Asylum: Sexual Orientation

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

That matter was looked into by the Public Accounts Committee, which made some observations on how those reports are laid. They are laid in accordance with the UK Borders Act 2007, so we feel that that is consistent. The only reason why there was a change in the way they were routed through the department was to ensure that the Home Secretary had an opportunity to look at them, as is consistent with other reports, and in line with national security and public safety.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, this is one of the issues raised by the charity, Medical Justice, in connection with the general handling of complaints about various immigration issues. Can the Minister say whether there is any concerted attempt to improve the handling of complaints on such issues?

[Lord Bates]

Yes, I can certainly say that. In fact, one of the recommendations in the chief inspector’s report was precisely that there should be a change to the training module that deals with how sensitively questions are asked of people making asylum applications on the grounds of sexuality. I am pleased to say that, as of this August, everyone in the asylum claims assessment directorate will have undergone that additional training.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I was very glad to hear the confirmation by my noble and learned friend Lord Hope of the possibility of the use of the word “synthetic”. I must admit that, having been slightly unhappy at the thought of the way this Bill might go, that thought was exacerbated by reading the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons yesterday, in which he mentioned specifically the harm that was being done in our prisons by legal highs. That added speed to the need to do something about it. I was very glad that my noble friend Lady Meacher mentioned prisons because in addition to the police, the prison authorities need weapons in their hands so that they can take action against the people who are causing the harm with these substances.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, I have a very small question to ask relating to the definition of harm, which is qualified by the word “social”. I wonder what in fact that constitutes. If a drug results merely in the inability of the user to sleep satisfactorily or if it interferes with his learning but does not, as a general effect, cause him to disrupt those about him, is it still a social harm? It seems to me that self-harm is a dangerous product of these drugs and it would be a great pity if individuals taking them were not protected when we have the opportunity to do so by a definition which included that which harms the individual as well as society. This is a lawyer’s question. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, might be able to lay my fears to rest; otherwise, either the Minister or the mover will doubtless do so.

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[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, all that needs to be said has been said. I will simply express my support for these amendments, on the grounds that for a child of 14 to get a criminal record will be far more serious for them than any damage that might be done by some rather dubious psychoactive substance. That is not to say that I in any way support young people taking these things, but we know that they do. All the literature— certainly that from Portugal—suggests that avoiding a criminal record is an enormous plus for a young person; they are much more likely to remain with their studies and get a job when they leave school. It is therefore a very serious matter to include these activities, whether it is sharing a substance with a group of friends or some such activity. The Government designate such an activity as a criminal offence at their peril in terms of the longer-term consequences, as well as the probable long-term costs to the Government, of dysfunctional young people, unemployed people and people getting into a criminal lifestyle.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I, too, support these amendments but for a slightly different reason. I have a Private Member’s Bill, which I hope will come forward, to amend the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. In it is something that I found when inspecting the prisons in Barbados. I found that at the age of 18 everyone’s criminal record was examined and everything except for violent and sexual offences was expunged so that a child did not take forward a criminal record after that age. I mention this merely because I think we ought to take very seriously the matter of people—particularly young people—taking forward into later life an early criminal record.

[Lord Hardie (CB)]

My Lords, I certainly sympathise with the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the desirability of avoiding young people having convictions. However, I should like to take issue with the comment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, about the prosecution of a 14 year-old. As a former Lord Advocate, I know that the prosecution will always take into account the circumstances of an offence. If we are faced with a 14 year-old who has supplied a psychoactive substance or cannabis to his friends, it is likely that there will be no prosecution—whatever his ethnic background,as far as the prosecution service in Scotland is concerned, I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I would be very surprised if the English prosecution service took a different view.

However, I am concerned about the introduction of the defence proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, because one has to have regard to all the circumstances of the offence. I speak having, about 18 months ago, received a communication from a mother who was separated from her husband. Her teenager son had gone to stay with his father for a weekend and he went to a head shop. He obtained a psychoactive substance and, sadly, as a result of that he died.

I am concerned about this amendment. Suppose someone supplies a psychoactive substance to his friend, the consequence of which is death—are we to say that there should always be a defence that he should not accept responsibility for the consequences of his act? I am not thinking of a 14 year-old. What about a 20, 30 or 40 year-old who supplies such a substance to a younger person who happens to be his friend and the consequence is death?

I share the view of the Home Secretary that this is a matter that ought to be left to the discretion of the prosecutor, taking into account all the circumstances. If a defence is open to an individual in any circumstances, that may mean that people who cause very serious damage to a family do not face up to the consequences. Therefore, I am against the amendment.

Immigration: Detention

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd on obtaining this important debate. How typical of one of the giants of this House, whose impending retirement has already been regretted by many other noble Lords, that he should go out in such style, combining a moving and humane valedictory with a masterly opening to his debate. He will be sorely missed, not only by his colleagues on these Benches but by the thousands of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences currently languishing in prison way beyond their tariff, whose cause he has so passionately championed against the person whom he dubbed the “Minister of Injustice”.

I also pay tribute to the Minister, who ever since taking office has been tireless, patient and courteous in responding to the many queries that I and others have put to him and, by so doing, has earned the respect and admiration of the whole House.

Like my noble and learned friend, I was a member of Sarah Teather’s inquiry team, and I pay tribute to her for her initiative and chairmanship. Unlike him, however, I have immigration system form, because from 1997 to 2001 I was responsible for inspecting immigration detention centres as well as prisons holding immigration detainees because of lack of space. My noble friend Lord Sandwich and I were fellow commissioners on the independent asylum commission that reported in 2009, and I was also a member of the team appointed by the coalition Government to advise on the detention of children. Finally, I have chaired or been involved with inquiries into aspects of the system such as enforced removals, unanswered complaints and injuries inflicted by security company staff.

From that experience comes my firm conviction that the immigration system as a whole is in need of total overhaul. My views have not changed since I was Chief Inspector of Prisons. Having campaigned for overhaul for so long, it would be inconsistent of me not to use the opportunity offered by my noble and learned friend’s debate to ask the Minister to ask the Home Secretary to think again about her rejection of the stepping stone of a full review conveyed in Mr Brokenshire’s letter to Sarah Teather of 24 March. The two proposed inquiries will prove just as fruitless as all the other attempts that I have watched fail to get to grips with the guts of the problem over the past 18 years.

What are those guts? First, and pre-eminently, there is a total lack of consistency caused by a total lack of leadership and oversight. Before appointing a review body, I would appoint someone to be responsible and accountable for the operation of the system. Ministers come and Ministers go—and policies come and policies go—but immigration staff, who have the task of checking everyone arriving in the country, remain, as should staff structures and procedures, and they need to be led. As a soldier, used to chains of command in which everyone knows to whom and for what they are responsible and accountable, I found—and find—it strange that in the Home Office, and hence its offshoot the Ministry of Justice, no one knows either. Of course a Minister must have overall responsibility and be accountable to Parliament, but not for conducting the 24/7 processes of the immigration system.

