SusanGaszczak

This week I visited Yarl's Wood, an Immigration Removal Centre, in Bedfordshire. It was an eye opening visit. The unit is used mainly for Fast-track removal of single females who are most likely not to have a reason to stay in the country. It is also used to hold families at the last stage of their removal process.

The centre is run by SERCO and supervised by the Border and Immigration Authority (BIA). The visit overall was an eye opening experience, at times frustrating and upsetting but it was also a relief - it wasn't as bad as I thought, in fact it was much better than I thought.

I have to say was the open access that we were given as a group is a credit to both SERCO and BIA. There were issues, as there are with any institution, but I hope the feedback we are giving the centre will be constructive.

Other issues were caused by Government Policy and frustrations with getting travel documents, I know we will all be giving that feedback clearly to the ministers.

The over-riding question that I have been left with is should children be kept in what, at the end of the day is a prison. The children, 47 of them on the day I visited, all seemed happy enough. I met 20 or so of them in a lesson, all spoke with very English accents and many had obviously been born in the UK.

I asked them what the best and worst bits were of Yarl's Wood. The responses were about their play equipment - the football pitch was either too small or too big. They had swings and play equipment.

The nursery was well stocked, although I felt there was not enough dressing up clothes and the toddlers were obviously happy and had some fantastic toys - no different to my own child's nursery.

The time I drew breath was when I visited one of the family rooms. The view was that of high fences and barbed wire - not a something I would want my child to see.

I would have liked to have spent more time with the children and to have spoken to the parents and got their views. I hope to do that soon.

Children in this situation have committed no crime. I don't know the answer as to how you deal with this situation but the question I ask is should they be held in this way?