Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that, because exactly what is lacking in the points-based system is the flexibility that would allow the nations of the UK to determine their own immigration requirements and help us to deal with the challenging immigration and population issues that we face. We need those powers and we need them now, in order to tackle the challenges we will face in future. I want to address my remarks to new clause 2 and the consequential amendments, and to support the very good amendments (a) and (b), from the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. Regardless of what the Minister said to me in response to my earlier intervention, there is no doubt that the current arrangements for the short-term detention of detainees are less than satisfactory and are, in fact, inadequate. What is proposed in new clause 2 will only make matters worse and compound the situation in which the detainees find themselves. It is not just the independent monitoring board and Lord West, but Her Majesty's inspectorate of prisons that found the situation in nearly all the short-term holding facilities less than adequate. It found difficulties with ensuring that children could be looked after, with access to legal advice, and with ensuring that even basic things such as toilet facilities were of a suitable standard. There was no child care training or policy, and there were no child protection arrangements. There were bullying issues, and no way for some of those complaints to be addressed. I hope the Minister recognises that there are difficulties and issues in the short-term holding facilities, and that the Government should take the matter seriously and try to resolve it. I am particularly concerned about the care and welfare of children, which is the nub of the issue, whether in the short-term, or in the longer-term, detention estate. On Second Reading, I had a useful exchange with the Minister and the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), with a real desire to consider the detention of children, whether in the long or short term. I thought that we were making progress with the idea that the issue had to be addressed as a priority. The Minister is right: I have raised several parliamentary questions on the subject. On Second Reading, I mentioned the case of a family from Africa, who came to Glasgow. They had been subjected to a dawn raid and held at the Dungavel long-term detention facility. They were deported to the Ivory Coast by private jet, only to be returned immediately to a detention centre in England. I now understand that the family is to be deported this week to Senegal, again by private jet via Brazil. I asked some questions about the cost of such deportations, and I could not believe the responses I received. For example, the cost of holding and deporting the family in the case I have mentioned has been £70,000, even before this week's round of deportations. Other parliamentary questions revealed that the cost of chartering private aircraft had almost doubled in the last year to more than £8.2 million. The UK Border Agency spent £26.8 million on chartered and scheduled flights to remove immigrants at the taxpayers' expense in 2008-09. A total of £81.5 million has been spent since 2005. Those are staggering figures, and they reveal just how much is spent in deporting people from this country. Would it not be more cost-effective to consider other, more creative solutions to deal with the problem? Is deportation always the answer in such cases, especially when the costs are so astronomical? I urge the Minister to look at this problem.