Clegg to give child detention update

Thursday, 2 December 2010 12:00 AM

By politics.co.uk staff

Child detention could be phased out by the spring, a report has suggested.

Families with children who are liable for removal from Britain are currently detained at the Yarl's Wood detention centre, a practice the coalition has pledged to end.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has called child detention a "moral outrage" but ministers have yet to announce concrete plans for ending it.

Now the Guardian newspaper has reported Mr Clegg is set to announce a timetable which will be unveiled by the end of the year.

He is expected to give the update by videolink from Kazakhstan, where he is attending an international security summit, to an event hosted by pressure group Citizens UK.

Plans are believed to be bogged down in the Cabinet's home affairs sub-committee, facing opposition from home secretary Theresa May and the UK Borders Agency.

Last month the Home Office's business plan revealed the department is not expecting any reform of the current system until March 2011 at the earliest.

Ministers had initially promised to end child detention within weeks.

Tags:
• children and family
,
• domestic policy
,
• immigration
,
• immigration detention centres