Among the Liberal Democrat policy gains that Nick Clegg attributed to the coalition government in his party conference speech last month was the ending of child detention. The same claim was made in the Liberal Democrat ‘List of Achievements’ and in a speech at the National Liberal Club summing up the party’s record one year into the coalition government.
The only problem with this claim is that it is not true. Child detention has not ended in the United Kingdom.
According to the Migration Observatory, more than 400 children were detained by the UK Border Agency in 2010. Certainly fewer children have been detained and for shorter periods than under the Labour government, when an estimated 2,000 children a year were detained. But less detention is not the same as no detention.
For campaigners against a practice that Nick Clegg rightly described as ‘state sponsored cruelty’ it was particularly disturbing to hear the ‘child detention-ended’ claim in the same month that a brand new detention centre for families opened in Sussex.
In its planning application for the site in the Sussex village of Pease Pottage, the UK Border Agency states that the “new policy [of returning families without permission to stay in the UK] has seen an end to child detention in immigration removal centres other than in exceptional circumstances.” While going on to assert:
The need remains however, to accommodate families with children who are being returned for a few days prior to their departure from the country.
But precisely whose needs does this policy satisfy? The needs of children whom medical research has demonstrated are physically and mentally harmed by even short periods of detention? Or the operational needs of the UK Border Agency, which prefers its deportees to be under lock and key at a convenient distance from a major airport? Or the need for ever greater profits on behalf of the UKBA’s contractors—global security corporations like G4S, Serco and GEO, which have some of the worst ethical and human rights records of all the companies with which the coalition government does business?
In the United Kingdom, which boasts the largest detention estate in Europe, last year 26,000 people who have committed no crime were imprisoned just for claiming asylum — many indefinitely and with no prospect of early release.
Pease Pottage will add a further 4,500 annual bed spaces to the detention estate and yet another lucrative contract to G4S, which also runs the nearby Tinsley House Immigration Removal Centre. Tinsley House, where a 10-year old girl attempted to strangle herself two years ago, will be used to detain children who are travelling with adults who have been refused entry at the border or whose parents or guardians are to be deported following completion of a prison sentence, or because they cannot safely be held at Pease Pottage.
The truth is that we do not need to be building any more detention centres for children or adults.
Even the UKBA admits that families are unlikely to abscond, and when families have the benefit of early and appropriate legal advice, the Home Office is often found to have no justified reason for detaining and removing them.
Ending child detention was the one coalition pledge on fairer treatment for refugees and asylum seekers that Nick Clegg could argue had survived from the party’s manifesto. Now even this promise is in tatters.
Liberal Democrats must hold their leader and MPs to account by insisting that child detention ends unequivocally and for good.
We shall continue campaigning until it does.
Dr Simon Parker is co-ordinator of the campaign group End Child Detention Now
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11 Comments
The mismatch between the claims of campaigners and Lib Dem politicians on this matter has bothered me for a while.
I believe that Lib Dem MPs are sincere in wanting child detention to end. However I hope that Tom Brake can reply to this article and explain why this mismatch continues and what is being done about it.
I suspect I know the answer to this; but when an adult is refused entry, and is detained briefly prior to removal, what should happen to any children travelling with them prior to their removal from the country?
I too was very concerned indeed that this barbaric pracitce had noot actually ended. I was part of the “Citizens for Sanctuary” action in getting MPs of all parties to sign the pledge to end child detention before the 2010 election, and delighted when the coaltion government agreed to the Lib Dem demands to fulfil that pledge.
I have heard rumblings that the pledge has not been carried out, and there was a row after the Liberty fringe meeting about it at Conference.
I have spoken with Jonathan Cox of Citizens for Sanctuary, and he has assured me in very clear terms that the organisation had worked with Lb Dem Ministers to set up Pease Pottage as a very temporary place for families with children to be before they have to be removed. The place is run by Barnados who have a strong reputation of caring for children, and has been inspected by a group of people , many of who re from the asylum seeker community.
I strongly suggest that Simon Parker make contact with Citizens for Sanctuary as soon as possible for the facts of the situation, before more urban myths are perpetuated.
