Terrorist Attack in Paris

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I think that all those who believe in a divine force in this world will recognise that any divine element who is love will be weeping at what is happening now, not just in France but across the whole world, in many corners where people’s lives are blighted and violence is used.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Do I understand the Minister correctly—perhaps I misunderstood it, although I did not miss a single speech last night—that the Home Secretary is sitting on some legislative proposals that she has not been allowed to bring forward, which would fit in the Bill we are discussing? We will have that Bill in this House for four weeks, so it would not be that rushed. If that is the case, and if there is a problem because there is a veto on allowing her to give it to the Minister, frankly it is Parliament’s decision, so why does he not ask the Home Secretary to offer the amendments to a Cross-Bench Peer so that this House can decide whether or not to further amend the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill before we send it back to the other place?

[Lord Bates]

The communications data Bill is there; the Joint Committee on Human Rights carried out an excellent review of it, making a few recommendations. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made her position clear on those points. Of course, people are entirely at liberty to pick up amendments and bring forward any that they wish.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, like everybody else, I welcome our two maiden speakers today, who will give real added value to your Lordships’ House. In particular, the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, may not realise that he also brought something else. That was a greater knowledge of the geography of England to some of my noble friends, who discovered that there was more than one Weardale. That was the source of much asking at the time. Nevertheless, they were two very good maiden speeches.

When looking at emergency planning at the time I was in one or two government departments, not being expert I used to ask, “If we get an emergency, whatever it might be, and then in the middle of it we get another one, can we cope?”. One of the lessons we can take from Paris last week is the way in which people did cope. Although they were linked, there were two distinct emergencies and nobody knew they were linked to start with. We obviously assisted the French but we can learn from them how they dealt with the outrageous actions and the deaths, and we have to be ready to deal with more than one emergency at the same time.

There are some simple things we can do. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, mentioned keypads. During one of my tenures as a Minister, the access to my government department was via a keypad. I was also given something that I could do on that keypad when I gained entry to the premises if I was under duress. It warned those inside. It is simple but that technology is in Whitehall now. There are things that people can do above and beyond existing efforts to help them. I was reminded that, in 2001, I was in the position of the noble Lord, Lord Bates, as Home Office Minister in your Lordships’ House, having just arrived. I certainly have evidence of the trawl round Whitehall for that emergency legislation. The call went out, “Have you got anything you’ve not been able to put in a Bill, because the ground is fertile?”. That is putting it crudely but the Civil Service was doing its job. It was looking for a legislative opportunity to deal with terrorism following 9/11. We spent many hours on what is now the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act. That was before Iraq and before the different kinds of accountability and oversight that we have now.

This is not a knee-jerk Bill, and I do not consider it to be fast-track. We are having a day on it today; there is a day in Committee next week and two days the following week before we get to Report. It will be before your Lordships’ House for four weeks. Nobody can claim that we are not doing it carefully. It is true that there is no gap between the first and second stages which we would normally have. Is that a problem? I do not really think so. By any definition we are a liberal democracy. The question is how far we will go to defend it. My answer is all the way. If, as in the past, it is against the massed ranks of troops from another country, as in World War II, it is easy, but what if the people seeking to undermine and destroy our liberal democracy use and misuse the elements of that liberal democracy in the first place—our tolerance, our “live and let live” attitude, our attitude to privacy, our openness, all of which we cherish and all of which are used against us by those who seek to undermine that? How far do we go when the attackers make use of these aspects to try to destroy our liberal democracy? It is no good saying later, “How did all this happen?”. If we do nothing and fail, we would probably not be in a position to stand up and ask how it happened. It will be too late.

Do we close down our democratic aspects? Of course we do not, otherwise the enemy will have won. That is self-evident. By the way, they are the enemy. They are seeking to destroy our way of life. I happen to think that our way of life in the UK is superior to most and it is shared by some other countries around the world. That is my personal view, but I do not equate way of life with religion because I do not think that one religion is superior to another, and that is the end of the matter. But it must be live and let live and to be prepared to die to protect live and let live. In other words, use force to protect live and let live at the end of the day.

