Dungavel House Immigration Removal Centre

(asked on 14th April 2022) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans her Department has for the continued use of Dungavel House Immigration Removal Centre for the processing of clandestine arrivals by boat.


Answered by
Tom Pursglove Portrait
Tom Pursglove
Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
This question was answered on 21st April 2022

We operate the immigration removal estate in a flexible manner and in line with the Short Term Holding Facility (STHF) Rules 2018 and the Detention Centre Rules 2001, as appropriate.

In order to support the management of the arrival of migrants by boat, we have temporarily accommodated people under the provisions of the STHF Rules 2018, in a small number of immigration removal centres (IRCs) including Dungavel House. Dungavel IRC is only considered when capacity is exceeded at other facilities, or contingencies are exhausted and has not been used for processing Channel migrants since November 2021.

Following initial processing and screening, asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute are able to access statutory support and accommodation from the Home Office in accordance with the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 whilst their application for asylum is being considered. Individuals who are eligible for such support are provided with transportation to asylum accommodation.

The Home Office publishes statistics on immigration detention in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. This includes data on people:

Data on those entering detention, by place of detention, relate to the place of initial detention. An individual who moves from one part of the detention estate to another will not be counted as entering any subsequent place of detention.

Last place of detention does not show where an individual spent their time in detention. In some cases, an individual may have spent a period of time detained elsewhere before being moved to their last place of detention.

Asylum-related cases refer to those where there has been an asylum claim at some stage prior or during detention. This will include asylum seekers whose asylum claims have been refused, and who have exhausted any rights of appeal, those returned under third country provisions, as well as those granted asylum/protection, but detained for other reasons (such as criminality).

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