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Miss Widdecombe: I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend's remarks about preferring detention in special centres to detention in discrete parts of prison. That is why we have opened Campsfield house and Tinsley house and why the percentage of those detained in our prison system has declined. It is a shared objective. Meanwhile, if we believe that people should be detained and if that view is upheld by independent adjudicators, we believe that it is right that we must supply enough space. As we do not have enough space in our detention centres, we must use prisons.

Mrs. Diana Maddock (Christchurch): Does the Minister recognise that, despite her statement today, many people think it a scandal that so many people have been in prison for so long when no offence has been committed? Does she agree that no one should be allowed admission to this country when they stage a hunger strike, but that delays are unacceptable? In the case of those on hunger strike in Rochester, may we have assurances from the Minister that there will be no further delays, that they will be told when they will get an appeal and that that appeal will be soon? Does the Minister recognise that many hon. Members are somewhat dismayed that such a situation is still occurring, given the reassurances that the House was given in respect of delays during the passage of the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993?

Miss Widdecombe: I am amazed at that series of questions. I can only conclude that two things must be true: first, that the hon. Lady had prepared her remarks before she came in; and, secondly, that she did not manage somehow to revise them in the light of what I have already said.

Mr. Peter Brooke (City of London and Westminster, South): Is my hon. Friend aware that two separate and responsible witnesses gave presentations last week to the all-party parliamentary group on refugees and that that caused no little concern to those of us who heard the evidence of those witnesses, one of whom concentrated on the psychological health of detainees? Although I have absolute confidence in her conduct when managing this situation, would she or the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), who is also sitting on the Treasury Bench, be prepared to meet hon. Members to discuss the underlying issues?

Miss Widdecombe: I am always available to my right hon. and hon. Friends and to Opposition Members to discuss these issues.

Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield): Is the Minister aware that, to independent observers of this exchange, the Government's response will seem bureaucratic, inhumane and harsh? People will remember the totally different and more generous approach taken when people escaped from Tsarist Russia and the pogroms and when people came in the 1930s from Germany. Many hon. Members are descended from those who were given admission. Particularly in view of the Prime Minister's recent boast in India that he was the friend of the ethnic communities, the Minister's answer will sound singularly unconvincing.

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Miss Widdecombe: What I find unconvincing is the tendency of Opposition Members to deplore the present situation, without actually saying what the alternative is. Is the alternative seriously not to detain anybody? Is it seriously to release people because they choose distressing methods of attempting to press their case? Should we seriously simply say that anybody who comes to this country, no matter what the circumstances, can wander around free, even if there are very good reasons why we and other responsible persons believe that that should not be allowed? In the absence of any sensible alternative suggestion, I believe that our policy is correct.

Sir Dudley Smith (Warwick and Leamington): Is my hon. Friend aware that all hunger strikers practise moral blackmail on society? Does she agree that, however compelling certain cases might be--I do not accept that the cases we are debating are compelling--to give way undermines the structures that underpin our society and our approach to sensible living?

Miss Widdecombe: My hon. Friend has summed up the issue very sensibly. However distressing or difficult the circumstances in which people are now putting themselves, we have food, fluids and all the necessary medical care available. All the help and advice in the world is available to those people. If they choose not to avail themselves of it, I deeply regret that, but in the last analysis, that is their decision.

Mrs. Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley): The Minister constantly wears a cross round her neck. Can she tell us how she equates her Christian conscience with allowing those people to die?

Miss Widdecombe: I have already quoted the circumstances in which some of the detainees find themselves in detention. I quoted one case in which a detainee had served a sentence in this country for indecent assault on children. As the hon. Lady challenges my Christianity, perhaps I may quote to her:

"Whoso shall offend one of these"

my

"little ones . . . it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck".

The hon. Lady knows that very well.

Mrs. Clwyd: "Thou shalt not kill."

Miss Widdecombe: I do not want any of these detainees to die; that is why the medical attention is available. However, it must be their decision whether to take it up.

Mr. James Couchman (Gillingham): Although Rochester prison is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Medway (Dame P. Fenner), a number of people are concerned, for humane reasons, about the circumstances in which people are detained in Rochester. Specifically, they are worried about the way in which the decision to detain is taken and the reviews that take place thereafter. They would like to know what those reviews are, how frequently they are carried out and by whom.

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Miss Widdecombe: Reviews are carried out at regular intervals and, as I said, written decisions are taken, and written reasons then given, every month. When someone has been in detention for six months or more, the information is regularly brought before a director in the immigration service.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): In view of the Minister's rude and uncalled-for response to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mrs. Maddock)--

Mrs. Maddock indicated dissent.

Mr. Dalyell: Should we not remember that we had better be a bit careful about biblical references? Did not the Bible say something about charity? Will the Minister consult some of her distinguished and senior colleagues and find out whether they have a conscience as to what the shade of their grandfathers has to say?

Miss Widdecombe: Does charity involve not detaining people whom we believe it is in the public interest to detain? If that is the definition of charity, it is the oddest definition that I have heard. As for my allegedly rude answer, I was challenged on a most personal basis of religious belief and I believe that I had every right to answer in like terms.

Sir Ivan Lawrence (Burton): Is my hon. Friend the Minister aware that every reasonable person, hearing what she has said today about the processes by which we deal with the detained 1 per cent. of asylum seekers, will consider that this action is sadly necessary, decent, humane and totally beyond reproach?

Miss Widdecombe: I am most grateful. I believe that that sums up the situation completely.

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West): Could the Minister tell us a little more about the way in which the authorities treat hunger strikers? What counselling is available to them to try to get them off hunger strike? What access is made available to their family and friends, so that they may try to dissuade them from the action?

The Minister knows of a case about which I am in correspondence with her Department--that of Mr. Barry Horne, who has been on hunger strike since 6 January. He is protesting about experiments on animals. She is good on animals, but not so good on people. I understand that he was moved, as a category A prisoner--he is on remand--from Bullingdon prison to Bristol prison in handcuffs. The man can hardly walk. Is it necessary to handcuff hunger strikers?

Madam Speaker: Order. We are getting on to the subject of a different prisoner in a different situation. Does the Minister want to respond to that? The question was quite outside the terms of the private notice question.

Miss Widdecombe indicated dissent.

Madam Speaker: That is very sensible.

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Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset): Will my hon. Friend comment on speculation in the press that two temporary prisons on land and a possible floating prison that might end up in my constituency in Portland might be used as detention centres for asylum seekers? Is such speculation correct, and is that the Government's intention?

Miss Widdecombe: We have no such plans. Our current plans are that both facilities, should they become available, will be used for category C prisoners.

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