Is it time to end the immigration detention of children in the UK?

Two years ago, Nick Clegg wouldn’t stop talking about what he described as the scandal of child detention. "There is no greater test of a civilised society than how it treats its young children”, said Clegg. In fact, the Liberal Democrat election manifesto in 2010 pledged to do so much more than ending child detention. Asylum seekers would be permitted to work, “saving taxpayers’ money and allowing them the dignity of earning their living”. And there was the promised amnesty for “people who have been in Britain for 10 years, speak English, have a clean record and want to live here long term to earn their citizenship”.

Eighteen months later it still exists. The end of child detention was pledged in the coalition agreement, and most astonishingly of all, Clegg claimed at the Lib Dem conference in September that it had ended! A Freedom of Information request made by the Children's Society revealed that almost 700 children were held between May and August this year at the UK's south east ports alone.

When Lisa Nandy tackled Clegg on this issue in the House of Commons on 15 November, he didn’t answer:-



Apparently, there aren’t any detention centres any more, just “pre-departure accommodation centres” like the new one opened recently at Pease Pottage near Crawley. But as Lisa Nandy has written:-

“The culture remains in place. The presumption, where children are concerned, is still not freedom, care and support but distrust and risk-aversion. Too many children are still presumed to be adults and too many families deemed to be dangerous or likely to abscond. There is still no sensible policy across UKBA for properly assessing risk. This is a too familiar story of flagship promises that are easily made and easily broken.

More importantly, Clegg should not be brushing this under the carpet. Children are still held because they are wrongly assumed to be adults. Many families are detained because one member is deemed to pose a risk and campaigners say Pease Pottage, established by the coalition to hold children with their families before leaving the UK, inflicts the same harm: weight loss, bedwetting and depression.”

Sources used, and for more details:-
http://www.leftfootforward.org/
http://ecdn.org/

A familiar situation to all candidates for election. In advance, they promise to put the world to rights with a single bound.

Once in office, and the Civil Servants have opened the real books, things go rather quiet.

So who was responsible for locking all these children up?

wouldnt be the wonderful new labour party would it?.


why didnt they free them?

and why cant we just boot them all out of the country,,as they are a burden on us.

all i can say is,,,THANK GOD MR CAMERON WEARS THE TROUSERS, also no-one should take a blind bit of notice anything a libdem says, they have proven themselves as deceitful as the other 2 and at the next election will most likely no longer exist.

The next General Election will be fought on "The Economy". At the moment Gideon 'George' Osborne can blame The Previous Administration in the time-worn custom and he can also blame the bumbling Europeans for getting their currency into a twist.

At an election, the government will be chosen upon the feel-good factor (if any).

Quote NIN : "all i can say is,,,THANK GOD MR CAMERON WEARS THE TROUSERS, also no-one should take a blind bit of notice anything a libdem says, they have proven themselves as deceitful as the other 2 and at the next election will most likely no longer exist."

Well, quite. Those LibDems are so deceitful that they tore up promises to let the trousered genius Cameron into Downing Street. Indeed, but for them, it is Cameron's government which would not exist...!

sorry but tuff titty phil,,as mr camerons govt does exist,,the libdems may be lying bastards(like the other 2) but they are not stupid enough to ever allow the nut jobs from labour back into power,,who if you cast your mind back will recall getting thrown out of office by the electorate,,of course one day (if things carry on as they are,,that day will be soon) we will have a nationalist govt in power and those lying bastards from the big 3 will be where they belong,,prison,,for treason.

My impression of the Lib Dems is that they would jump into bed with simply anyone for a whiff of power and a quarter of jelly babies...

There's "Jelly Babies"?

Naw Keen!!


Mr Pickles has scoffed the lot. Lib Dems will be crying again soon enough!

Once Buggery and Homosexuality were legalised the rise of the libdems was inevitable.

Is THAT all it takes?
Why did it take 80 years to get themselves back IN POWER?

Sorry for the kids, BUT, I feel they are brought here as weapons to play the system and get our wummin crying for them!

Certainly.
They should be sent back to their parents, rather than bring THEM here.
Agree with the above - the "wimmin" are the main problem. Unelected Guardian readers making national decisions they were NOT elected to do

White man speak with forked tongue, as usual. Impressive amounts of money are spent on hounding immigrant children which are not far distant from the cost of a Public School Education.

Hasn't anyone thought of spending the money more usefully?

oftenwrong wrote:White man speak with forked tongue, as usual.  Impressive amounts of money are spent on hounding immigrant children which are not far distant from the cost of a Public School Education.

Hasn't anyone thought of spending the money more usefully?

 
 
Politically correct bullshitt*r wouldn't know truth if it was humping his leg.
Tell me - why are these kids being sent here ? You know as well as I.
Ever wondered why we never hear just how many from the third world - here uninvited, unskilled, with huge families and an attitude instilled in them by people like yourself, that to expect them to actually WORK to feed their brats is racism, islamaphobic, etc etc etc ad nauseum - we never hear just how many ARE working. Yep, it's back to "racist" and "islamaphobic" because.....
It would bear out just how much they are sucking out of this country.
A|nd you know the laughable thing ?
People like you expect working (and I stress WORKING) class types like me should pay more and more and get less and less for it to keep these damn parasites in luxury (they DON'T pay for dentists or prescriptions I and my kids DO) oh, yes.....and to keep parasites like YOU in a worthless quango job taking from us to GIVE them.

and a Happy Christmas to you too, Sir!

Phil K. A reminder of our house rules, which can be found on our welcome board:-
1. Don't break the law.
2. Don't make personal attacks on other members. Criticise the content of messages by all means, but don’t let it become personal.
3. Don't use multiple nicks.

Incarcerating children when they have committed serious crimes is one thing, but detaining them when they have committed no offence is abhorrent to most decent people. As Lisa Nandy MP told us: “Many families are detained because one member is deemed to pose a risk and campaigners say Pease Pottage, established by the coalition to hold children with their families before leaving the UK, inflicts the same harm: weight loss, bedwetting and depression”. I accept that separating children from their parents isn’t a very good idea either, but couldn’t we just detain the one person in the family who is considered a risk?

A story that is in keeping with the thread -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8958813/Taxpayer-funding-100000-a-day-for-failed-asylum-seekers.html

It may be of interest, before you click on the link, please beware that it is the Telegraph; so some of you may need help with the bigger words.

The detention centres may be better/more comfortable than the environment these children came from.

so some of you may need help with the bigger words..

The Christmas spirit seems to have avoided some people this year.

It seems that with Tories, everything comes down to money. If you can save money by taking benefits from the disabled, closing Sure Start centres (in clear breach of an election promise) or cutting the jobs of some public sector workers and the pensions of the rest, it's deemed to be a good thing.

It goes even further. Could you imagine Cameron marrying his wife if she'd been living in a council house and working in a fish and chop shop? No, how strange that with all these toffs, 'love' has more to do with how much money a woman (or more probably, her father) has in the bank. Yet time and again we hear the Tory mantra that "you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it". How would they know? They don't have most problems, because they've got most of the money!

If failed asylum seekers are costing this country so much money - which is a scandal - then I suggest that it's probably because this stupid government has been cutting too many public sector jobs, getting rid of people who could have processed appeals quicker and speeded up the deportation process.