Members of Parliament will debate the report ot the All-Party Parliamentary Group Inquiry into the UK’s use of immigration detention on Thursday 10 September when the House of Commons returns after the summer recess.

The debate, which will last for three hours, was secured by three members of the detention inquiry panel – Richard Fuller MP, David Burrowes MP and Paul Blomfied MP – following an application to the Backbench Business Committee.

Appearing before the Backbench Business Committee to make the case for the debate, Richard Fuller raised the previous lack of parliamentary scrutiny of immigration detention. He told the committee that the detention inquriy panel found there had been a “lack of scrutiny of this particular area of immigration policy by Parliament. In the previous Parliament, many questions were raised and debates held on immigration and we had a flurry of immigration Bills through Parliament but there were only two debates specifically on immigration detention.”

Paul Blomfield added that the inquiry “had real strength in breadth and depth” with the panel including “a former Law Lord, a former Conservative Cabinet member and a former chief inspector of prisons.”

David Burrowes said that the debate would be very topical: “A debate would have great topicality and national interest, and it would also be timely and relevant because of the present Home Office review of conditions at Yarl’s Wood and the wider issues of immigration detention, which will be published in the autumn. That will be an important time for a wider debate about the principle and extent of immigration detention.”

The motion MPs will debate is:

That this House supports the recommendations of the report of the Joint Inquiry by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration, The Use of Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom; has considered the case for reform of immigration detention; and calls on the Government to respond positively to those recommendations.

The transcript of the Backbench Business Committee meeting is available on the parliament’s website: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmbackben/ucbbc210715/ucbbc210715.htm