The Guardian
Home secretary to defy Lords’ demand for all-out ban after outcry greeted news that 99 pregnant women had been held at Yarl’s Wood
Protesters outside Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedford. Photograph: Andrea Baldo/NurPhoto/Corbis
Theresa May will announce plans to place a 72-hour time limit on the detention of pregnant women at immigration centres after the House of Lords voted in favour of an all-out ban.
Last year a report from the Inspectorate of Prisons found that 99 pregnant women had been detained at Yarl’s Wood detention centre – described as a place of “national concern” by chief prisons inspector Nick Hardwick. On 15 April, peers voted in favour of completely ending the practice.
However, the home secretary wishes to retain the ability to hold pregnant women for a short period “in order to quickly remove them if they have no right to stay in the UK, or if they present a risk to the public”, a spokesman said.
Under the compromise proposal, to be announced by the home secretary on Monday, detention could be extended beyond the 72-hour limit via ministerial authorisation, but only for up to a week in total.
The government intends to table new legislation through the immigration bill when it returns from the Lords to the Commons later this month.
The new proposal is part of a series of detention reforms, including a new policy on “adults at risk”, which is part of the government’s response to Stephen Shaw’s review of the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention.
There are currently no laws preventing expectant mothers from being detained in UK centres such as Yarl’s Wood, though guidelines stress pregnant women must be held only in exceptional circumstances.
Shaw, the former prisons and probation ombudsman, called for a ban on the detention of pregnant women in immigration centres except in “very exceptional circumstances”. He also called for a “presumption against detention” of victims of rape and sexual violence, people with learning difficulties, and those with post-traumatic stress disorder.
However, May told the Observer that she believed the new law would ensure immigration controls were effective while being humane.
She said: “We take the welfare of detainees very seriously. That is why I commissioned Stephen Shaw to carry out an independent review of the welfare of vulnerable people in the detention estate, which was published earlier this year.
“We have listened to him and to others in parliament and beyond in shaping a humane system that will effectively end the routine detention of pregnant women.
“This new approach and our wider reforms strike the right balance between safeguarding pregnant women and vulnerable people and maintaining effective and proportionate immigration control.”
A spokesman said that, in addition, the new “adults at risk” policy, currently being developed, will mean that vulnerable people will not be detained unless it is absolutely necessary and only when the immigration considerations outweigh the issues of vulnerability.
Shaw’s report found that despite the rapid growth in the use of immigration detention in Britain – where 3,000 people are locked up at any given time and 30,000 pass through the system each year – there is no correlation between the number of people detained and the number of people lawfully deported.
