A cross-party group of MPs and peers has recommended an upper limit of 28 days incarceration for immigration detainees.
Members of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Refugees and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration have scolded the Home Office for failing to follow guidance that recommends detention should be for the shortest period possible and used only sparingly.
The UK is the only EU nation to have no upper time limit on detention. The APPG contends that this lack of a time limit has significant mental health costs for detainees, as well as considerable financial costs to the taxpayer. The Group suggests the Government should look at alternatives to detention including allowing individuals to live in the community.
Conservative MP David Burrowes, a member of the inquiry panel, said: “The lack of a time limit is resulting in people being locked up for months and, in some cases, several years purely for administrative reasons.
“While there is a need to properly control our borders, people who arrive by fair means or foul must also be treated with dignity and respect throughout the immigration process.
“The current system is failing to sufficiently do this and our report calls for an urgent rethink. We should follow the example of other countries where rates of detention are much lower and removal rates much higher.”
Bishop Patrick Lynch, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference for England and Wales, has welcomed the report, saying: “I welcome the report and recommendations put forward by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and Migration.
“Now, I sincerely hope that the findings will be translated into humane immigration policies for those who need protection and support from the state.”
Sarah Teather MP, chair of the inquiry panel and Liberal Democrat MP for Brent Central, said: “As a panel, we have concluded that the current system is expensive, ineffective and unjust. We are calling the next government to learn from the alternatives to detention that focus on engagement with individuals in their communities, rather than relying on enforcement and deprivation of liberty.”
Paul Blomfield MP, vice-chair of the panel and Labour MP for Sheffield Central, said: “Current Home Office policy is that detention should be used as a last resort and for the shortest possible time. From the evidence that we heard, Home Office standard practice falls well short of this policy.
The report came a day after a Channel 4 report showed guards at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre near Bedford branding detainees “caged animals”. In another video, a guard tells a colleague to “headbutt the bitch”.
The programme sparked a review by Serco, which runs the centre, by barrister Kate Lampard. That will take place alongside a pre-existing Home Office review into the welfare of detainees, which was set up last month.
Today’s report is the first time parliamentarians have investigated the issue of detention, and comes on the first court day of former detainee Aderonke Apata (pictured), who is attempting to prevent her deportation.
The Nigerian lesbian, who says she expects to be killed under anti-gay laws if she is returned to her home country, was transferred from a detention centre to a prison after she started to protest over the treatment of detainees.
She told reporters: “The demo was about the treatment that they give to detainees. A lady was going to be deported and she was naked. They covered her with a blanket and she was screaming all over the place. People were praying.
“We all had a sit-in demo. There was no damage to property, no-one was insulted or injured. They didn’t like it. UKBA [a branch of the Home Office] decided to send me back to prison. If I was in a detention centre I would cause more problems.”
Labour is also ramping up its criticism of the regime in the face of the reports. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “It is Theresa May’s responsibility to make sure people are treated humanely – she is completely failing to do so.”
The joint report calls for:
- A time limit on detention
- The removal of pregnant women – or those who had been raped or tortured – from detention
- The removal of anyone suffering from mental health problems from detention
- A presumption in favour of community-based solutions which do not require detention
- An improvement of screening processes to make sure trafficked people are not detained and that GPs fill out a Rule 35 report assessing whether people’s injuries are consistent with claims of torture
- An improvement to detainees’ access to legal advice.
Among the case studies included in the report was that of Souleymane, a stateless 50-year-old chef, originally from Guinea, who was detained for three and a half years. Despite signing papers saying he would voluntarily return – and Home Office acknowledgements that he could not be returned due to his stateless status – he continued to be detained without justification, at massive cost to the taxpayer.
Souleymane was severely affected by the indefinite detention and years of incarceration and is still understood to be suffering the psychological effects today.
Refugee Council chief executive Maurice Wren said: “Today a bright light has been shone into the darkest corners of the British immigration system and it has revealed some unpleasant secrets. Quite simply, the British government is detaining too many people for too long.
“In the current system, asylum seekers who have done nothing wrong find themselves arbitrarily placed behind bars, on the say so of Home Office civil servants, for one primary reason: because it’s politically expedient.
“Ministers must take this opportunity to pursue wholesale reform and abandon the existing structure of immigration detention which has been shown to be grossly inefficient, hugely expensive and in direct contradiction of our most cherished British values of justice, liberty and compassion.”
