Dungavel detention centre to close af ter years of protests
THE Dungavel detention centre is to close, the Home Office has announced.
The immigration removal facility has been branded ‘racist and inhumane’ by campaigners, who have long fought for its closure.
A replacement short-term holding centre is to be built beside Glasgow Airport next year as part of the UK Government’s strategy for ‘a more efficient and cost-effective detention estate’.
Dungavel, which opened in 2001 near Strathaven, Lanarkshire, holds 249 detainees and is the only such centre in Scotland.
But it has been claimed it is ‘under-utilised’ due to its remote location’. The new centre will hold only 51 people.
Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill said: ‘We keep our detention estate under constant review to ensure we have the right resources in the right places.
‘The new short-term holding facility would provide easy access to London airports, from where most removals take place, meaning those with no right to be in the UK can be removed with less delay.
‘Closing Dungavel as a consequence fits with that approach and will result in a significant saving for the public purse.’
Plans for the new centre need approval from Renfrewshire Council. The Home Office said the vast majority of stays would be for less than a week. While the Dungavel closure has been welcomed, Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said it did not change the need for the UK Governwho ment to introduce a fair and humane immigration system.
He added: ‘No one will miss Dungavel when it is closed. It was an inappropriate environment in which to keep people were due to be deported, especially children.
‘A new purpose-built facility has been spoken about for some time. It can only be for shortterm use; anything else simply highlights the failure of our immigration and asylum systems.’
SNP asylum and border control spokesman Stuart McDonald said: ‘The decision to move the detention centre does not seem part of a strategy to reduce the number of people being detained, but instead seems designed to move detainees as far away as possible from friends and family and beyond the reach of their legal advisers.
‘The new short-term facility’s location will give the Government easy access to Glasgow Airport and also to airports in London, therefore making it easier for the UK Government to continue its policy of forced removal of migrants.
‘There is a risk that people who have been living in Scotland will have little opportunity to challenge their deportation.’
Dungavel is expected to close by the end of next year, within months of the new facility opening.
Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar said: ‘As far back as 2003, I represented the Ay family of Kurdish asylum seekers, a mother and four children who sought safety in this country and were incarcerated behind barbed wire for over a year.
‘Their treatment disregarded the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and subjected the Ay children to psychological torture.’
Mr Anwar urged the Scottish Government to seek guarantees that there will be ‘rigorous and independent accountability’ of the new facility.
The announcement was made as MSPs backed the Scottish Government in a vote calling on Westminster to do more to help Syrian refugees. So far, Scotland has welcomed 1,000 refugees – a third of the UK total.
‘No one will miss it ’