News

The Home Office is to press ahead with plans to deport 2,500 failed asylum seekers per month by next March despite last week's fire and riot at its £100m flagship detention centre.

A Home Office spokesperson denied that events at the Yarl's Wood detention centre near Bedford would affect the removals target unveiled in the white paper. He said: "We are still committed to the targets and the removals schedule."

Around £35m worth of damage was caused in the incident in which 25 people escaped (15 have since been recaptured). Yarl's Wood, run by Group 4 on behalf of the immigration service, still houses 250 of its original 384 detainees. After the riot 120 were moved to other immigration detention centres.

Refugee Council chief executive Nick Hardwick said the disturbances at Yarl's Wood must lead to a "fundamental rethink" of the government's detention policy.

"The key to resolving the tensions that inevitably occur in detention centres is to ensure that people feel they have access to legal redress for what they feel is their unjust detention," he added.

Tim Baster, co-ordinator of the Bail for Immigration Detainees charity, said one problem was that asylum seekers were detained on arrival and kept in detention for long periods.

He added: "The government insists that detention is used sparingly for those due to be removed from the UK and who have no right to be here. Our experience of attempting to secure bail for detainees has shown that this is misleading."