Immigration Detention: Shaw Review

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend and thank him for the attention that he has given to this issue over several years. I join him in commending the work of the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and the focus that she has provided on this very important issue.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of his statement. However, I think you would agree, Mr Speaker, that it is totally unacceptable, even if entirely predictable, that the Government waited until the final few hours of the parliamentary term to release the new Shaw report and their response to it. I want to welcome some of what the Secretary of State has laid out in the report and in his statement, but I think we would all agree that immigration detention is a fundamental question of human rights, liberty and the rule of law, and it is outrageous that the Government are running away from scrutiny on this issue. Will the Secretary of State ensure that a full debate on the issue is scheduled for the first week back after recess?

As Scottish National party MPs have said in this Chamber time and again, the large-scale and routine detention of tens of thousands of people in large-scale private prisons, simply for the Home Office’s administrative convenience, is an affront to the rule of law and a stain on this democracy. In the light of the second Shaw report, will the Secretary of State accept that the time for tinkering is over and that we need radical reform of detention policy? Will he commit to a programme of closure of large-scale detention facilities and to ensuring that detention is a matter of last resort, rather than routine, with a goal of drastically cutting the numbers held in such facilities? I hear what he has said today, but I urge him to implement a time limit on detention similar to what we see in other EU countries. If he will not, will he allow the House to vote on the issue?

[Sajid Javid]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, but say gently that he was a little ungenerous to start by suggesting that the Government have waited until the last day before the recess. We have not been in possession of the report for long and it takes a few days for us to respond to it properly and to come forward with progress on it, so I ask him to reflect on that and approach this issue in a more constructive spirit if he really does want to help, rather than trying to score cheap political points.

The hon. Gentleman asked about an opportunity to debate the issue; I think that would be good and will raise it with the Leader of the House. The work of Select Committees and others will be very welcome scrutiny. He mentioned the size of the detention estate; I hope he welcomes the fact that the total number of available places, rather than of individual detention centres, is falling. As I said, the number of places has fallen by a quarter in the past year, which shows the direction of travel. I do want to see fewer people being detained. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that detention is a last resort. The default for immigration enforcement policy is not to detain. If someone is detained, it must be a last resort.