Immigrant child detention 'to end'

THE "scandal" of holding hundreds of children in immigration detention centres will be brought to an end next year, government sources said today.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will set out plans tomorrow for stopping what he has previously described as "state-sponsored cruelty".

A report by MPs last year found that nearly 1,000 children a year are detained while awaiting deportation from the UK.

During Prime Minister's Questions, Hayes and Harlington MP John McDonnell urged David Cameron to guarantee that by next Christmas "there will be no children of asylum seekers in detention centres and there never will be again". Mr Cameron said the Government had made a commitment to ending the "scandal" in the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Mr Clegg would be making a statement tomorrow, the Prime Minister added.

Government sources said ending child detention before next Christmas was "definitely on the cards".

It would hopefully come "quite a distance before Christmas", the sources added.

Mr Clegg has already announced plans for the closure of the family wing at the Yarl's Wood immigration centre in Bedfordshire, where most children under the age of 16 are held.

Last year's report by the home affairs committee found children were being detained for up to two months, and said they should only ever be held as a "last resort".

The coalition agreement states: "We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes."