The following article was written by Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney & Shetland Alistair Carmichael and published on July 22nd on the STV News website.

There was a time when Theresa May used to deplore the government practice of swamping us with written statements on the last day before the start of the long summer recess.

That time, of course, was when she was in opposition and the government was a Labour one.

Now, as Prime Minister, she is quite content to see them flooding out — no fewer than thirty on Thursday as the Commons rose for the summer recess.

It is the oldest trick in the parliamentary book. Slip out all the bad news on the last day when MPs are already looking out the Ambre Solaire and the flip flops. By the time the Commons returns in September the moment for protest will have passed and the pressure will be off.

Thursday’s clutch brought the usual mix of the good, the bad and the indifferent. And one more — the shameful. Buried in amongst announcements about schools funding, Ecofin and Armed Forces Pay Review Body appointments, there is one entitled “Cedars pre-departure accommodation”. It is a cosy-sounding title that betrays its true nature.

Cedars was the accommodation set up under the coalition government when implementing the commitment in the coalition agreement to end the detention of children for immigration purposes. It meant that children in families awaiting removal from the UK would no longer have to spend time in lock-down institutions.

It restored one small measure of humanity and compassion to our immigration and asylum systems.

Managed by the children’s charity Barnardo’s, it meant that children liable to deportation were at least accommodated with their parents in a secure and unthreatening environment. The chief inspector of prisons described it as “an example of best practice in caring for… some of the most vulnerable people subject to immigration control.”

That is now to end and instead these families will be held in a “discrete unit” at the Tinsley House removal centre near Gatwick Airport.

Barnardo’s greeted the news with a terse statement indicating that the new accommodation was “not in the best interests of the children” and that it would not have their support. Too right.

The reference to the best interests of the children is significant. It is the test that our courts apply to any case involving the welfare of our own children. The message of this decision is a difficult to mistake: Children in our immigration system are somehow less worthy of protection than our own.

I recall visiting the Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre in Lanarkshire about ten years ago and seeing the facilities for families there. The education and health facilities were of a good standard and the staff running them were obviously dedicated and professional.

For all that, however, it was still a lock-down institution with razor wire on top of high walls. It was not a place where we would place our own children and I was proud to be a minister in the government that ended the practice.

Cedars has not been a cheap place to run and the numbers using it have been low. The recent Shaw Report highlighted the cost and reported that around 20 families (the majority, single women and children) had been accommodated in approximately ten months.

Those accommodated had health issues, including women whose mental health issues were exacerbated by female genital mutilation (FGM), risks to their children and domestic violence.

The Shaw Report also noted that up to half of those accommodated in Cedars were released rather than removed.

So yes, the numbers accommodated were low and the cost was high. The cost to these vulnerable children of putting them back in a lock-down institution is more difficult to quantify. There may well be some better, more cost-efficient way of achieving the same end but working that out, it would appear, is not worth the trouble.

Visiting the sins of the parent onto the child belongs in the Old Testament. It is no way for a civilised, developed, Western country to treat some of the most vulnerable children and families in our care. I suspect that the closure of Cedars will not bring out the protesters in their droves onto our streets.

That is a shame. A shame on us all.