The government was yesterday accused of abandoning its promise to end the detention of children in immigration centres in a climbdown that will be a severe embarrassment to Liberal Democrat ministers.
Two months after Nick Clegg told MPs the coalition would deliver on its pledge to end the controversial practice, Damian Green, the immigration minister, has revealed that the government only intended to "minimise" the number of child detainees.
The Lib Dems had hailed the policy as a sign of their influence within the Tory-led coalition. During his speech to the Commons in July, Clegg criticised the Labour government for committing a "moral outrage" by detaining 1,000 children held with their families while awaiting removal from the UK last year. The deputy prime minister, who announced the closure of the Yarl's Wood detention centre's family unit, pledged to "restore a sense of decency and liberty to the way we conduct ourselves".
The government's policy shift emerged in answer to a question by the Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland over the long-term future of Yarl's Wood following the decision to close the family and child wing.
Green replied: "At the moment, we are looking at alternatives to detention for children … It is our intention to minimise the detention of children in the future as a whole and, therefore, that aspect of Yarl's Wood's use will disappear, but clearly not its use for adult women."
Tonight Green said the government's intention remained to end child detention. In a brief statement released by the Home Office he said: "Significant progress has been made in working towards the commitment to end child detention for immigration purposes and we are currently piloting some proposed changes to our approach developed with partners. We have already announced that the family unit at Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre will close.
The coalition agreement released in May said: "We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes," Green noted, adding: "That remains."
The Children's Society and refugee welfare groups urged Green to stick to the promise. Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "We would be hugely disappointed if the government reneged on its pledge to end child detention for good. 'Minimising' the use of detention for children is unacceptable and would still involve locking up innocent and vulnerable children. There is no practical reason why detention of children should not be stopped today."
The Guardian reported last month that families with children facing removal were being given an ultimatum to leave the country voluntarily or face deportation "within weeks" under a pilot scheme, dashing expectations of more liberal alternatives to child detention.
News of the government climbdown came as a report revealed the impact of child detention. In the first large-scale investigation in the UK, Medical Justice found that many who had been locked up suffered psychological and physical damage, with symptoms ranging from extreme anxiety to bed wetting. Three girls attempted to take their own lives.
"This report proves once and for all the terrible impact detention has on children," said Emma Ginn from Medical Justice. "There is simply no excuse for the government to continue with its policy of locking up children.. As Nick Clegg said, it is 'state-sponsored cruelty'."
Medical Justice gathered evidence from independent doctors, witness statements and interviews, assessing 141 cases between 2004 and April 2010.
It found that in 61 cases children had been picked up in dawn raids, leaving more than two thirds suffering from increased stress "food refusal and self harming".
Many of the children said they had witnessed violence against their families, including claims of racist abuse and taunting while in detention. In one case an eight-year-old boy who fled Nigeria with his family claims he witnessed his father being assaulted while in detention.
"I remember when my daddy was thrown to the floor and hit the radiator. There were lots of officers and they were pulling his hair and kicking him. They also kept blocking his nose and it looked like he couldn't breathe. They were shouting bad things at him and I was scared."
The study found that 74 children were "psychologically harmed", with symptoms ranging from persistent crying to loss of bowel control, 92 were found to have had suffered physically.
A spokesman for the Refugee Children's Consortium, which represents 30 charities including Barnados and the NSPCC, said: "It is clear after reading the shocking medical and legal evidence in this report that the government must make good its commitment to end the detention of children for immigration purposes."
The chief executive of the UK Border Agency, Lin Homer, said it took the needs of "vulnerable individuals seeking asylum in the UK, and in particular the need to safeguard and protect the wellbeing of children", very seriously."Significant progress has been made in working towards the commitment to end child detention for immigration purposes and we are currently piloting some proposed changes to our approach developed with partners."
She said she was unable to answer the specific points raised in the report as Medical Justice had declined to provide a copy.