The prime minister shouldn’t wait to be forced to concede on locking up children

Editorial: The threat of the indefinite detention of minors in the Illegal Migration Bill must be removed

Indefinite detention is contrary to any civilised conception of fundamental human rights (Reuters)

British law currently allows unaccompanied children claiming asylum to be detained for a maximum of 24 hours, and asylum-seeking families with children for a maximum of 72 hours. Temporary detention is sometimes a regrettable necessity, and these limits are reasonable for any decent and effective system of processing claims for refugee status.

Sadly, the United Kingdom lacks such a system; but the solution to that is to make our system decent and effective, not to abolish the limits.

Indefinite detention is contrary to any civilised conception of fundamental human rights. Yet ministers have omitted any time limits on the detention of children in the Illegal Migration Bill that is presently before parliament.