QARN welcomes Detention Inquiry report
Findings from an All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry have been welcomed
The findings of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom Report have been welcomed by the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) as ‘a starting point for change’.
Sarah Teather MP chaired the Inquiry. Its findings were released on 3 March and listed four key recommendations.
The first was that ‘there should be a time limit of twenty-eight days on the length of time anyone can be held in immigration detention’. The second was that community-based resolutions replace detention, and the third that detention be ‘for the shortest possible time and only to effect removal’. The final recommendation was that the government learn from international best practice and introduce to the UK a much wider range of alternatives to detention.
Sheila Mosley of QARN told the Friend that the group had submitted a report to the Inquiry, and ‘had worked alongside many others to enable the Inquiry to properly hear the voices of people who have experienced detention and those who call for significant changes in the system’.
‘It is reassuring that people with personal experience of the system were respectfully listened to by the Inquiry team, and that those who were listening openly expressed their dismay,’ she said.
‘QARN welcomes the firm recommendation that there be a maximum time limit to immigration detention of twenty-eight days, and that there should be judicial oversight of the decision to detain at an early stage, in contrast to the current system where there is no end date for people to be released,’ Sheila added.
She told the Friend that QARN would like to see an end to all immigration detention, referring to the report as ‘an important step along that path’.
