Immigration: Jimmy Mubenga

Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Ramsbotham

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

On the noble Baroness’s second point, the chief inspector of UKBA is doing that. On her first point, there is a review going on of the whole question of accreditation. The techniques used, as the noble Baroness will know, are ones that are used by the prison officers’ administration, but we are looking, with its help, at whether we can find further training with regard to the process of accreditation. We agree that it is important that the correct techniques of restraint are used, because that issue can give rise to the sort of difficulties that we may have seen.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I should declare an interest as the person who forwarded the report Outsourcing Abuse to the Home Secretary more than two and a half years ago, which prompted her to ask the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, to conduct an inquiry. The report was about the use of force during the detention and removal of asylum seekers and many other issues as well. Are any of the recommendations in that report also being processed?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, my belief is that, given the seriousness of this issue, the recommendations that were made have indeed been implemented. In the light of what has happened, we need to go through those recommendations as well as those of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, to see whether there are things that we can do better or in addition. We will look seriously at the outcome of the investigations that are taking place. We do not wish to see this happen again.

Immigration: Detention of Children

Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Ramsbotham

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

We certainly aim not to separate families from children or children from families. The noble Lord is quite right, and I think the House would agree, that this is not an ideal form of detention. I cannot say categorically how we will work it out, but the aim is certainly to keep families together.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to her position. While I welcome the statement about ending the detention of children, will the review consider the position of another group of children who are held in detention? I refer to the hundreds of independent juvenile asylum seekers who are currently being held in social services care around the country. There is a real need to look at the consistency of their treatment and conditions because those differ widely in different parts of the country.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. I am aware that children who are not in immigration detention and who are unaccompanied are indeed with local authorities. I will take back his point about the inconsistency of treatment and report back to the House.