Afzal Khan
Main Page: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)Department Debates - View all Afzal Khan's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Nokes
There is clear and published guidance on how a family unit may be defined, and on the separation of individuals from their family group for immigration reasons. Cases may involve pre-existing separation of family units for non-immigration reasons. For instance, in the case of foreign criminals, children might already have been taken into care when the individual received a custodial sentence.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The Prime Minister has condemned Trump’s family separation policy, but this Government’s hostile environment separates parents from their children every day. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) pointed out, last week the Home Office was forced to pay £40,000 in damages for falsely imprisoning a father, unlawfully separating him from his daughter for three months. The Home Office failed at every stage of the process. The Home Secretary has said that he will pause the hostile environment, but immigration detention is a key part of it. Will the Government look again at indefinite detention, and at the use of detention more widely, and publish the Shaw review in good time for us to examine it before the summer recess?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Gentleman will have heard me say that some cases might involve pre-existing separation. As I have highlighted, back in 2009 there were more than 1,000 children in detention, and that number has now been reduced to 44. The Home Office has acknowledged the mistakes that were made in the case he mentioned, but it is important to reflect on the role that detention plays in ensuring that those who have no right to be here and no right to our public services are removed in a timely manner.