Immigration Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, during the excellent remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in introducing his amendments and talking about these clauses, he referred to Stephen Shaw’s report and I want to ask the Minister some questions about that. He will know that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration produced a pretty damning report on immigration detention, which led to the former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, being asked to investigate the treatment of vulnerable persons in detention. His report was published on Thursday 14 January, so another place had no opportunity to discuss that when it was considering the Bill, but we have a chance now to ask the Minister some questions about it in the context of these clauses.

Has the Minister had a chance to read the report in detail? It criticises the conduct of searches in immigration detention centres and it gives cause for further scrutiny of these provisions. The Minister himself, in his remarks on the previous set of amendments, said that things such as strip-searching would not be permitted, but I was concerned to read a number of accounts in Stephen Shaw’s report that involved male detention staff in searches of women, although not with the removal of clothes, and of women’s rooms in Yarl’s Wood. I am particularly interested in the situation there, as, thanks to the Minister, my noble friend Lord Hylton and I have been able to arrange a visit to Yarl’s Wood on Wednesday morning. I am glad that we will have the opportunity to put some of these questions directly to the staff who run that facility.

Mr Shaw says in his remarks:

“It is of the greatest importance that the proportion of female staff at Yarl’s Wood is increased … In the meantime, Serco should only conduct searches of women and of women’s rooms in the presence of men in the most extreme and pressing circumstances, and there should be monitoring and reporting (to Home Office Detention Operations) of these cases”.

In recommendation 35 of the report, he states:

“I recommend that the service provider at Yarl’s Wood should only conduct searches of women and of women’s rooms in the presence of men in the most extreme and pressing circumstances, and that there should be monitoring and reporting of these cases”.

During that review, Stephen Shaw identified evidence that the Home Office policy of not searching detainees, especially women, in the view of other people, is not always followed. I was struck by some examples that he gave. He said that:

“As far as the practices at Heathrow, Lunar house and Eaton House are concerned, the evidence of this review is that the Home Office’s policy that detainees (especially women) should not be searched in view of other people is not always followed”.

For instance, talking about Heathrow Terminal 3, Mr Shaw says, at paragraph 3.175:

“A female detainee was searched in front of several people”

At paragraph 3.227, talking about Lunar House, he says:

“Detainees were searched in an area where they could be seen by others in the main holding room”.

At Eaton House, at paragraph 3.240, he says:

“A female detainee was searched in the holding room by the Tascor escort who had arrived to take her to Colnbrook. This was in front of a male detainee and a male member of staff”.

Clearly, given the vulnerable position of detainees, particularly women, who are held as immigration detainees, and the lack of compliance by detention custody staff with existing policies on searching detainees, it would be highly inappropriate to extend those powers of search to include searches for the purpose of identifying nationality documents, particularly where they are so broadly defined in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has already described to the Committee. When he comes to reply, I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us how the Government intend to respond to Stephen Shaw’s observations and recommendations.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, having visited Yarl’s Wood several times in the past, I have noted the deep anxiety of those resident there. Anything like this will be particularly disturbing to them, so that should be kept in mind.

We must always draw attention to concerns about the treatment of these vulnerable individuals, but we must also commend the Government when they take steps to protect such individuals and treat them with respect. I take this opportunity to pay tribute once again to the last coalition Government, which took children and families out of these settings. Many of us were very concerned at the large numbers of families who were detained at Yarl’s Wood, often for many months on end. I remember speaking to a 16 year-old girl who was there with her mother and her six or seven year-old sister for nine months. It is very much to the coalition Government’s credit that they decided to change the system.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to noble Lords. I shall begin by addressing the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in the context of the report from Stephen Shaw. Of course the background to this was the detailed Report of the Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration, of which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was a member. That led to the appointment of Stephen Shaw, and as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has observed, he recently reported on this matter. My noble friend Lord Bates, upon receipt of that report, made a Statement to the House in which he pointed out that the Government welcomed the important contribution that Stephen Shaw had made to the debate about effective detention and accepted the broad thrust of his recommendations. That will be the subject of a further response in due course, and certainly I hope before the Report stage. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, will allow me to defer any detailed comments on the points he raised until that further response is made. But what I add is that we welcome observations that he may have to make following his visit to Yarl’s Wood on Wednesday. His comments will be received in the appropriate spirit because this is a demanding area and one in which the Government are willing to seek to respond to the broad thrust of the recommendations that Stephen Shaw has made.

I turn to Amendment 185, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but before doing so I will make this observation. He spoke about strip searches. I take issue with that term. There are full searches but they are not strip searches. It may be that he wishes to come back on that, but I take issue with the term “strip searches”; they are full searches.