The profits being made from Theresa May's 'hostile environment'

If this article in the Guardian is anything to go by, then there is money to be made in Theresa May's 'hostile environment'.

The paper says that the Home Office has paid a handful of private contractors hundreds of millions of pounds to run the UK’s immigration removal centres, but no one knows for certain just how profitable the industry is.

Just one of the 10 UK facilities is run by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, but the rest are contracted out to outsourcing firms G4S, Mitie, Serco and the US-owned GEO Group.

However, any attempt to secure some transparency has been foiled by the fact that commercial confidentiality agreements mean the Home Office and outsourcing companies are not obliged to publish detailed financial information about immigration detention centres in the UK. What is available is the value of some contracts when they are awarded:

Earlier this year, Mitie won what is believed to be the largest immigration detention contract ever awarded, valued at more than £500m. The contract will cover a range of services and it is not known how much of this is for management of removal centres.

The profitability of detention facilities has proved to be a contentious issue for the contractors. A Guardian investigation last year pointed to a 20.7% profit margin at the G4S-owned Brook House in 2016, while at Tinsley House the margin was 41.5%.

Both figures appeared to be above the agreed margin set out in the contracts. The G4S executive, Peter Neden, refused to divulge the true margin to a parliamentary committee after the allegations emerged.

GEO Group, which operates Dungavel House, Scotland’s only detention centre, may be making up to 30% profits on its contract, according to an analysis by Corporate Watch.

Nice work if you can get it.