Outspoken!

On the Labour Government's Immigration Policy?

MC: I agree that there is a need for a strong and controlled immigration policy. I have, in fact, appeared in the media to defend some aspects of the Government's strong policy. Locking up asylum seekers' children does not contribute to solving that problem. - Adjournment debate on Asylum Seekers Children 8.5.03

In what way does detention of families distract us from this policy?

MC: It appears that we are scapegoating families, who are often easy to trace-people who are seeking social and educational services for their children are easier to trace-because we cannot deal with the mass of people who are not burdened or accompanied by families and can easily disappear into the grey economy of this country. - Adjournment debate on Asylum Seekers Children 8.5.03

On Dungavel being called a "family unit".

MC: It's like saying during the Boer War that the camps for the Boers were in fact not concentration camps." - BBC News 14.3.03

MC: Children are not guilty of any crime, they should be kept out of detention and should have an ultimate legal right in Scotland to be in mainstream education - BBC News 7.8.03

On the Home Secretary's assurance that no one is detained longer than is necessary?

MC: Detention [has] extended to eight months and beyond for the Ay family from Iraq. While some children have not detained as long as eight months, they have been detained beyond the removal time envisaged. Analysis by Bail for Immigration Detainees and others shows that where a family with children is given temporary admission, the first thing that they do is register the children at school. They are easy to find. They look for doctors, health services and social services. Irrespective of whether the process that expelled them from their country was traumatic, the process of travelling will have traumatised them. - Adjournment debate on Asylum Seekers Children 8.5.03

On conditions in Dungavel

MC: I visited Dungavel, and although I found staff who were caring and warm and trying to moderate the impact of the detention process, I found the same conditions that I had found only a couple of years ago when it was a prison when I went to visit some of my constituents, who were UVF gun runners, and it was barely an adequate facility to put them in. The barbed wire was still there. The large fence was still there. In fact, a plate some 10 ft high had been added so that people could not see in or out. My overall assessment of Dungavel was-I perhaps offended the people there because I was too honest-that it was a terrible place to detain children. It is a facility that we should not use, but even if it was moderated, the principle of locking up children is wrong.

On the experiences of the Ay family

MC: It is a great embarrassment that in Germany the Ay family have been released while they are being considered. If they can do that in Germany it is a shame on this country that those children were locked up for a year. It is a shameful episode and it should be something that should not be repeated. - BBC News 7.8.03

On Fatima Muse being fined for taking Weetabix into her child's bedroom

MC: The flexibility of having a little child who wants to eat whenever they are hungry is obviously not fitted into a prison type regime. The penalty of taking away the small sum of money they are allowed each day is wrong to me and I can't see how they can justify it. They should find some flexible way of allowing the woman to feed her child whenever she happens to be hungry and that would be treating her with respect. - Sunday Herald 5.9.03

On Labour Ministers in Edinburgh in London

MC: I think the executive has been ducking its moral responsibility. I am ashamed of the Scottish Executive and I am ashamed of my Labour colleagues on this matter. We are running scared of xenophobia and we are running scared of the problems of illegal people trafficking. But there is a moral line here, children are not guilty of any crime, they should be kept out of detention and should have an ultimate legal right in Scotland to be in mainstream education. - BBC News 7.8.03

"It is a great embarrassment that in Germany the Ay family have been released while they are being considered. If they can do that in Germany it is a shame on this country that those children were locked up for a year.
"It is a shameful episode and it should be something that should not be repeated."

MC: The detention of children in the former prison of Dungavel has been the low point of shame in the process of dealing with people seeking asylum in the UK. The Scottish Executive has failed in its moral duty in not at least challenging the Home Secretary on behalf of these children." - STUC Press Release 5.9.03

I think that both the Home Office minister and the Scottish Executive should break the silence on this. - STUC rally at Dungavel Detention Centre 6.9.03