For Priti Patel, the findings of the report on her desk were no doubt unpalatable. Fixated on creating a system that detained and quickly removed asylum seekers, the home secretary would have been shocked to discover that some officials in her department were now enthusing about a “humane” alternative.
At precisely the same time as the Home Office was secretly drawing up options for new immigration removal centres, civil servants elsewhere in the department were championing an option that may have rendered such plans redundant.
