Indefinite Detention

EDM number 457 in 2017-19, proposed by Catherine West on 25/10/2017.
Categorised under the topics of Asylum, Immigration and Prisons.

That this House is deeply concerned that the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules, is the only country in Europe without a time limit on detention and that people can be detained for months and years on end without knowing when they will be released; notes that in the year to June 2017, 27,819 people were detained and that of the nearly 3,000 people detained in June 2017 over half had been locked up for more than 28 days, 271 people for over six months and that 52 per cent of those released from detention were returned to the community; observes that successive reports by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2012, the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Migration and Refugees in 2015 and Stephen Shaw in 2016 have demonstrated indefinite detention to have a damaging effect on the health of the people concerned; and calls on the Government urgently to reform immigration detention by introducing a 28-day time limit.

This motion has been signed by a total of 41 MPs.