Illegal Migration Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not know whether the right hon. Member has been to any of the facilities, but we provide very high-quality facilities for families and children upon immediate arrival in the UK. I have made it a particular focus to ensure that we support those individuals appropriately, ensuring that conditions in those places are decent and compassionate at all times. The cohort of unaccompanied children who passed through the location that he describes last year was largely teenagers. We did not feel that the site was age-appropriate, but it contains a range of support for children and infants, including all the things that he has described. Nothing about the decoration of sites changes the fundamentals: if someone comes to the United Kingdom, we will treat them with decency and compassion at all times.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want the Minister to be explicit about the type of detention centre that we are talking about. For example, will children, whether unaccompanied or with their parents, be detained in detention centres such as Harmondsworth and Colnbrook? We agreed on a cross-party basis that they should never again be detained in those centres.

[Robert Jenrick]

The right hon. Gentleman is particularly knowledgeable on this issue, because he represents immigration removal centres. It is not the Government’s intention that families or minors will be housed in those settings. Minors and families will be housed in age-appropriate accommodation, which is entirely separate and different in nature from the immigration removal centres that he represents. There are facilities such as those today, though not a large number of them. As part of the operationalisation of the Bill, we will need to invest in further facilities and ensure that they meet the standards set out in the detention rules as I have just described. I hope that gives him some reassurance.