@Suzanne
You are obviously not as up to speed as Simon. As co-ordinator of the campaign group End Child Detention Now, I would give more credence to his opinion on the issue than yours, Citizens for Sanctuary, or Barnardos. Barnardos, in my opinion, are just acting as collaborators, just as they did when they assisted in deporting over 100,000 ‘orphans’ to Australia and other Commonwealth countries. You seem to forget that it was only in 2010 that then PM Brown apologised for this. I think we are still waiting to hear an apology from Barnardos. We have had the justification http://www.barnardos.org.uk/what_we_do/who_we_are/history/family_history_service/family_history_service_our_service/child_migration/childmigration_response.htm
The LibDems and Barnardos are being used as a fig leaf by the government to give legitimacy to a what is nothing more than a rebranding exercise. The fact that NGOs are cynically used by governments and allow themselves to be so, should surprise no one. http://ecdn.org/2011/08/08/barnardo%E2%80%99s-please-quit-the-child-detention-business/
May I strongly suggest that Citizens for Sanctuary, Barnardos, the LibDems and yourself, make contact with Simon Parker and the campaign group End Child Detention Now.
Oh dear Jayu – I would argue with comments like yours the only collaborators are people like you and the author of this post. What is clear is that Labour’s use child detention as an instrument of a ‘tough’ immigration policy has been ended. What these organisations and individuals are doing is undermining the Lib Dems in a deliberate attempt to get people to vote Labour. Net result – less civil liberties, moire child internment, ID cards and a big brother state. It’s called cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Sorry Jayu, but it is not right to say Citizens for Sanctuary have no credibility in this issue. The pledge referred to was the pledge drawn up by them for aspiring MPs to sign. You may not agree with the pledge, you may not think it said the right thing, but it was that pledge that local groups campaigned on, and that pledge that has been put into practice as asked for, by the coalition Government.
The pledge was enthusiastically supported and worked for with people from the asylum seeker and other groups and communities. I know as I was there at one of the meetings to plan the campaign locally, and have the photos to prove it !
I am not aware of a pledge signed by Lib Dems from the “end child detention now” group, or even if they had one before the 2010 election.
As far as I can see from the piece and the articles it links to the maximum detention is 72 hours before a family is deported. Find it very difficult to imagine that really will damage the children and in some cases is necessary unless the children and parents are to be separated which would seem worse.
‘Barnardos, in my opinion, are just acting as collaborators, just as they did when they assisted in deporting over 100,000 ‘orphans’ to Australia and other Commonwealth countries. ‘
By the above statement you have lost all respect from me. This practise ceased decades ago and Bardados under Martin Neary have become a highly respected advocate for children’s rights. If I have to make a choice I am content to believe them and not you!
I am not seeking respect from fellow commentators on a blog. The fact that the British and Australian PMs understood the importance of an apology, if only for the victims sake, yet one of the organizations that played a prominent role in the affair doesn’t, would make me question the respectability of said organization. It would also make me question the respectability of any involvement that organization in any oversight role with regards to family detention centres.
I wrote on this back in December.
Quick fact check:
a) Lib Dems said that they would end the situation under Labour where it was policy(ie normal practice) to lock kids up. They specifically pointed out that ending this policy did not mean that no child would ever be held – it is clear that no one can do this without separating young children from their parents. The pledge was not to end deportation – nor to end deportation of people with children.
b) It is disingenuous to claim that 400 children in detention last year shows the policy has not been enacted. The General Election was in May, and the review of detention policy was announced in June. When I researched this in December the number of children held since the announcement of the review had fallen to less than a hundred, and the time spent in secure accommodation fallen to “less than four days”. I calculated that under Labour around fifty children were in detention each night. Already by December last year the Coalition had brought that down to less than two.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-what-the-guardian-isnt-telling-you-22459.html
Pease Pottage is describing alarmingly in Parker’s article as “adding 4500 annual bed spaces to the detention estate”. I assume that this means that it can accommodate to up to 13 people at a time. Personally I will be delighted if it is little used.
Tom Brake has already dealt with most of the points made in this article in the Guardian in August
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/10/ending-detention-child-refugees?INTCMP=SRCH
Dan Falchikov wrote: “What these organisations and individuals are doing is undermining the Lib Dems in a deliberate attempt to get people to vote Labour. Net result – less civil liberties, moire child internment, ID cards and a big brother state.”
Dan, are you saying that no one should question or criticise coalition policies because by doing so they are endorsing Labour?
Since losing office, Labour have admitted that they made mistakes on civil liberty issues (such as ID cards). But your coalition partners are hardly perfect, witness the increasingly virulent Conservative attacks on the Human Rights Act!