Do we do nothing in our defence? No, we use our brains. We put our society—our families, friends, neighbours, even the ones we do not get on with—first. It is as silly to say, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”, as it is to say, “We have mass surveillance of the population” just because the security services want to target the trouble-makers who plan to do us harm, out of the huge mass of information in which they have no interest and, what is more, have no resources to check anyway. It is crucial that we take society with us on measured actions, using the rule of law, parliamentary accountability and, yes, sometimes secrecy—secrecy with oversight, by which I do not mean oversight by the media or NGOs.

It is sad in some ways. I have been a Guardian reader since I discovered it in 1960, so I am a fan; it occasionally publishes the odd letter. But it spent longer in a leader on Saturday last week criticising the head of MI5 than actually reporting what he said. This is the Daily Mail technique. It regularly attacks someone in its leader for something that it has never even reported anyway. It gets it in without giving the person the choice. I think that readers should be able to make up their own minds on the evidence presented by the speech. I have read it. It is available and I think the Guardian should print it in one of its long, wordy pages that it has today. It would fit. The readers could then judge the measured tone of the director-general, Mr Parker, whom I have not met. I have no connection with him at all, but I have read his speech and it does not fit with the kind of stuff and abuse in the leader on Saturday morning. The media are qualified as the media, but they are not qualified other than that.

Neither are the judges, I have to say. Legal and parliamentary accountability are crucial and more of this Bill should be subject to parliamentary approval by the affirmative resolution. I shall just pick out Clause 24(5), which is the power to issue guidance. There is an open and shut case for more parliamentary accountability in that area. I do not think that Ministers should have to go to judges before they can take action. It is as simple as that. I might be doubtful about the practicality of some of the issues in the Bill, particularly the measures in Part 1, Chapter 2. However, if Ministers genuinely believe—and are advised, because they will always be acting on advice—that it is helpful, then they should be given the power. I do not agree with the Joint Committee on Human Rights about Schedule 1 because it almost looks as if they want judges to be given powers over Ministers in a very detailed way for the renewal of retention. I think it should be left at 14 days and not reduced to seven anyway.

Most members of the public think that they have a legal right to a passport. I used to think that until I became the Minister responsible for immigration and citizenship in 2001 for a short spell of a year before the Prime Minister moved me on. The fact is that they do not, and that is probably the reality in most countries of the world. It is not a matter of the political structure of the country.

On Part 3, relating to data retention, I declare a registered interest as a member of the Royal United Services Institute independent surveillance review panel. We started with four Members of your Lordships’ House on this panel and we now have five, following the elevation of the noble Lord, Lord Evans. We have much work to do and our task is to report after the general election to the Deputy Prime Minister.

As the Library Note on this Bill explains, the operation of internet protocol addresses is an incredibly complex technical issue. It is not the same as what was in the DRIP Act in the summer. The addresses appear to be—and are—interchangeable. The same address can be used—and is used—on many computers each week. They are certainly not required for billing purposes; I fully accept that. That is why Parliament has to instruct them to be kept. The power is limited and does not include weblogs. Having read it all, I am not at all clear what the IP has got to do with my privacy, to be honest. The way it operates, the same address can be used 200 times in a day on different computers. It is a piece of a jigsaw which is crucial for the security services to be able to check information flowing across the net. Furthermore, the whole of Part 3—that is, Clause 17—is subject to the DRIP sunset clause, so we know we are going to come back to this at some considerable length after the general election, whoever the Government are. This is not blanket surveillance of the entire population, which is wholly emotive and downright misleading language. It is more about data retention, which might be of use in linking up those seeking to do us harm. It is difficult to see how this is communications data in the first place. It cannot be about checking everyone’s use of the internet. That is impossible and no one is seeking to do it. For that reason, I support the clause.

