Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to provide mental health support to immigration removal centre staff.

The Home Office is committed to ensuring that our immigration removal cen-tre (IRC) suppliers provide a high level of service to detainees while also providing value for money to the taxpayer. With regards to our suppliers’ staff, we require all our suppliers to put systems in place to fulfil a duty of care to their employees to ensure the wellbeing and resilience of their staff throughout their tenure in the IRC.

In line with other contractual agreements, IRC suppliers are required to meet set service standards, including ensuring minimum staffing levels are met.

The new contract to manage the IRCs at Gatwick will set high expectations for the quality of management and staffing in key elements of the estate.

Information on numbers of IRC staff is not centrally recorded in the format requested.