We should be pausing the aid, pausing the visas, putting maximum pressure on the Pakistani government to take this man back.”

The Conservatives have said they will attempt to amend the Government’s Immigration and Asylum Bill “to close the loophole” preventing Ahmed’s deportation.

Ahmed is understood to have been freed on licence and told he must initially live at a bail hostel which is staffed 24 hours and wear an electronic GPS tag.

He will not be allowed at his last known address on Windsor Avenue in Oldham and is subject to an “exclusion zone” meaning he cannot go to parts of Rochdale.

Ahmed was sentenced to 19 years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court in 2012 as one of nine men convicted of offences against five girls.