The issue of the work detainees do in immigration removal centres is more complex than your article suggests (Immigration detainees ‘are being used as cheap labour’, 23 August). The opportunity for detainees and prisoners to take part in work and other purposeful activity in any form of detention is widely recognised as essential to their mental and emotional wellbeing and an important means of reducing the likelihood of self-harm. The right of detainees to take part in work is recognised in relevant international human rights standards. We have not identified any detainee in the UK immigration centres we inspect who has been forced to take part in work; we have found many who want to work but are unable to do so. This is sometimes because there are not the jobs available and sometimes because the Home Office has placed an arbitrary ban on those they judge to be not cooperating with the immigration process from having a job in detention. It would not be in the interests of detainees if the work that was already available for those who wished to do it was reduced. What is required is better-quality and better-paid work available for all detainees on a voluntary basis.