Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's rationale is for building a new immigration detention centre on the site at Hassockfield Secure Training at Meadomsley, County Durham; and if she will make a statement.

The immigration removal estate is kept under ongoing review to ensure that the Home Office has sufficient resilience, geographical footprint and capacity for the men and women it proves necessary to detain for the purposes of removal, while providing value for money.

The Home Office has acquired the former Hassockfield Secure Training Centre in County Durham and will open it as an immigration removal centre for women by the autumn. The Hassockfield site is already a government asset. By utilising an existing secure site, the Home Office is delivering the most cost-effective option for maintaining immigration detention capacity, as part of its plans to manage the closure and return of the Morton Hall immigration removal centre to Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.