Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord Hylton (Crossbench). It was answered on Tuesday, 17 June 2008.

Immigration: Detention Centres

Question: My Lords, given the current emphasis on deportation, is there not a danger that asylum applicants will be lumped together with overstayers, with illegal entrants and with former convicted criminals? Thus the innocent are likely to be treated as if they were guilty. Will this not harm our reputation overseas?

Answer: My Lords, the noble Lord raises a good point, and one that I talked with my briefers about this morning. The situation is that the worst prisoners are kept in prison until they go, because they are seen as a great risk. The incident at Campsfield House at the weekend was remarkably well handled. A couple of people suffered from smoke inhalation and there was some damage to the education centre. However, apart from that, little damage was done. As a result, we are reviewing whether we should be harder on some other prisoners, some of them drug abusers. I agree that we have to be careful not to indirectly harm normal asylum seekers. We are trying to achieve this; I think that generally we do. We put those who are at the greatest risk in areas where they are not going to interact with normal asylum seekers.

Secondary information