Proposal to cap detention to 28 days

Home Office officials are failing to follow guidance that immigration detention should be used sparingly and for the shortest period possible, according to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Refugees and the APPG on Migration.

The UK is the only country in the European Union not to have an upper time limit on detention, the group said in its report, and the panel added that the lack of a time limit has significant mental health costs for detainees, as well as considerable financial costs to the taxpayer.

The UK government should look at alternatives to detention including allowing individuals to live in the community, the MPs and peers said.

The panel, which included a former cabinet minister, a former chief inspector of prisons, and a former law lord, considered evidence over eight months. APPGs are informal cross-party groups that have no official status within Parliament.

Conservative MP David Burrowes, a member of the inquiry panel, said: “This inquiry is an unusual one. Immigration is on the political agenda but rarely do we unite on a cross party basis and consider the issue of immigration detention. The lack of a time limit is resulting in people being locked up for months and, in some cases, several years purely for administrative reasons. While there is a need to properly control our borders, people who arrive by fair means or foul must also be treated with dignity and respect throughout the immigration process.

“The current system is failing to sufficiently do this and our report calls for an urgent rethink.”