I want to say a few short words on oversight and Parliament. I know this is not in the Bill but it is all relevant. If we actually had some statesmen who were parliamentarians in the Government, we would by now have an acceptance that the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee—as is the case with the chair of the Public Accounts Committee—should not come from the governing party. I do not mind whether they come from the Opposition or from one of the minor parties, but they should not come from the governing party. This is a must. It has already been recommended by other Select Committees. It sends the right signal as to the way in which we, as a Parliament, look at oversight and scrutiny. I am not criticising Malcolm Rifkind in any way, shape or form. I would like to see that commitment come even from my own Front Bench. I realise that some of the media and NGOs will not be satisfied until they call the shots but, in the court of public opinion, it is self-evident that this change would be a boost to oversight quality. Public confidence has to be earned by actions.

My final point relates to companies. The growing concern has to be that the internet companies and the rest of the private sector own much more data on us as citizens than the Government do. This is the reality, but nobody ever really discusses it. Some of these companies are now claiming to be such guardians of society by themselves that they are measuring the harm level and saying that they will not co-operate with the police. It cannot be right for private companies to set the criteria of harm by major drug smugglers, gun runners, fraudsters and paedophiles which they think are not high enough to pass on. That is indirectly helping the criminals. I do not think this is an issue that we can leave.

Likewise, and this will have to be dealt with at some point, the internet companies throwing away the encryption keys is seriously damaging to any checks we might want to make on those who seek to do us harm. I realise that it is a very sensitive issue. As a member of the surveillance panel, I do not wish to make a judgment one way or the other, but it is a factor that has to be taken into account. If they throw away the keys to the encryption, nobody gets anything. Who is the gainer? If they maintain the keys and it is done in a careful, measured way, with full democratic scrutiny and oversight, that can be of considerable assistance. This matter is going to have to be dealt with one way or the other, not by this legislation but by the legislation that follows the election. As such, I support the Bill.

Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, the amendment is also in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws—who unfortunately cannot be here, although those who heard her speak last night will have a good idea of what she might have said—the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.

We have something of a paradox of timing in relation to the Bill, in that, as we all know only too well, this measure has been rushed, helter-skelter, through both Houses. It is fair to say that the vast majority of Members in both Houses are deeply worried by all that but have none the less accepted the view of the Government as to the need for that expedition. On the other hand, we have a sunset clause in the Bill—designed to be some sort of reassurance—requiring the Act to be repealed in two and a half years’ time, at the end of 2016. The point behind the amendment is self-apparent, namely that if six months is too short—that was the proposal in the other place, that the repeal should take place at the end of this year—to wait two and a half years hence is too long. That is why we have suggested a repeal date of 31 December next year.

It is common ground that this complex measure—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, called it “obscurantist”, and she is a lawyer—which is wedded to RIPA 2000, itself a highly complex piece of legislation, needs review and is being reviewed from various quarters, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Taylor. I am sure we are all very grateful for that. However, is it not also the case that, because we have not had a chance to consider the Bill properly, we do not know whether there are serious lacunae in it? The proposition of those of us behind the amendment is that to wait two and a half years before anything must be done about those deficiencies is just too long. We have suggested this compromise of a year and a half from now.

I finish by repeating the importance of the Bill for our reputation as a House of Parliament and for Parliament as a whole. Although we may be satisfied that what we are doing is necessary, appropriate and proportionate, I am afraid millions of our fellow countrymen are not of that view. There is therefore a wider issue behind this amendment. It will provide some reassurance that the delay—it will be seen as such—in allowing a thorough review of this legislation, which will find an outlet and remedies by the end of next year, is a reasonable compromise; to leave it for two and a half years is not. I have that phrase of John Pym, in the other place in 1642, ringing in my ears. He said in that tense Parliament that we must not lose the,

“vigour and cheerfulness of allegiance”,

of our fellow Britons. I beg to move.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I oppose the amendment. I was unable to speak yesterday. I do not propose to make a Second Reading speech, but I wish to make a case for the Bill to remain as it is. I first draw attention to my declaration of interest in the register as a member of the independent surveillance panel, put together by the Royal United Services Institute for the Deputy Prime Minister’s work, which will go on for the next year and beyond the next election.

