Watchdog finds immigration holding centres lacking
Short-term government immigration holding centres should be subject to regular independent scrutiny, the chief inspector of prisons says today.
Ann Owers says facilities at Gatwick North and South, London City airport and Dover asylum screening centre are inadequate for overnight stays and fail to ensure the minimum stress and disruption to detainees.
Her inspections found detainees sleeping on tables or in plastic chairs, sometimes without adequate heating, blankets or bedding, while all four centres lacked the facilities for the proper separation of men, women and children.
None of the facilities had adequate child protection arrangements, and London City airport was described as “completely unsuitable” to hold children. In addition, none had organised regular visits from healthcare staff or offered medical check-ups to detainees on arrival.
“Our inspections have identified some important shortcomings in the conditions and treatment of detainees held there,” Ms Owers said.
She has recommended to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) and to GSL, which runs the centres, measures she believes will “ensure a consistent standard of safety and decency in these facilities”.
These would also “minimise the stress and isolation for detainees, for whom this will usually be their first experience of detention”.
“Additionally, we have recommended to the home secretary that he invites the National Council of Independent Monitoring Boards to examine the feasibility of setting up a system of independent monitoring visits,” she said.
Home Office minister Tony McNulty welcomed the report’s acknowledgment that detainees at all four centres are treated well and with respect by staff, but said he would considering the request for independent monitoring, saying he took the welfare of detainees “extremely seriously”.
Short-term detention was an essential part of immigration controls, he said, emphasising that the facilities in today’s report were intended to hold people only for short amounts of time, although inevitably some of this time would be at night.
As a result, while systems were in place to ensure detainees had access to medical treatment where necessary, “we do not believe regular healthcare visits are appropriate for facilities in which most people are held for a very short period of time”.
With regards to the treatment of children, Mr McNulty said all staff are checked with the Criminal Records Bureau. Work was ongoing to put formal child protection policies in case.
