Lord Hylton
Main Page: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I join my noble friend in thanking the outgoing Chief Inspector of Prisons and on behalf of the Government I thank her for her service and congratulate her on what she has achieved. The Government’s policy starting points are a presumption of release and that detention should be used only to enforce the removal of those with no basis of stay in the United Kingdom or whose deportation is required to protect the public from harm. It is true that where a detainee refuses to co-operate with the process, detention may indeed be quite long, as my noble friend suggests, and we need to try to find ways of dealing with this. If and when there is no longer a realistic prospect of removal, our policy is that we will release the detainee. It is also open to any detainee to apply to the court for bail. However, I think noble Lords will agree that we have a duty to protect the public from those who pose a serious risk of harm.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that if the Ministry of Justice got its act together, criminals would be deported on the day of their release or within a very short time afterwards?
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that point. I understand that it is the practice for caseworking to start before the end of the sentence, but that it is the travel documentation which often delays matters for two main reasons. The first is that it depends on the compliance of the individual, which sadly is not always forthcoming, and secondly, because the level of identification required varies from recipient country to recipient country. Having said that, we are looking closely at how what the noble Lord suggests can be done because clearly it would tackle head on the genuine problems which the report highlights.