For the
past three weeks we have been served a diet of media “scandals” at the Home
Office. But what is its real shameful
secret?
First
Charles Clarke lost his job for misplacing hundreds of foreign national
prisoners released at the end of their sentences without being considered for
deportation. Few participants in the xenophobic
media frenzy, from the Prime Minister down, paused to think of the prisoners as
human beings, possibly long established in the UK with spouses and families who
themselves had done no wrong. Fewer
still raised the question of reform. Presumably the object of punishment is in part to help prisoners overcome
their criminal past, to become better people.
The fact
that our prison system so rarely achieves this is itself a scandal.
Then came the episode of the senior civil servant who, asked by a committee of MPs to put a figure on the number of illegal immigrants in the UK, replied
that he “hadn’t the faintest idea”. Let
us rephrase the question: “Please tell
us what by definition you don’t know?” Pretty silly, of course, as even Mr Blair pointed out. But what neither he nor most of the press
supplied was the context to think about the issue. How about the following findings last year from the Institute of Public Policy Research?
Migrant labour contributes disproportionately to both GDP and public finances. Although the migrant workforce makes up 8.7% of the population, it contributes 10.2% of all the income tax collected
Total revenue to the exchequer from migrants grew in real terms from £33.8bn in 1999-2000 to £41.2bn in 2003-04. This 22% increase compared favourably with a 6% rise over the same period in revenues from the British-born population
Indeed
without immigrant labour (often illegal) there would be serious difficulties in
industries from agriculture to building and the hotel trade. The scandal is the conditions under which these workers live or (in the
case of the Chinese cockle pickers) die.
But if the press really wants to shame the Home Office (and don't hold your breath) they need look no further than this. The UK government
currently detains more than 2,000 children, including babies, in immigration
detention centres every year. That's equivalent to the number of pupils at a
large inner-city secondary school. These
children have committed no crime but are held behind locked doors and high
barbed wire fences. Five years ago it was rare for families and children to be
detained for immigration purposes. Now, members of the No Place for a Child
coalition have documented detentions lasting anything from 7 to 268 days.
Now there’s a scandal.
Click here if
you would like to take action on the detention of children
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