Everything else stems from that, but no long-term improvements can happen until a problem that I highlighted during the passage of the Immigration Bill has been resolved. Currently, the system has a millstone of 500,000 unresolved cases hanging round its neck, resulting in inevitable delays for new arrivals. The only way to solve this is to draft in a sufficiency of temporary officials until they are cleared. Only then can you introduce a proper process in which immigration centres play their short-term contingency role, casework is properly handled and overseen and all the other recommended measures are brought into force.

The present practice of not having anyone in charge has failed and will go on failing. The Teather review does not go so far as to recommend an overhaul but does recommend an in-depth review out of which it might emerge. In the mean time, I hope that the Minister will do his best to persuade the Home Secretary that the cult of managerialism is not the answer and that good, old-fashioned leadership is. I wish my noble and learned friend long life and much happiness in the future.

Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

It is the Cross Benches next, and then if there is time, the government Benches.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

When I was Chief Inspector 15 years ago, there was something wrong and rotten in the culture at Yarl’s Wood. I remember looking into it then and strongly recommending that the Home Office install a regular system of oversight of what was going on, no matter who was carrying out the contract. I understand that system of oversight still does not exist, and we still have complaints about Yarl’s Wood. When is that oversight going to be installed?

[Lord Bates]

I will look again at what the noble Lord said at that point. There is of course the independent monitoring board, which is headed by Mary Coussey, a former Independent Race Monitor. The immigration monitoring board has the keys to Yarl’s Wood and can go in and out at any point in time. Obviously, it will need to look very carefully at how it has undertaken its responsibilities, and the conclusions which it has drawn from its activities.

Foreign National Offenders

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, my noble friend, of course, has great expertise in this area and will know that the basis on which we collect data is not quite as finely siloed as that. We recognise that there is a major problem here: it is a cause for public concern and it needs to be addressed. The measures that we are putting forward—to reduce and replace the appeal/re-appeal conveyor belt, by which many of these prisoners are attempting to work the system; and to ensure that we have better information at the point of entry into this country by signing up to the Schengen information system and the European Criminal Records Information System—are the approach that we should emphasise.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, in 1999, as Chief Inspector of Prisons, I recommended that anyone who was ordered deportation as part of a sentence should have that deportation processed while they were in prison, starting on the day that they arrived there, so that on the day that they finished their sentence they went straight to the air field and out. That is what is practised in other places such as the UAE, as I saw. If they can do it, why can we not? When are we going to start acting properly? Furthermore, there is also a practice of sending people who are sentenced to deportation to immigration detention centres at the end of their sentence. That is precisely where they should not be, because they infect the people in the immigration centre with the wrong ideas, having been in prison.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord puts his finger on a very pertinent point. One of the problems is that, through the immigration appeals process, hearing a case in the immigration tribunals can actually be longer than the sentence. Therefore, the prisoners can sometimes be released; they are released on bail in certain circumstances. We have to be very careful of that. One of the provisions in the new Immigration Act is the ability to be able to say, “The appeal process does not take place in the UK. It should actually take place in the country from which they came”. That is a positive step forward, along the lines that he suggested.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I base my contribution on two military analogies, one comparatively ancient and one more modern. I have often thought that Governments should base working relationships on the ethos of my regiment, the Rifle Brigade—that is, a mutual bond of trust and affection between all ranks which officers have to earn, trust coming before affection. Last week saw the 70th anniversary of D-day, the success of which was based on meticulous planning.

The whole House, the country and particularly criminal justice system staff would have sat up with a jolt had Her Majesty’s gracious Speech last Wednesday included the words: “In recognition of its duty to protect the public, my Government will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about the rehabilitation of offenders”. I say that because the Government are losing public and staff trust by not telling things as they are and mounting inadequately planned operations.

When Her Majesty said in her gracious Speech on 8 May 2013:

“Legislation will be introduced to reform the way in which offenders are rehabilitated in England and Wales”,

I suspect that she, like everyone else outside government, did not know that this included deliberate denial of parliamentary scrutiny of incomplete and untested plans for reorganising probation. Neither do I suspect that she realised, when she said:

“To make sure that every child has the best start in life, regardless of background, further measures will be taken to improve the quality of education for young people”,

that these included modern-day Dotheboys Halls—secure colleges for offenders aged between 12 and 17 without specification of the rules under which contracted staff are to be allowed to use restraint in the interests of good order and discipline.

Regarding probation, and all the unanswered questions during the passage of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill, such as how the supervision of 50,000 short-term prisoners in the community would be paid for, the Public Accounts Committee has published a devastating report asking many of the same, and calling on the Ministry of Justice to set out the key points it will use to assess whether it is safe to progress to the next stage of the programme. The Ministry of Justice tells us that all is well while the probation officers association reports considerable staffing problems, confirmed by advertisements in the Guardian seeking probation officers from Australia and New Zealand at a significantly higher hourly rate than that paid to United Kingdom staff. Will the Minister please explain this variance?

Regarding variance of views, I used to tell Home Secretaries that they could believe either the observed facts that I gave them, or in what my successor called the “virtual” prisons described by officials, but that real improvement could be made only if based on fact. Recently the Chief Inspector reported that the provision of purposeful activity was inadequate in over half the prisons inspected, having plummeted over the past year to the worst levels for six years. Despite this, Mr Grayling said during Second Reading of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill that he had,

“transformed the regime in our prisons so that they are now places of hard work and discipline, where prisoners are expected to engage with their own rehabilitation and work hard to earn their privileges”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/2/14; col. 47.]

More recently he said publicly that disturbances at HMP Northumbria were merely the reaction of prisoners being made to work longer hours. Last November he imposed changes to the incentive and earned privileges scheme, demanding that, in order to attain either standard or enhanced status, prisoners, including the elderly and disabled, must show their commitment to rehabilitation by taking part in purposeful activity. When he, the inspectorate and staff know that there simply is not enough work for prisoners, what does he think that such abuse of the truth signifies and proves about the living virtue and stored-up strength of our nation, to quote Winston Churchill’s famous words?

Does this matter? Offenders, from whose reoffending the public expect to be protected, will be in prison or on probation whichever party is in power. Public protection and offender rehabilitation are national responsibilities, not party-political matters, which is why I hate the self-styled “tough” Mr Grayling saying that he wants to bring “right-wing” solutions to correct the “palpable failure” of the left. Decency and fairness are not matters of right or left politics.

My noble and learned friend Lord Woolf said in his seminal report on the riots in Strangeways and other prisons in 1990 that, as often happens at times of change, the improvements that were being introduced,

“brought with them periods of increased instability which made the prison system particularly vulnerable to disturbances”.

The latest statistics published by the Prison Reform Trust draw attention to an increase in symptoms of instability, exacerbated by the breakneck speed with which untested change is being imposed. No one can possibly know whether the Government’s plans will work by the 2015 election, but given the lack of trust and inadequate planning I only hope that I am wrong in warning of impending crisis, about which I detect more government complacency than contingency planning, and that the gracious Speech in May 2015 will not have to include the words: “In recognition of its duty to protect the public, my Government will introduce urgent measures to rehabilitate the rehabilitation of offenders”.

Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women was refused access to Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre while on an official visit to the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)]

My Lords, a visit to Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre was never agreed as part of this fact-finding mission. However, as part of her visit, the special rapporteur, Ms Rashida Manjoo, met the Home Secretary, the Minister for Crime Prevention and the Chief Inspector of Prisons.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for that reply. As he will appreciate, it can do our national reputation no good at all if it should ever be felt that the United Kingdom is refusing access to a UN special rapporteur who is here in connection with the signature that we have given to the optional protocol on the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. Therefore, I hope very much that, in future, that position will be clarified, as the publicity can have done no good at all. I would be very grateful if the Minister could inform the House of what action will be taken to ensure that future visits can be properly handled.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I disagree with the premise of the noble Lord’s question, because Ministers met the special rapporteur and were keen to support a programme for her visit that was more directly relevant to addressing violence against women and girls. That is why we offered the visit to a refuge, facilitated by Women’s Aid, and supported a number of other visits for the special rapporteur, including a visit to a number of government departments, devolved Administrations and front-line agencies relevant to the reasons for her visit.

Immigration Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and refer to my experience as a member of the advisory panel formed by the Government when they first considered the detention of children, particularly the detention of children who were going to be removed. We advised that it should be handled by a separate returns panel, which has since been established.

During those deliberations, we had several other concerns about a word that the noble Lord used in his address—namely, “safeguarding”. In addition to the safeguarding of children who are involved either in detention or in the removal process, there is a very large problem of unaccompanied minors applying for immigration or asylum who are distributed throughout the United Kingdom in order not to overload the social services immediately adjacent to ports or airports of entry. We felt that there was an urgent need for the handling of children, whenever they appeared in the immigration system, to be looked at particularly from the point of view of safeguarding. I am not aware that that has happened. I urge the Minister to give this his urgent consideration. Many of the things that have been said today arise out of the need to look at the treatment of children overall.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, we will listen with interest to the Minister’s response to my noble friend Lord Judd’s amendments, which he put across with the decency and humanity we all associate with him. The government amendments make concessions on a number of issues, which we and others, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, have made during the passage of this Bill through both Houses. The Minister has indicated the purpose of the government amendments, one of which seeks to make clear that all family members will be given prior notice of their liability for removal. Will the Minister confirm the position on the minimum period of prior notice that will be given in that instance?

Clause 1 provides a power for the Secretary of State or an immigration officer to authorise the removal of a person who,

“requires leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom but does not have it”,

or their family members as well. Subsection (6) provides a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations regarding,

“the removal of family members”.

As we know, the Government’s stance up to now, which continues to be the case, is that the regulations would be made by statutory instrument but that they would be subject to the negative procedure. We remain of the view that the affirmative procedure is justified. We are disappointed that the regulations under what will become Section 10(6) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 will not be subject to the affirmative procedure.

I was going to go on to refer to the comments made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its latest report, which was published yesterday. The report reiterated the committee’s view that the power should be subject to the affirmative procedure. The Minister, probably with a view to seeking to address the concerns expressed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, has indicated that the Government will be bringing forward, if I understood him correctly, an amendment at Third Reading. He mentioned that it would address the concern that the committee had over the words “in particular”, which the committee commented on in its report. I assume that the amendment that the Government will put down at Third Reading will seek to address the concern expressed by the committee.

For our part, we want to see what that amendment is before making up our minds about whether we find it acceptable or not. Certainly, our position is that the regulations ought to be subject to the affirmative procedure for the kinds of reasons that were given by the Delegated Powers Committee, but we will see what the Government’s amendment says and whether that addresses the concerns that we too have on that particular issue.

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Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

7: Schedule 1, page 60, line 13, leave out paragraph 5

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, in returning to the amendment, I shall concentrate on developments since it was debated in Committee. In his letter of 10 March to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, the Minister wrote that the reasonable force measure in Schedule 1 relates solely to immigration officers, and existing safeguards mean that force may be used only by officers who are fully trained and accredited to do so. He also wrote that all contractors were required to comply with current legislation, rules and guidance and that:

“Home Office monitoring teams ensure that there are robust systems in place for monitoring escort and detention providers, to ensure service delivery and accountability”.

When I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, I used to warn Home Secretaries and prison Ministers that there was a world of difference between the facts that I was giving them, based on what had been seen during inspections, and the fudge that was too often given to them by officials based on what it was alleged that they wanted to hear. Real improvement can be made only if it is based on fact, and I believe that one of the main reasons for so little consistent or significant improvement in the conduct of imprisonment is that too many Ministers have preferred fudge to fact. My successor had a more eloquent way of putting that, calling the prisons described by officials to Ministers “virtual”.

Having studied the enforced removals process for a number of years, I have to say to the Minister that there is more virtual than fact in what was drafted for him to write and that until and unless the whole enforced removal process is taken by the scruff of the neck, re-examined and revamped, it will continue to cause avoidable ministerial embarrassment and bring shame on the good name of this country.

Before I raised the amendment in Committee, I wrote to the Minister drawing his attention to the report of the National Independent Commission into Enforced Removals that I chaired in 2012, following the death of Jimmy Mubenga while under restraint from three G4S detainee custody officers in an aircraft at Heathrow. Noble Lords will no doubt have noted that, since Committee, the Crown Prosecution Service has brought charges of manslaughter against these three, following a verdict of unlawful killing by the inquest jury. In view of what we learnt during the commission, I have to admit that I found the Crown Prosecution Service’s earlier refusal to prefer charges perverse. However, now that the CPS has done its U-turn, I hope that the questions which this tragic affair asks of the current enforced removals process will at last persuade Ministers that it is in need of urgent attention.

To assist with this, I also sent the Minister a copy of a draft code of practice that I and my fellow commissioners had drawn up. I suggested that the draft code might be considered with advantage by Home Office officials outside the timetable of the Bill, and said that I and my colleagues would be only too delighted to assist with that consideration. The failings described in our report were not new and had been drawn to the attention of the Home Office a number of times by many people over the years. Furthermore, the coroner who conducted the inquest into the 16 year- old Gareth Myatt, who died in Rainsbrook secure training centre in 2004 at the hands of G4S employees, had ordered the Home Office to publicise the dangers inherent in the restraint technique that subsequently was used, again by G4S employees, on Jimmy Mubenga. I must ask the Minister: was its use ever monitored by a Home Office team?

In setting about such a revamp, the Home Office has a priceless asset in the current Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, who keeps on turning up examples of bad practice that have gone unchecked for years. Only last Thursday, he published a damning report on his inspection of the emergency travel-document process highlighting, inter alia, that the quality assurance process set up by the Home Office was not standardised, nor did it have an audit trail. He also reported that 78% of the cases of those in contact with the Home Office were not actually being worked on and that 11% of the inspectorate’s chosen sample had been granted some form of residency or leave to remain and so should not even have been in the removal pool. He also drew attention to something that I have often raised in this House, namely the detention of too many foreign national offenders in immigration detention centres for long periods after they have completed their prison sentences—the average time being 523 avoidably expensive days. Not least to save money, documentation should be completed during their imprisonment so that they can be deported the moment that that imprisonment ends.

