Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what consultation process took place before the implementation of the new Adults at Risk guidelines.

Stephen Shaw, a former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, was commissioned by the then Home Secretary in February 2015 to undertake a review of the welfare in immigration detention of vulnerable people.

Mr Shaw carried out a comprehensive consultation in preparing his report of his review and the adults at risk policy, which came into force on 12 September 2016, forms part of the Government’s response to Mr Shaw’s review.

When the draft policy was published on 26 May 2016, the Government wrote to a wide range of relevant non-Governmental organisations and offered them the opportunity to discuss it. Subsequently Home Office officials held meetings with a number of interested organisations, and received written representations, and the views of these organisations were taken into account as the policy was developed further in advance of its implementation.