Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the quality of mobile phone coverage at Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre.

Flooding at the site of a mobile telephone mast close to Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre earlier this month has resulted in intermittent mobile telephone signals affecting three mobile phone network providers. Repairs are underway and normal mobile phone coverage is expected to resume shortly.

In the meantime, arrangements are in place at the centre to ensure that any detainee whose mobile phone service is affected can continue to make landline telephone calls and access other means of communication.

Detention Services Order 08/2012 sets out the Home Office’s policy on detainees’ possession of mobile phones in immigration removal centres. Detainees are able to retain their own mobile phones throughout their detention, provided their handset has no recording facility and/or access to the internet. Where a detainee’s handset does not comply with these restrictions they are provided with a suitable handset by the immigration removal centre supplier so that they may maintain contact with friends, family and other means of support.