There are two reasons why I am raising this amendment again. First, I thank the Minister for meeting me, along with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and officials, to discuss the draft code of practice, and for a subsequent meeting last week that was also attended by the Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire MP. I also commend the Minister for the assiduous way in which he has set about educating himself on the issues involved, not only by visiting Harmondsworth but by accompanying a return flight, during which he saw at first hand the demands made on detainee custody officers in what is never an easy exercise, and the problems caused by failure to pass on legal judgments. I am sorry, but I simply do not believe that courts make these judgments at 3 am, and the upheaval of taking a returnee and his luggage off a flight confirm that both the bureaucratic and removal parts of the process need attention.

My second reason for moving the amendment is to ensure that what I and my commission have offered, as well as the Minister’s response to our proposal that a code of practice be drawn up and adopted, is recorded in Hansard so that both can be followed up. I know that the Home Office has appointed a commission to examine and authorise restraint techniques, though I regret that it continued the Home Office practice of calling on inappropriate Prison Service advice because restraint techniques are not used by detainee custody officers in custodial settings. It is almost a year since I and some of my fellow commissioners gave evidence to it, and I look forward to hearing when it will report. The Minister has also been kind enough to offer me the opportunity of visiting the new training arrangements that I understand are now being developed, which I look forward to doing.

I therefore ask him to consider redrafting paragraph 5 of Schedule 1, because the force used currently by immigration officers is neither clearly defined nor reasonable. I beg to move.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. We have “reasonable force” at the moment, but I am concerned that if we left it like that then we would have reasonable force that was unreasonable. I am therefore asking that the work should be done, consideration should be given to this and, if necessary, that it be mentioned in the wording that the reasonableness refers to what has been authorised as being reasonable within the Home Office.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has spoken with his considerable knowledge of the enforced removal process and of restraint techniques. It is fair to say that his criticism is not confined to what he thinks is going on at the moment but extends to what has gone on under previous Governments as well. I do not think that his comments are geared to a particular Government; I think that they are geared to what has been happening over a period of years.

We are aware of what the noble Lord has proposed about a code of practice, and I have to say that there seem to us to be some fairly strong arguments for seeking to have such a code, in view of some of the terrible difficulties and events that there have been and to which the noble Lord has referred. He has referred today to the redrafting of paragraph 5, as I understand it from the closing words of his speech.

We on these Benches have sympathy with the arguments that he is putting forward, which are clearly addressed to trying to resolve the significant difficulties that have arisen, and may well continue to arise, with the current process and techniques. We very much hope that we will hear a helpful response from the Minister to the quite powerful points that the noble Lord has just made.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I do not think that there is going to be any marked division in this House on this issue, to the extent that I think we are agreed that whatever is done in our name should be done in a civilised and proper fashion. I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing this issue to the House’s attention through Amendment 7, but perhaps I might start by repeating what I previously said in Committee. The provision in Schedule 1 to extend the use of force affects only those powers exercised by immigration officers. It does not make any change to the separate statutory powers of detainee custody officers and escorts, who are private contractors, to use reasonable force in the exercise of their particular functions.

As the noble Lord kindly mentioned, last week the Minister for Immigration and Security, my honourable friend James Brokenshire, and I had a very helpful and thoughtful meeting with the noble Lord where we discussed the proposals in his draft codes of practice for enforced removals and where I believe we agreed that there are a number of areas of common ground where the Home Office is making improvements. I think the noble Lord will know that my honourable friend Mr Brokenshire and I share an interest in this matter. He kindly mentioned my trip on a removals flight, which I found extremely interesting. I feel much better informed through having made that journey.

The noble Lord has proposed in the draft code of practice on use of restraint that any use of force must be justifiable, proportionate, accountable, necessary, safe and supportive and must be applied for only the minimum period necessary to achieve the lawful objective. Published enforcement instructions and guidance explain that the use of force must be proportionate, lawful and necessary in the particular circumstances, and also set out that force should be used for the shortest possible period, be the minimum needed, be used only when all other avenues of securing co-operation have been exhausted and should be de-escalated as soon as possible. Whether that use of force was reasonable must be justified by individual officers on a case-by-case basis. I can assure noble Lords that only those immigration officers who are fully trained and accredited may use force. Arrest training is currently provided by the College of Policing, and training on the use of force, including control and restraint techniques, is in line with ACPO standards.

If we were to accept this amendment, although it would maintain the status quo, there are half a dozen coercive powers which sit in the 2004 and 2007 immigration Acts, where there is no specific reference to the use of reasonable force. Although the use of force is currently implied in these arrest and entry powers, it is our intention that this should be set out explicitly in statute to ensure that there is greater transparency. I previously gave noble Lords the example of an immigration officer trying to safely arrest a person for the specific offence of assaulting him or her, under Section 23 of the UK Borders Act 2007, where it is not expressly stated in the legislation that an immigration officer can use reasonable force to restrain that person in doing so. The extension of the power for immigration officers to use reasonable force beyond that contained in the 1971 and 1999 immigration Acts will ensure that existing powers can be operated effectively and are in step with other law enforcement bodies’ powers and that current enforcement practices are not at risk of legal challenge on the grounds that the ability to use force is not explicitly set out in statute.

The noble Lord asked whether the Home Office monitored the restraint techniques used at Colnbrook removal centre in 2004, which led to the tragic death of a 16 year-old. I cannot answer that question at the Dispatch Box but will write to him and copy the letter to other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.

With the assurance that we in the Home Office very much value the noble Lord’s input in this area, which reinforces our interest in making sure that these jobs are done in a proper fashion, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will fell able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his considered reply and, indeed, for the meetings we have had. I admit that I was seeking an opportunity to raise this issue because it has gone on for too long. The procedures being exercised in our name have gone unchecked and unsupervised in a way that has allowed bad procedures to be passed from one contracted company to another contracted company over the years, which really ought to have been checked.

I like to think that the exercise that the Minister has outlined means that this will at last be put to an end. The people who have actually been served worst by this are Ministers, who have been put into embarrassing positions which they really should not have been. I am happy to withdraw the amendment because I think that the point has been made fully, and I am grateful to the Minister for doing so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 7 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I do not think that support for this amendment should be limited to beyond my own Benches. I feel very strongly in favour of it and I congratulate those involved in drawing it up. I care passionately about the issues and values behind it but I want to make one other point, which I made in Committee. We are involved across the world in a struggle for values, and we like to hold to the principle that we offer values that present a better prospect for humanity. We try to contain extremism.

During my life I have come to recognise that those who advocate extremism do best in a climate of ambivalence—when there is doubt and cynicism on a significant scale. People who individually might never embrace extreme action nevertheless have a shadow of doubt: however distasteful they find the methods that the extremists use, perhaps these people are on their side. This may be a very dangerous thing to say but I sometimes wonder whether it is a bit too easy to refer to people as extremists. People who take that kind of position point to hypocrisy and inconsistencies and to examples where those whom they want to undermine do not, through their practice, begin to uphold what they advocate.

Therefore, I am totally concerned not only with the humanity and the principle behind the amendment but with its relationship to the struggle for security and stability in the world. We simply cannot afford to let areas of our administration and our justice system be a living example of contradiction of all that we have traditionally held dearest in our society. From that standpoint, as well as the one of values, I believe that it is a timely amendment and that it deserves support.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment because I absolutely agree with everything that has been said about unlimited detention, which is hinted at. First, I salute the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, for the powerful and eloquent way in which she moved the amendment, and I salute the power with which my noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd of Berwick and the noble Lords, Lord Roberts and Lord Judd, have supported it.

