To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment he has made of the merits of introducing a statutory time-limit on the detention of people in immigration removal centres.
Answered on
24 June 2019
As Stephen Shaw noted in his follow up review of the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention, the debate on a time limit for immigration de-tention rests mainly on slogans rather than evidence. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Home Secretary commissioned an internal review of how time limits work in other countries and how these relate to any other protections within the detention systems in those countries. This has shown that few other countries adopt very short time limits and that many countries face similar challenges to the UK when it comes to returning those who have no right to remain but re-fuse to leave voluntarily.
We are continuously seeking ways to improve the detention system to ensure that it is fair to those who may be detained, upholds our immigration policies, and acts as a deterrent to those who might seek to frustrate those policies.