On 7 July 2026, the Chief Inspectorate of Prisons for England and Wales published its annual report on conditions in detention.
The report welcomed improvements to the Immigration Removal Centre (‘IRC’) estate since its last report on 8 July 2025, where Harmondsworth faced the ‘worst ever judgements’ of an IRC. In particular, it commended the increased investment in IRC infrastructure over the last 12 months, which has led to higher staff visibility around the units and stronger management teams.
Nevertheless, it has criticised the majority of IRCs for their continued prison-like environment. There were issues with poor ventilation and limited green spaces, which had already been raised in the 2024-2025 report. Too many people were detained for excessive periods, and there were serious concerns raised at Dungavel IRC that women continued to receive unequal treatment through more restrictive access to both indoor and outdoor facilities.
The report further flagged that:
In too many cases, detention decisions had not taken sufficient account of mental ill-health, trauma histories, trafficking indicators, or self-harm risk.
The Chief Inspectorate noted a clear failure by IRC staff to identify indicators of vulnerability among women at Derwentside IRC, including pregnancy and gender-based violence. Concerningly, there remained a lack of safeguards across the estate for people with suicidal ideation. The Rule 35 procedure was deemed to be especially weak, with only five Rule 35(2) reports being submitted at Colnbrook despite 37 people being under constant watch for imminent self-harm.
Case law developments since the 2024-2025 report
Despite these conditions, the High Court held in R (D1914 & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1853 that the Home Secretary was not acting unlawfully by failing to implement the recommendations of the Brook House Inquiry. These 33 much-needed recommendations addressed the 19 credible incidents of Article 3 breaches and included a 28-day time limit on detention. The appeal for R (D1914) remains outstanding.
In AH v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 3269 (Admin), the safeguards of Rule 35, Assessment, Care in Detention and Teamwork (‘ACDT’), and Adults at Risk procedures were found to be systemically inadequate. At paragraphs 253-254, Jefford J described these failings, which included strip searches captured on body-worn video and failures to update high-risk ACDTs, as a ‘disconnected system’ that ‘was not working effectively’.
Challenges to poor safeguarding continued in Medical Justice v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 251. The charity succeeded with their judicial review against the Home Office’s ‘second opinion process’ guidance. This internal guidance had previously permitted caseworkers to delay releasing a detained individual while they sought a further medical opinion on medico-legal reports that showed heightened risk. The Court of Appeal found that the guidance was inconsistent with the Home Office’s published Adults at Risk policy, and that Medical Justice had a legitimate expectation to be consulted before any changes were made to the policy.
The High Court considered the Home Secretary’s failure to proactively pursue alternatives to detention in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Almas [2025] EWHC 212 (KB) and R (on the application of BRO) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 2231 (Admin). In BRO, Bates J emphasised that a deterioration in a detained person’s mental health may constitute material evidence of the Home Office’s failure to act with diligence and expedition in facilitating release.
Looking ahead
The headlines of 2025-2026 were insufficient safeguards for vulnerable people in detention, systemic failings in healthcare and accommodation, and the Home Office’s ongoing proclivity for unnecessary and excessive detention.
Nonetheless, in January 2026, the immigration estate continued to expand with the opening of Crowborough Barracks. Campsfield was also reopened after its closure in 2018, which had followed 20 years of public safety concerns about the site. Site developments will continue with Haslar IRC which is scheduled to reopen in 2027.
In March 2026, Minister for Border Security and Asylum Alex Norris announced that the existing Adults at Risk policy will be replaced by a new Assessing Detention for Vulnerable People framework. While there is limited information available on the proposed policy, the Minister’s letter sets out an ‘evidence of needs’ model that will move away from predicting future risk and towards current clinical needs, leaving scope for unidentified risks to be neglected.
The Chief Inspectorate’s 2025-2026 report has highlighted improvements in the immigration detention estate, but this optimism seems to be premature. Only 27% of detained people accessed legal representation during the reporting period, which makes any meaningful challenge to unlawful detention significantly harder for those who really need it. Without any significant shift in the inadequate safeguards around detention decision-making, the improvements noted by the Chief Inspectorate’s report risk being undermined by the very conditions that continue to cause harm.