Unlawful Home Office detentions ‘rising at alarming rate’ with record-high compensation paid

The number of people unlawfully detained by the Home Office has hit an “alarming” record high, with compensation payouts soaring by a third to £12.7m in just a year.

The department has been accused of “wasting a staggering sum of taxpayers’ money” while inflicting unnecessary suffering on the 572 people wrongly held in immigration detention.

Compensation payments hit a new record in 2021-22, jumping from £9.3m paid out for 330 cases the previous year, and now average £22,000 per case.

It comes amid concerns about the wider legal costs being paid by the Home Office, which included £28.4m for more than 2,100 lost court cases last year.

The department’s annual report showed that a further £0.9m was paid out in “fruitless payments” for flights that had been intended to remove “ineligible” asylum seekers and were cancelled following legal challenges.

Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said: “Hard-working British taxpayers are paying a very high price indeed for Priti Patel and the Conservative government’s incompetence. This has to stop. Enough is enough.”

Asylum seekers, foreign offenders and other immigrants are held in immigration detention ahead of imminent flights, and can launch legal action if they are detained for too long or without a reasonable prospect of removal.

Home Office records show that the vast majority of people detained are later released by the government rather than being removed from the UK.

Three quarters of the 25,000 people who left detention in 2021-22 were released by the Home Office, a further 10 per cent were freed on the order of judges, and only 14 per cent were taken out of the country.

Until 2019, there had always been more people removed than freed by the government. But the figures have now flipped, and the number bailed by the Home Office has rocketed by 141 per cent – almost 11,000 people – in a year.

Legal claims are also lodged if the Home Office unlawfully detains vulnerable or ill people, such as victims of torture or trafficking, or those with serious or terminal medical conditions.

A report released by the immigration watchdog last week said that some people were wrongly being placed in immigration removal centres because of a failure to make proper checks when people arrive in small boats.

Officials told the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration that “roughly one case in every other coach” arriving is unsuitable for detention.

Lawyers familiar with unlawful detention claims say that a combination of factors may have driven the increased payouts, including the Home Office placing people in detention when there is no prospect of their being deported, and violating its own guidance on vulnerable people.

A lack of asylum accommodation has also caused delays in moving people out of detention centres.

Bail for Immigration Detainees, a charity representing immigrants in detention in the UK, said the costs were the “inevitable consequence of a system in which the Home Office is left unchecked to operate a detention system without basic safeguards such as a time limit or judicial oversight”.

Rudy Schulkind, the charity’s research and policy manager, added: “The Home Office wastes a staggering sum of taxpayer money on detaining people and then paying compensation when they are found to have acted unlawfully.

“But the damages paid will not give those 572 people back the time they were locked in immigration detention, or undo the suffering that was inflicted.

“The alarming rate at which these figures are rising demonstrates that the Home Office has no interest in learning lessons from past mistakes or preventing further injustice.”

In response to a freedom of information request asking if it was analysing the unlawful detention figures for last year, the Home Office said that no formal assessment had been done. But it said that claimants have six years to bring a claim, so costs “do not necessarily relate to incidents of unlawful detention that year”.

The Independent understands that the Home Office has an internal tariff for compensation payments, which varies according to the amount of time someone has been wrongly held.

A source with knowledge of the process said: “A bigger issue than the financial cost is the fact that people are being wrongfully and unlawfully detained in the first place. It’s wrong and you’re trying to run a system that’s fair and just.

“We should be avoiding these mistakes in the first place as a society... If things start going wrong, and they keep going wrong or get worse, some potentially very bad consequences happen.”

The Home Office did not respond to questions about what was driving the increase in payouts for unlawful detention, but said it was committed to learning lessons.

A spokesperson added: “The public expects us to remove people who have no right to be here, and immigration detention is a critical part of that system.”