§ Mr. McGradyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many asylum seekers are detained in Maghaberry Prison; and how many of those are(a) male, (b) female and (c) children; [162151]
(2) what the average length of stay was for an asylum seeker in the last two years at Maghaberry Prison. [162152]
§ Beverley HughesAs at 27 December 2003—the latest available date for which data are available—120 individuals recorded as having sought asylum were detained in prisons in the UK. Of these, less than five were detained at HMP Maghaberry, all of whom were adult males. Minors may not be held at HMP Maghaberry. Information on the number of people detained as at 27 March 2004 will be published on the Home Office website (www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigrationl.html) on 25 May 2004.
Information on the length of detention of individual detainees held at HMP Maghaberry is not available.
§ Mr. McGradyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether asylum seekers detained at Maghaberry Prison are(a) subject to normal prison rules and (b) held separately from (i) sentenced and (ii) remand prisoners. [162168]
§ Beverley HughesImmigration detainees held at HMP Maghaberry are located on a separate landing in Mourne House and are separate from the main prison population. Detainees are subject to prison rules but are managed as untried prisoners, with a more favourable regime that is more akin to that of enhanced prisoners.
§ Mr. McGradyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for how long Maghaberry Prison will be used to detain asylum seekers. [162235]
§ Beverley HughesIndividual detainees are held for no longer than is necessary and we seek to ensure that any period of detention is kept to the minimum. An individual detainee who initially elected to remain at HMP Maghaberry rather than be transferred to an Immigration Service removal centre in Great Britain may at any time request to be transferred to such a removal centre.
More generally, we have no plans at present to end the use of HMP Maghaberry for the very small numbers of immigration detainees who express a preference to remain in Northern Ireland rather than be transferred to an Immigration Service removal centre in Great Britain. The small numbers of individuals concerned, usually less than 10 at any one time, would not be sufficient to make a dedicated detention facility in Northern Ireland viable to establish or operate.
§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of failed asylum seekers in the UK who are liable to be forcibly returned to Iraq. [162411]
§ Beverley HughesAt present, removals to Iraq are on a voluntary basis, but on 24 February 2004 my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced that the UK was the first country to reach agreement with the1344W Coalition Provisional Authority to begin enforced returns of failed Iraqi asylum seekers. The pilot scheme will begin in April and will allow 30 Iraqis per month to be returned initially; it will be linked to a package of assistance with accommodation and employment, and will operate alongside the voluntary returns programme.
Information on asylum applications is published quarterly. The next publication is due to be published on 25 May 2004 on the Home Office website at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigrationl. html.
§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many failed asylum seekers have been forcibly removed to Afghanistan in each of the last five years. [162418]
§ Beverley HughesInformation on the number of Afghan nationals who had claimed asylum at some stage that were removed from the United Kingdom from 1998 to September 2003 (the latest date for which data are available) is shown in the table.
Removals and voluntaryl departures of principal asylum applicants (excluding dependants): January 1998 to September 20032,3,4 Afghanistan 1998 15 1999 n/a 2000 n/a 2001 125 20025 395 January to September 20035 460 n/a = Information not available due to data quality issues on IND databases. 1 Including persons departing "voluntarily" after enforcement action had been initiated against them. 2 May include removals to a safe third country. 3 Data are rounded to nearest five with * denoting 1 or 2. 4 Data are estimated due to data quality issues on the databases. 5 Provisional figures. These figures include those persons who departed "voluntarily" after enforcement action had been initiated against them and persons leaving under the Assisted Voluntary Returns Programmes run by the International Organisation for Migration as well as those who were forcibly removed from the UK, however they are not separately identifiable. Information on the destination of those people who are removed is not available.
There were no enforced returns to Afghanistan prior to April 2003. A voluntary return programme, the Return to Afghanistan Programme (RAP) commenced on 20 August 2002. Enforced returns operate under the tripartite Agreement between the United Kingdom, United Nations High Commission for Refugees and Afghan Transitional Administration and flights to Kabul commenced on 28 April 2003.