Detainees at Britian’s ten immigration centres are offered roles such as cleaner, laundry assistant, library worker and orderly
Detainees at Britian’s ten immigration centres are offered roles such as cleaner, laundry assistant, library worker and orderlyGETTY IMAGES

Immigration detainees have been short-changed of £5 million a year by being paid £1 an hour instead of the minimum wage for work they did while in removal centres, it has been claimed.

A solicitor described the wage paid to people detained in a network of immigration removal centres as “slavery”.

Toufique Hossain, of Duncan Lewis, said: “They are working as cleaners, barbers, laundry workers, litter-pickers and food servers. This work would otherwise need to be done by workers paid at least the minimum wage. If this isn’t slavery, I don’t know what is.”

Figures released under freedom of information laws show that detainees worked a total of 2.24 million hours between November 2014 and April last year and were paid about £2.24 million.