I have three things to add. Recently, I have been privileged to be a member of a Select Committee of the House on soft power, chaired most admirably by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. One of the most powerful witness statements I remember listening to was by the high commissioner for Mozambique, who described the qualities that encouraged Mozambique to apply to join the Commonwealth. In particular, it was the qualities of Britishness, headed by the rule of law. The fact that that made so much of an impression on him and is why Mozambique made such a change suggests that we go against our reputation for the rule of law at our peril when we are trying desperately to think about how we project our image in the emerging world of the 21st century.

I used to inspect detention centres and they always worried me. They were bleak places, not designed for holding people for long periods. They were originally designed for only very short periods while documentation was checked. They are neither one thing nor the other. There is nothing to occupy people, and of course that is not good over time. Nor are they good at short-term holding, which is why we wait to hear what will happen about the short-term holding facilities so urgently required. The other thing about them is their staff. The trouble with the staff in such places is that they tend to turn over extremely quickly. They cannot communicate with the people there, and they cannot provide anything other than the normal meals and so on. They can provide none of the succour. Remember that the people there have come under some form of mental turmoil. The other thing that always worried me about detention centres is the absence of the proper medical treatment—in particular, mental health treatment—that so many of the people in them require, especially under the strain and stress of being held for an uncertain period while their circumstances are investigated.

Thirdly, at Second Reading a number of noble Lords drew attention to the millstone of the 500,000 unresolved cases with which the Home Office is currently faced. They said that until and unless that backlog is removed, you will never have a system where it is possible to process things and people quickly. That requires urgent remedial action. I should like to make certain that, in future, the stimulus of having to complete cases within a period of time is applied to the system so that we are never able to build up such a backlog again. That is bad not only for the system and the people concerned but also for the staff, who in no way can help people by giving them some indication of when and how they might be released from what they are doing.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak very briefly in support of this amendment so that my noble friend Lord Judd is not on his own on these Benches in supporting it. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, likened detention to hell, but it is probably more like purgatory because people are in limbo. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the mental health problems faced by people. Is it surprising that there are very serious mental health problems when people do not know how long they will be there? Just from common decency and humanity, I hope we will be able to support this amendment.

Immigration Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I share the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in relation to Clause 62. In particular, will the Minister give the Committee an assurance that there will be transparency as to what proportion of the fees will relate to,

“the costs of exercising the function”,

and what proportion will address other matters? It is very important that the public and both Houses of Parliament know the breakdown of the fees in that respect.

I am concerned also about Clause 66(3), which is the subject of the probing amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and relates to “Transitional and consequential provision”. I agree with the comments of the Delegated Powers Committee that it would be highly desirable to make clear in the Bill that this power is intended to cover only existing legislation and not to give a power to amend, repeal or revoke future enactments. I am sure that that cannot have been the intention but it is highly desirable that this should be clarified.

I do not think that there is any risk, which the Delegated Powers Committee was concerned about, that Clause 66(3) could be interpreted to allow for amendment of this legislation. As I understand it, it is linked to Clause 66(2). It allows an amendment to repeal or revoke,

“in consequence of this Act”.

It seems to me that to amend this legislation could not be in consequence of this Act. But if it is the Government’s intention to confer a power by Clause 66(3) to amend this legislation, please will the Minister say so.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I beg the indulgence of the Committee if I raise a matter which may appear to be more relevant to an earlier part of the Immigration Bill that the House has already taken. I should like to ask the Minister at what stage either the Secretary of State or any other Minister in the Home Office became involved in the case of Alois Dvorzac, an 84 year-old Canadian who died in handcuffs at Harmondsworth detention centre? He was born in Slovenia and was on his way from Canada to Slovenia, in transit through Gatwick, when he was taken from Gatwick and put into Harmondsworth, where he died. He neither claimed United Kingdom nationality nor had it removed. Therefore, this seems to be something of which the United Kingdom should fairly be ashamed. At what stage did Home Office Ministers become involved in this tragic affair?

Immigration Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, there are some very welcome amendments to this Bill, and I will speak shortly to Amendments 1 and 4.

As someone who owes his life to a country that was willing to provide sanctuary at a time of extreme danger, as my wife and I secretly left President Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda, I feel strongly about these matters. This is not to say that I do not recognise the need for proper border control. States have the right to guard their citizens from any real negative impact—social or economic—of excessive immigration. Nevertheless, Amendments 1 and 4 are actually very helpful in a number of ways.

First, I apologise that I was not in the House for the Second Reading on 10 February, but I was pleased to see the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that day. He said:

“The Bill does not undermine individual rights; rather, it strengthens them. The arbitrariness of whether the family life threshold has been met is replaced by clarity and consistency”.

He went on to say:

“It streamlines the process of removing illegal migrants while protecting the vulnerable. … Families being removed will continue to benefit from the coalition’s commitment to end child detention. … We will protect the vulnerable”.—[Official Report, 10/2/14; cols. 416-18.]

However, undue haste is rarely in the interests of fairness, especially when people are disorientated, confused and fearful. While I can see the merits of bringing the decisions together, giving people only 72 hours to access the legal support and advice necessary to make an appeal is not helpful. What if someone is unwell or on holiday? I can hear those responsible having no answer to make other than, “'Tough luck”. It is only fair that if a person is to be removed they be given adequate notice. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would have it that the date of removal was given at that point. This is perhaps better than receiving a letter simply saying that you are liable to removal, although either makes it clear that preparations must be made, which is better all round. Of course, some will say that giving notice gives the opportunity to abscond, but, on balance, it is more humane to give notice. The determination is there for those who are regarded as at risk of absconding: they can be detained.

Amendment 4 is another vital amendment that is consistent with the earlier amendment. It would remove the possibility that a family member being removed might receive no notice. It seems to me that, if they did not receive notice, in a society like this that would be not good. I therefore support Amendments 1 and 4.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak particularly to Amendments 1 and 2 but also to Amendments 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, as I shall explain.

At Second Reading, I explained to the House that the whole business of enforced removals was by no means new as far as examination from outside was concerned. Indeed, in 2008, I handed the Home Secretary a document called Outsourcing Abuse, which referred to 78 cases where injuries or death had been inflicted on people who were being removed forcibly from this country. I was then a commissioner on the Independent Asylum Commission, which made some far-reaching recommendations about the whole process. In December 2012, I handed the Home Secretary the report of a commission on enforced removals, which made another series of recommendations relating to the Home Affairs Committee report published earlier that year.

Although Part 1 of the Bill has the sub-heading “Removal Directions”, what is lacking from the whole enforced removal process is overall direction. I was very grateful to the Minister, who was accompanied by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for meeting me last week with the Bill team, when I gave him what we had in effect drawn up in December 2012, which was a draft code of practice laying down precisely what should be done in the Home Office as well as by the contractors who are responsible for the removal. The draft also provided for oversight of the whole process, which is sadly lacking at the moment. I was grateful to the Minister for saying that he would take away the document and study it, having referred it to the Minister for Immigration, because it is further reaching in the whole enforced removals process than the content of the Bill. Therefore, I did not table it as an amendment.

