The Scottish Government is calling on Westminster to end the detention of the children of asylum seekers at the Dungavel removal centre in Lanarkshire.
Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop is due to meet with Home Office minister, Liam Byrne, on Thursday.
She will set out the SNP administration’s position on asylum, and push the case for an end to family detention and dawn raids.
Responsibility for immigration lies with the government at Westminster.
There are about 1,400 asylum-seeking families in Scotland, with most of them Glasgow-based.
The Dungavel detention centre housed 122 children in the first 11 months of 2006.
Ms Hyslop will argue that alternatives to family detention, currently being piloted in England, should also be used in Scotland.
She said: “Asylum seekers must be treated fairly and humanely, particularly when children are involved.
“That’s why the Scottish Government is opposed to the detention of children at Dungavel and why we will be pressing for alternatives being piloted in England to be extended north of the border.”
The English pilots are being run in conjunction with non-government organisations.
They work with families to help them plan for their return home without needing to detain them in immigration removal centres like Dungavel.
As well as reducing the number of children going into such centres, the scheme is also aimed at increasing the number of families choosing to return home voluntarily.
The recent changes which give asylum-seeking students the same support as Scottish students attending university are also likely to be on the agenda at the meeting.
Ms Hyslop announced earlier this year that children who have spent at least three years in Scottish schools will have the same access as Scottish youngsters to full-time and further education.
1 response so far ↓
Scottish Unitarian // October 20, 2007 at 11:10 pm
There are many young women MSP’s who have not been held back by a lack of assertiveness, but I don’t think there are any who would be more likely to succeed in these negotiations than Mrs Hyslop. She has already done those things that ministers of the Scottish Government have it in their power to do directly.
The previous First Minister thought he had an agreement and was surprised to find out - in the debating chamber - that it wasn’t working.
He is a decent man and tried his best but the reason he isn’t the FM any more is that on this issue and others (not least Trident) he failed to distance himself sufficiently from Westminster New Labour government.
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