Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the statement made by the Home Secretary on 24 July (HC Deb, col 908), whether they plan to publish more data on the number of LGBTQI+ immigration detainees.

On the 29th November the Government published additional information on those held within the Immigration Detention Estate in direct response to the statement made by the Home Secretary in July and committed to a review of our published data to further improve transparency.

However, we are unable to publish data on LGBTQI detainees. The identification of an LGBTQI individual detained under immigration powers, is entirely at the discretion of the individual. Consequently, even a manual trawl of cases of individuals detained will not necessarily be representative of the true number of LGBTQI individuals detained during any period.

The fact that an individual detained under immigration powers within an IRC or prison is transsexual will always be recorded in a manner sensitive to the needs of that individual, not for statistical purposes. As it is rare for the detention of a trans or intersex person to occur, any reporting would risk the identification of individuals.