However, I should like to inform the House about the content of that document, which is really three codes of practice. The first is all about the actual conduct and the preparation of the case. It refers to duties of the Home Office, which we suggested should establish a complex returns panel to deal with single returnees who refuse either a voluntary or an assisted return in the same way that the Independent Family Returns Panel deals with families. I am very glad that Amendments 4, 5, 6 and 7 deal particularly with the families, and the Independent Family Returns Panel has been a qualified success ever since it was appointed. However, I do not think that that is good enough for the whole process, because the vast majority of people taken back are single people, some of whom have very complex cases indeed.

The document also refers to a group of people who have suffered from totally inadequate supervision and direction for years: the case owners in the Home Office. Frankly, I reckon they are both inefficient and incompetent. I do not reckon that they have ever truthfully told Ministers exactly what has gone on. That has meant that Ministers have not been in possession of the facts. Therefore, we put in the code of practice a lot of things that must be done to oversee the case owners and make certain that they are competent to carry out their task, including having a detailed understanding of immigration law.

Then we come to staff in the immigration detention centre, because that is where the returnee is based. Frequently, the detention centre staff know quite a lot about the person being returned which is not passed on to the case owner and is therefore never taken into account. That causes some of the problems in returns. We believe that immigration detention centre staff must be brought into the process.

Finally come the contractors—the people who provide the detention custody officers taking the person back. Again, this is a sadly neglected part of oversight at present. The contractors have behaved appallingly badly, in public and in front of the Chief Inspector of Prisons when he was accompanying a flight. That they are prepared to do that in front of him suggests that for years they have got away with—literally—murder. It is time that that was stopped. We suggest what must happen to them.

The next part of the thing is oversight. We believe that the Home Office must establish a clearer description and direction of oversight. It has the ideal person to do that in the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. I have met the chief inspector on a number of occasions and know that he is very keen to improve on what he has done already. The difference he has made since he was appointed in 2007 is enormously marked, as I note from when I was Chief Inspector of Prisons and responsible for doing detention centres. If he is given oversight over the process, particularly the practicalities of it, Ministers will find that a lot of the problems that currently appear and are listed under their names will disappear because somebody is responsible and accountable for making certain that those problems do not arise.

I will not speak to the final part of the code of practice at this moment because it refers to the use of restraint, which comes under Clause 2 and Schedule 1. However, my purpose in all this is that underlying everything that has gone on for far too long in the whole conduct of immigration has been what we described in the Independent Asylum Commission as a “culture of disbelief”. It is time that that was eliminated. I find very worrying at the moment that, although the UK Border Agency has been eliminated, I do not detect in the Home Office the leadership of the three silos that have been appointed to take over those jobs. The intentions of this Bill will be achieved only with leadership and drive of the whole process, starting with a determined attack on the 500,000 backlog—it will be defeated only by a determined attack.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I hesitate to follow such a powerful speech and will speak only briefly because important points have already been raised about the amendments. Briefly, I support Amendments 5, 6 and 7, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. As she pointed out, in their response to our eighth report—our first legislative scrutiny report on this Bill—the Government said that they would give consideration to the amendments suggested by the JCHR. That is about as good as it gets: the Government will give consideration. They gave away very little indeed in response to our report. We were optimistic that at least something would have happened on this, but nothing has happened. The case has been made as to why it is so important that this provision is placed in the Bill itself. It is not sufficient for it simply to be in regulations or for there to be the very welcome ministerial assurance. It should be in the Bill.

I simply ask the Minister whether he is still considering the case, or has he considered it and decided against it? If so, why? It seems such an eminently reasonable amendment that was proposed by the JCHR and had been supported in various ways by noble Lords.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

It will be for them to make arrangements with UKVI on the basis of the notice that they have been given. We are not looking for enforcement as being the primary objective of the policy. I think the noble Lord would agree that voluntary departures are what we would prefer to see happen.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Following what the most reverend Primate said, perhaps I may say how pleased I was to hear the use of the word “better” just now in terms of oversight. I ask the Minister to accept that, hard- working though they may be, case workers have not been very good at their task and neither has there been oversight. If they had been and there had been oversight there would not have been this endless history of problems and complaints for years and years, which have been ignored. The time has come for that ignoring to stop. Therefore, I am relieved to hear mention of better oversight.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the critique of what happens in practice from someone experienced as an inspector has clearly resonated around the House. We have already talked during the passage of the Bill—and I am sure we will talk again—about the importance of practice. Whatever is on paper, whether in the Bill or in regulations, is a precaution against bad practice, but it is the good practice that is important. Given the Minister’s assurances about coming back at the next stage, more formally we hope, with responses in the form of amendments to the comments of two committees, it would obviously be inappropriate for me to spend very long at this stage responding to the points that have been made. However, I will say that, like others, I read between the lines: three days does not seem very long in which to decide what to do about a decision that has been handed down and to make arrangements. But there we are.

The Minister suggested that my first amendment would reintroduce complexity. I was actually seeking to provide more clarity. When he referred to there being a provision somewhere else in the raft of immigration legislation that deals with notice in writing, I could not help thinking that consolidating all this legislation has defeated Government after Government, but it is something that is sorely needed.

I make one perhaps tiny point just to clear the undergrowth before the next stage. The noble Lord referred to Clause 67 of the Bill as providing for the negative procedure. I would have thought that it was the regulations and orders section in the 1999 Act—which actually takes us to the same point as it being negative—that would apply as Clause 1 is replacing a section of the 1999 Act. It would be helpful if before Report we could understand what the relevant provision is so that those of us who might be minded to suggest amendments know that we are proposing amendments to the correct section or clause. However, I am glad that we will have amendments on regulations which the Minister talks about as changing policy. Regulations set policy before it gets changed by subsequent regulations. That is what many of us are concerned with. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I welcome these amendments. There is frequently talk in this House, and rightly so, about caring for the interests of children, reference to Section 55, the paramountcy principle and so on—but sometimes it is easier to say it than to put it into practice. These amendments articulate the practice and are about more than just principle.

In 2009 I was refused a visit to Yarl’s Wood by the Home Office. I never discovered whether I was thought to be subversive or whether I was thought likely to be someone who might attempt to spring a detainee, but I have visited Cedars. Yes, it is for detention for the reasons we have heard, but it is also about caring for people and preparing them for return. Having seen the facilities there and talked about the work that goes on, I have to say that the Cedars centre is a great deal preferable to scooping up a child and putting them straight on a plane out of the country. The care that is given and the thought that goes into the preparation impressed me very much. When I was there, I asked about the boundary wire round the premises. Although it was quite inconspicuous, it seemed to give the feel of detention, and I had observed it going in. I was told that it was to keep out local troublemakers.

I have a number of questions. One is about allowing one parent to be returned within the 28-day period, which might mean that a family is split and a child is separated from one parent. Will my noble friend tell the House about the circumstances in which separation would occur? Secondly, subsection (2)(b) of proposed new Clause 78A talks about a single parent or a carer. Is a carer a local authority foster parent? What is a carer in this context?

