Lord Avebury
Main Page: Lord Avebury (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Avebury's debates with the Home Office
(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bates
Serco was offered that contract. One of the principal concerns which many people have had, and which the Women for Refugee Women report also identified, was that there were insufficient female detention officers in that facility and that their numbers needed to be increased. One of the conditions put out before renewing the contract to the tender organisation was that it needed to increase the proportion of female officers. The figure I gave was 65% or 66%; the chief executive may now be saying 60%. I will certainly look into that; I will speak with him and of course will write to the noble Baroness and ensure that she gets the right information. However, the principle is that we need more female detention staff to look after female inmates.
Lord Avebury (LD)
My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that if every other European country imposes a time limit on the length of detention, there is something wrong with our system? We should find some means to grant temporary status to people who are not going back to their own countries through no fault of their own—sometimes their countries will not accept them.
Lord Bates
My noble friend will recall that that was discussed during the passage of the Immigration Act; the proposal was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and was rejected by the House. We continuously keep that under review, but I reassure the House that 96% of female inmates are there for a period of less than four months—we want to keep detention to the minimum period possible.