Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what community-based alternatives to detention her Department developed and implemented as a result of the report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration, published in March 2015, and the report by Stephen Shaw, Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons, Cm 9186, published in January 2016.

There is always a presumption of liberty and detention is only ever used sparingly and for the shortest period necessary. For those individuals with no right to remain in the UK, we expect them to leave the country of their own volition and the Home Office has programmes to support voluntary return.

The Home Office expects that current and planned reforms, and broader changes in legislation, policy and operational approaches will lead to a reduction in the number of the most vulnerable detained and the duration of detention before removal.