Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

152 Visiting Committees and inspections.U.K.

(1)The Secretary of State must appoint a committee (to be known as the Visiting Committee) for each detention centre.

(2)The functions of the Visiting Committee for a detention centre are to be such as may be prescribed by the detention centre rules.

(3)Those rules must include provision—

(a)as to the making of visits to the centre by members of the Visiting Committee;

(b)for the hearing of complaints made by persons detained in the centre;

(c)requiring the making of reports by the Visiting Committee to the Secretary of State.

(4)Every member of the Visiting Committee for a detention centre may at any time enter the centre and have free access to every part of it and to every person detained there.

(5)In section 5A of the M1Prison Act 1952 (which deals with the appointment and functions of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons), after subsection (5), insert—

“(5A)Subsections (2) to (5) apply to detention centres (as defined by section 147 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and including any in Scotland) and persons detained in such detention centres as they apply to prisons and prisoners.”