National Preventive Mechanism Tenth Annual Report 2018–19 In relation to transparency, in September 2018, Stephen Shaw raised with the Home Affairs Committee that the Home Office did not conform to the practice of publishing data on deaths of immigration detainees. The Guardian and Independent newspapers have identified other ways in which there had been a lack of transparency of Home Office data. In December 2018, the Independent alleged that the Home Office had deliberately deleted records about the death of an immigration detainee, Michal Netyks, who had been due to be released after serving a custodial sentence.47 The newspaper also highlighted a number of cases where people formally identified by the Home Office as modern slavery victims, or displaying clear signs that they were victims, had been detained or threatened with deportation.48 They found that 507 people who had escaped exploitation were detained under immigration powers in 2018, despite Home Office guidance that this group should not be placed in detention.49 The Guardian reported in September 2018 that the Home Office lost almost threequarters of appeals against immigration rulings.50 In December 2018, the Home Office announced the establishment of a team to review new evidence in all pending immigration appeals. The situation in detention during the year Prisons Significant concerns regarding the situation in prisons across the four nations were highlighted by NPM members, including the continued prevalence and impact of new psychoactive substances (NPS) on prisoners’ health and safety, and the need for substantial improvements to inprison mental health care. The total prison population in England and Wales as at 29 March 2019 was 82,643 (78,806 men and 3,837 women), a comparable level to the same point in the previous year.51 The population in Scotland’s prisons at the end of March 2019 was 8,122, an increase of 709 (almost 9%) in the overall number of people in prison in Scotland over the last year, and equivalent to one additional large prison.52 The prison population in Northern Ireland remained largely the same, with the average daily population across the year at 1,448.53 47 The Independent, December 2018, ‘Home Office accused of ‘denial and obfuscation’ after deleting records on death of immigration detainee’, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/home-office-immigration-detentiondenial-deleting-records-death-michal-netyks-poland-a8693121.html [accessed 05/12/19] 48 The Independent, July 2019, ‘Home Office accused of covering up plight of hundreds of trafficking victims wrongly detained in immigration centres’, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/home-office-modern-slaverytrafficking-victims-immigration-detention-detained-foi-data-a9007251.html [accessed 05/12/19] 49 The Independent, July 2019, ‘Home Office forced to defend ‘cover-up’ over detention of hundreds of modern slavery victims’, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/home-office-modern-slavery-victims-immigrationdetention-caroline-nokes-diane-abbott-parliament-a9008836.html [accessed 05/12/19] 50 The Guardian, September 2018, ‘Home Office loses 75% of its appeals against immigration rulings’, https://www. theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/03/inhumane-three-quarters-of-home-office-asylum-appeals-fail [accessed 05/12/19] 51 Ministry of Justice, National Offender Management Service, HM Prison Service, and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, Population Bulletin: Weekly 29 March 2019, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-figures 2019 [accessed 12/10/19] 52 HM Inspectorate of Prisons for Scotland, August 2019, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland: Annual Report 2018-19, https://www.prisonsinspectoratescotland.gov.uk/publications/hm-chief-inspector-prisons-scotland-annual-report-201819?page=9 [accessed 18/10/19] 53 Department of Justice, September 2019, The Northern Ireland Prison Population, https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/sites/ default/files/publications/justice/ni-prison-population-18-19.pdf [accessed 08/01/20] 24