IMMIGRATION DETENTION

That this House welcomes the undercover journalism that led to the harrowing and disturbing footage broadcast during the BBC Panorama programme, Undercover: Britain's Immigration Secrets, on 4 September 2017; urges G4S to fully investigate any and all incidents of abuse and mistreatment by its staff towards people detained at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre; is concerned that the UK remains the only country in Europe not to have a maximum time limit on the length of time an individual can be detained, despite the evidence that indefinite detention has a deleterious impact on the mental health of those detained; notes that in a Written Statement made in response to Stephen Shaw's report into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons on 14 January 2016, the then Immigration Minister set out a number of reforms that would lead to a reduction in the number of those detained, and the duration of detention before removal, in turn improving the welfare of those detained; further notes that in the year to June 2017, the Government detained 27,819 solely for immigration purposes, and more than 200 were detained for longer than one year; and calls on the Government urgently to implement reform of the use of immigration detention yo introduce a 28 day time limit and greater use of community-based alternatives to detention.