Immigration Detention

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Not only have the overall detention figures gone right down—they are lower than since the collation of figures began in 2009—but the number of children in detention has gone down drastically. The safeguards have also improved since those times. The noble Lord is absolutely right to ask this, because the safeguards and the well-being of children are absolutely paramount, whether a child is in detention or not.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, with consistently more detainees being released into the community from immigration detention than are being removed from the UK, does the Minister accept that this suggests that the initial decisions to detain frequently lack rigorous assessment of why detention is necessary and justified?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said, the figure of 92% of people being released from detention, who have been there perhaps for immigration bail or other forms of review, is the result of our not wanting to keep people in detention and doing so only to remove them.