As regards the family returns panel, will my noble friend give the Committee assurances about how its independence will be assured? Secondly, for reasons that I think will be obvious, will he give assurances about whether the individuals concerned will have a means of giving information or making representations to the family returns panel, or checking that the information that it receives from others is accurate? These are important provisions.

As regards unaccompanied children, other noble Lords may remember the very effective and impressive Member of this House who died some years ago, Baroness Faithfull—Lucy Faithfull. I recall her talking about meeting an unaccompanied child arriving from, I think, Somalia. She told the story of having gone to Heathrow to meet this child in a social work capacity with a bar of milk chocolate to give to the child as a present. This child had never encountered milk chocolate before and was really scared about what she was being asked to eat. That story has remained with me as an example of the cultural gulf that has to be crossed and the hard work needed in dealing with children who arrive here unaccompanied.

In what circumstances is this provision used and what change in policy does it indicate? We have had confirmation that multiple 24-hour periods will not be applied, but will my noble friend say something—I do not know whether I missed it—about monitoring the use of the provisions and publishing data on the number of occasions, the circumstances and the length of time an unaccompanied child is detained, and so on?

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to government Amendments 10, 14 and 15; 10 because of the Independent Family Returns Panel about which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, spoke. I agree with the importance of independence. There is no doubt that the Independent Family Returns Panel has made marked improvements to the process since it was formed, and that it is very well led and well worth listening to. I commend the coalition on the determination with which it has pursued the detention of children. Having served on the advisory board early in 2010, soon after the election, I am glad to see this clause in the Bill.

Finally, I am very glad to see the place of detention at Cedars, and I commend Barnardo’s for the way that it has conducted the care of families who have been in that place.

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this amendment. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, and I visited Yarl’s Wood when he was Archbishop of Canterbury. We were quite surprised and shocked, and made very clear representations about this particular question of the detention of unaccompanied minors. I am very grateful for what is happening here but again, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I want to know whether the Minister can give us an assurance that there will be monitoring of the 24-hours issue and that it will not turn into a norm that nobody can question, so that we can find out whether this is healing a very difficult problem. However, for all of that, I welcome this particular amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, I stand again to support this wonderful amendment with its mover. What is going on here? This makes sense to me. There are detention centre rules which govern immigration removal centres, but the short-term holding facilities in airports, as has already been mentioned, are very different. In some of them—for example, Pennine House in Manchester where, sadly, a Pakistani man died last July—people can be held for up to seven days. There need to be published rules to provide a sound governance structure. Without that, we will not be reassured. People can be held at times of great personal and familial stress. The intention behind the amendment is to make sure that these facilities make good provision, with clear rules, for safety, care, health, activities, discipline and control of detained persons. Who would argue against that?

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. When I took over as Chief Inspector of Prisons and was given the responsibility for immigration detention centres, I was horrified to find that all of them were geared only for the short term and had no long-term arrangements for people who were there for a long time. When I went into it, I discovered that the reason for this was the lack of direction from the Home Office. There was at that stage the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, which was meant to be running the centres, and they were all let out on contract, but there was no overall drive, no direction.

The fact that we have now been waiting for longer than World War II for this matter to be resolved suggests that that lack of direction and drive obtains across the whole immigration detention centre system anyway. I am still told by members of immigration monitoring boards that, in fact, the centres where people are held—sometimes for years, let alone months—are not geared to look after their needs in any more than the short term, about which I asked last October and which has been so ably described by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. It is important not just that the Government do this in six months, but that they appoint someone responsible and accountable for overseeing these centres, and seeing that things actually happen.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I appreciate the concerns of my noble friend Lord Avebury, the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the concerns of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York. They have caused my noble friend to table the amendment, and caused us to debate not just the rules but the provision of facilities.

I start by reassuring the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that in the past year the Home Office has been in acute dialogue with Heathrow Airport Ltd about the Heathrow Airport facility to progress accommodation units. That is now bearing fruit. My noble friend Lord Avebury asked me if I could place information on the design of these facilities in the Library. I understand that HAL, the Border Force and, for that matter, the Home Office are in final discussions on the detailed design stage and, indeed, are going out to contractors for quotes in March of this year—that is, now. If that is the situation, I am sure that I will be in a position to satisfy my noble friend’s request to place a copy of the design in the House Library, and I will seek to do that for him.

I am aware that there has also been a lack of legislative framework governing the operation of the short-term holding facilities. As has been pointed out by noble Lords, this has been a matter of concern for years to a number of interested parties, including Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, who has responsibility for inspecting the UK’s detention facilities. The delay in introducing these rules is regretted, but it has been a case of unavoidable delay being caused by a number of different reasons, including, most recently, the discussions surrounding the legislative framework that should apply to Cedars, which we have just discussed, which initially had been classified as a short-term holding facility and, as such, would have been covered by these rules. We have just debated those amendments. Accordingly, today, I give my noble friend a commitment that separate sets of rules governing the management and operation of short-term holding facilities and the Cedars pre-departure accommodation will be introduced before the Summer Recess. With that, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendment 12. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on bringing it forward.

It is very striking that the positions of the people mentioned who should be involved in oversight are intended to be independent. That is clear with regard to the IPCC, but is also the case with the Inspector of Prisons, as is exemplified by the remarkable record of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, when he was Inspector of Prisons, and calls on an old tradition that rules will be enforced and kept in respect of the Prison Service, with a long and remarkable record among prison officers in terms of these expectations. I was a Minister of State in charge of prisons for a while and I was impressed by the level of responsibility shown, particularly by prison officers who had worked in prisons for a period of time. They often had a strong sense of responsibility for those with whom they worked, who were held in prisons in the ordinary criminal justice system. There has been nothing like the same level of expectation regarding rules or ethics within the immigration estate as we had in the Prison Service at its best.

Amendments 9 and 10 have already been discussed and I will not return to them, but I will say very loudly that they show how remarkably a concerned and responsible Minister can alter the culture and attitudes of those for whom he or she is responsible and over whom he or she has oversight. The problem, quite simply, is that the Home Office has not had that oversight, particularly in respect of the outsourcing of responsibility for people who are detained or who are held under the immigration provisions of many earlier Acts. That is only too clear in the complaints and concerns that arise over the handling and management of that estate. We are grateful for Amendments 9 and 10. They are very detailed and have been carefully worked out. However, I repeat the question of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about whether there is any training for immigration officers who now have the responsibility for enforcement. I will go further and ask whether the Home Office writes into its contracts with the private companies to which it extends the right to run these establishments a specific requirement that the practices that we hope to be embodied in the code will be upheld. Does it hold them responsible for reporting on any breaches of those rules and codes of practice? Does it hold them responsible for any accidents, injuries or deaths that occur in the establishments for which they are responsible? If the number of those is seen to be unusually high or if they are inexplicable, will real consideration be given to withdrawing the contracts as soon as possible? The contracts should clearly indicate that they are conditional on the proper running of those establishments.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I will speak to Amendment 13, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for highlighting some of the points that were in the code of practice that I gave to the Minister, as I mentioned earlier. I did not read out all the points but I did mention that there were three codes that I had produced. One concerns the use of restraint. I will mention the three elements in that, which say that the Home Office must:

“Confirm the Independent Advisory Panel on Non-Compliance Management … as a permanent establishment”,

and that one member must have,

“experience of both the design and use of restraint techniques in a wide variety of settings, both custodial and non-custodial”.

