Fourteen years ago it was common practice to lock up children in Harmondsworth detention centre in my constituency. It even had a classroom and teachers. I visited the children, and on one occasion they had written poems. One young girl had come up with one that said: “Freedom is the sand outside the gate.”
It broke my heart seeing these children in what was effectively a prison, and still is. That’s why, in 2010, I welcomed wholeheartedly David Cameron’s commitment to end the detention of children.
