Immigration Detention: Shaw Review

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Perhaps I might come back to the noble Baroness on this, because obviously I have pulled out some of the highlights of the report and I would not want to give her any details from the Dispatch Box that I am not certain about. So I will write to her on that point.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister has been clear about what the Home Secretary is going to do. However, one of our worries about this report and indeed about the Statement is that it is a work in progress as if we are moving to a position where it will be very much easier to solve these problems. We actually live in a world in which it is going to become very much more difficult. The pressures on immigration will grow not just because of disorder elsewhere in the world but because of such major issues—I say this advisedly—as climate change. We are seeing more and more disruption which will mean that more and more people are being pressed to find somewhere else to be. What worries me about the Statement is that I do not believe that we have yet grasped the magnitude of the problem—the fact that it will get worse and worse and that we ought to be addressing it on a much longer-term basis if we are going to resolve this very serious issue.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I should say to my noble friend that 95% of people are not held in detention at all. It is used only as a last resort where all the other possible mechanisms for removing people who should not be here have failed. On his point about climate change, I have heard various debates on that. I do not disagree with him that climate change will create more migration effects. However, the weather here over the past few weeks has made me think that people might not want to come here, either, because it is so hot.