The Home Office must also:

“Lay down precisely what safe and pain-free restraint techniques are acceptable in various situations such as vehicles transporting returnee to airport, transfer from vehicle to aircraft including in crowded airports, and in economy class on board commercial, passenger-carrying aircraft”.

Finally, the Home Office must “specify compulsory training requirements” for detainee custody officers,

“and other escorts, including compulsory continuation training”.

I repeat that because the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, and myself, refers particularly to the use of the word “reasonableness”. I am sure that the Minister will agree that it was not reasonable force that caused the unlawful killing of Jimmy Mubenga in an airport, and the 78 other cases that I presented to the Home Office, along with numerous others. I suggest that the problem is that the Home Office has delegated all use of force to the contracting companies without overseeing it or insisting that anyone do so. I suggest to the Minister that it would be a very good thing if the Home Office thought through and tried to define what “reasonable” is.

It seems to me that there is a mnemonic, “JPLANS”, which provides the circumstances that must be honoured in using force. The letters stand for six phrases. The first: is the force “justifiable”? It might be lawful, but that does not make it justifiable. All other options must be considered before it is used. Secondly, it must be “proportionate” to the behaviour and consequence it was intended to prevent. Any force used should always be the minimum necessary to achieve a lawful objective.

Thirdly, it must be “lawful” in all circumstances and, provided the person has done what he honestly or instinctively thought was necessary in all the circumstances, and no more, that would be good evidence that he has acted reasonably and lawfully. Force must never be used as a punishment to intentionally cause pain, injury or humiliation. Fourthly, use of force must also be “accountable”; one must always be prepared to account for any force used. Force should be used only as a last resort, and one must be able to demonstrate that this was the case.

Fifthly, force must be “necessary” in all circumstances, and consideration should be given to any other reasonable alternatives: could the situation have been resolved without the use of force? Were risk assessments properly carried out before the removal to reduce tension and any consequent need to use force? Could this have included a planned meeting between the escort and the person they were escorting in order to try to build up a relationship that might remove the tension?

Finally, was the force used “safe and supportive”? Techniques and procedures must be applied correctly and safely, and the person on whom they are applied must be monitored to ensure their safety. There are some techniques and facilities that are known to give rise to a foreseeable risk of injuries. They are permitted only in extreme circumstances and will have to be justified by the member of staff who uses them.

I do not think that anyone writing “reasonable” without thinking it through can have applied the JPLANS test. I therefore suggest that the Minister considers a definition of “reasonable” whereby any use of force must be necessary, reasonable and proportionate, and applied for the minimum period necessary to achieve the lawful objective. If that definition were in the Bill, rather than just the word “reasonable”, I would find it a great deal easier to accept. I suspect that it would be much more supportive of the regime that I hope the independent advisory panel will impose, which should not consist merely of repeating techniques designed for use in custody that are wholly inappropriate when removing a detainee.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I wish to say a word or two in support of the amendment. Currently, the use of force by an immigration officer is licensed under the Immigration Act 1971 and the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 amends this to license the use of force under eight other Acts passed since 1971, and any future legislation that may be included in the definition of “the Immigration Acts”. The Explanatory Notes wrongly claim that this “clarifies” that the power is not limited to the exercise of powers under the 1971 and 1999 Acts, which would mean that the power already exists. In fact, the use of force under any of the eight Acts not already covered would be unlawful until the Bill is passed, as I hope my noble friend will concede.

No justification is given for this extension of the power to use force. On the contrary, there have been huge concerns about the use of existing powers, as in the case of Jimmy Mubenga, and in the report of the chief inspector on the use of force to remove a pregnant woman and her child via Cedars. The former Immigration Minister gave an assurance that the power to use force was confined to immigration officers as distinct from workers employed by private contractors on detention and removal activities. However, private contractors do use force, as has been mentioned and as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, found in her report of March 2010.

In the chief inspector’s report on an unannounced inspection of Harmondsworth in August last year, it was found that a wheelchair-bound, low-risk detainee who had suffered a stroke was handcuffed on a hospital visit, and other cases were noted in which the use of handcuffs was “grossly excessive”, including one case in which the individual was sedated and undergoing angioplasty, and another in which an 84 year-old man suffering from dementia died while still in handcuffs. It is clear that some immigration officers have no idea whatever about proportionality in the use of force—a matter that was referred to by the noble Lord Ramsbotham—and each and every extension of this power should be separately justified.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I cannot claim first-hand experience like other noble Lords, but I went to a meeting chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, where we heard from organisations that work with immigrants in detention. I thought that a powerful case was made—and has been made by other noble Lords—for the principles behind Amendments 16 and 17 in particular.

I will quote from a recent report by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law that emphasised as its cardinal principle the assumption of liberty. It stated another principle:

“The duration of detention must be within a prescribed applicable maximum duration, only invoked where justified”.

The report quotes a number of statements from the United Nations, in particular UNHCR detention guidelines that state:

“To guard against arbitrariness, maximum periods of detention should be set in national legislation. Without maximum periods, detention can become prolonged, and in some cases indefinite”.

It also quotes from a UNHCR global round table on alternatives to detention for asylum seekers, refugees, migrants and stateless persons, which states:

“Maximum time limits on ... administrative immigration detention in national legislation are an important step to avoiding prolonged or indefinite detention. Lack of knowledge about the end date of detention is seen as one of the most stressful aspects of immigration detention, in particular for stateless persons and migrants who cannot be removed for legal or practical reasons”.

I am sure that I do not have remind noble Lords that we will probably have rather more people in that position as a result of Clause 60 of the Bill.

Let us put ourselves in the shoes of people who are detained. What would it feel like not knowing how long you are going to be detained? I am not surprised that it is one of the most stressful things. I think that not having that knowledge could drive people over the edge, particularly when I hear about the conditions in which some people are being kept.

The UN Committee Against Torture urged the UK to introduce,

“a limit for immigration detention and take all necessary steps to prevent cases of de facto indefinite detention”.

We have already heard from other noble Lords that we are out of step with many other European countries and that there is no justification for it, not only on grounds of humanity but also of effectiveness. I hope that the Minister will listen to what is being said across the House and take it away to consider a possible amendment on Report.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendments 17 and 19 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts. I agree with every word that my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries said. Following my inspection of Campsfield after a riot there, I raised for the first time my concern about one group of people who were being held in prisons: they were to be deported at the end of their sentence.

We have been talking about enforced removals and people sentenced to be deported are enforced removals. It seems to be absolute nonsense not to process that deportation while those people are serving their prison sentences, so that at the end of their sentence they go straight to the airport and out. Instead, what happens at the moment is that they go from prison into a detention centre and then the deportation process starts. That is causing an intense clogging in the detention centres. Having disaffected prisoners awaiting deportation in a detention centre also causes unrest in the centre, which was the case at Campsfield.