Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what constitutes a reasonable period of time for a person to be detained at an immigration removal centre.

The Home Office has been engaging with international partners on their policies and practices in relation to time limits in detention. The review remains ongoing and once complete, we will consider the next steps.

For immigration detention to be lawful, there must be a realistic prospect of removal from the UK in a reasonable timescale. What is considered reasonable is fact-specific and will vary from case to case. It may be longer in cases involving foreign national offenders than in non-criminal cases, given the need to protect the public from harm by those whom we are seeking to deport. In all cases, detention is kept under regular review to ensure that it remains both necessary and appropriate.