Frankly, we need time to do the job: 18 months is not long enough. I am not even going to use the excuse of a potential change of Government after the general election. The fact is that it is important that the sunset clause is there and it is important that it cannot be extended: it will go. However, time is needed to do the job properly. It is not as though nothing is going to happen for two and a half years. It will take two and a half years to pull together the reviews of RIPA and the other reviews that are taking place to bring legislation to Parliament very early in 2016, because this will finish at the end of 2016. The idea that it has been left to the last minute is nonsense. We need that time to do the job, and to explain and consult.

Public trust has to be secured. I am convinced that the fair-minded public, when they are treated as mature adults, will support an accountable system for interceptions and surveillance, rather than take what is said by unaccountable NGOs and newspaper editors. Contrary to what was said earlier on, the public have no idea what exists in the system in terms of these arrangements. We have to look at the use of modern technology.

Passport Office

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

It could be to do with the economy; we all know that it is improving. It could well be that people want to take holidays abroad. It is also true that a lot of travel is now for business, as the noble Baroness mentioned. There are all sorts of reasons why this phenomenon may have occurred. I do not think that it helps particularly to try to investigate that at this moment, although it might be useful for the future. The key thing is to ensure that the problem is dealt with, and that is the objective of the Home Office now.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I have a suggestion for the Minister. One of my experiences in government over the years was the loss of corporate memory. Twice he has referred to 12 years; we all know what happened in 1999. By the time that I had responsibility for the Passport Service in 2001 when I entered this House, it was running smoothly. My suggestion is that the Permanent Secretary who has been asked to conduct this review goes and finds the managers who sorted out the previous issue. The problem now is that the service has run so smoothly for a decade that when you get a catastrophic change like this that is unexpected and unplanned-for, the corporate memory has disappeared and those civil servants have moved on, retired or been promoted. However, they are still around, and I suggest that they be asked for some advice about how they solved it so speedily between 1999 and 2001.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is always good to listen to, and his words are very wise. I will make sure that the Permanent Secretary is aware of his advice in that regard, and I am happy that he chose to make his suggestion in the way that he did.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Willis, I have not come to complain about the lack of a Bill on health. I have come to complain about actions on health.

Let us have a brief look at salt and sugar, two major health concerns. The related health problems from these substances cost the National Health Service billions. Salt is connected with high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease, and sugar with tooth decay, diabetes and obesity. The story of the coalition is not good on either, and yet the potential to save billions of pounds and lessen human suffering is massive.

The so-called responsibility deal between the Department of Health and the food industry has been a failure. It was hammered out by the Tories with the food industry when they were in opposition. I recently came across a BBC documentary called “The Men Who Made Us Fat”. In fact, the responsibility deal was effectively written by the men in that documentary, who were all from big food. Only last week, the Sunday Telegraph exposed the food firms ratting on the deal by taking sugar out of the lesser-known brands and promoting sugar-free brands, while keeping the top brands topped up with sugar. That was followed a few days later by the Daily Mail exposing the sugar in coffee: over four times more than the daily limit. Both those papers have done some excellent work and are to be commended.

On salt, the position is even more reprehensible for the coalition. During the previous Government, the Food Standards Agency—a government department, not a quango—launched the salt awareness campaign in 2004. The fourth phase was launched in October 2009. It was a genuine partnership with the food industry. In 2000, the average intake of salt was 9.5 grams a day. By 2008, it was down to 8.6 grams a day, which was estimated to prevent 6,000 premature deaths and save £1.5 billion every year in healthcare and other costs—well on the way down to the 6 gram target. That was a target that the industry was working to, because it was planned and agreed well in advance. In fact, by 2011, intake was down to 8 grams a day. New targets for 2012 onwards were to be agreed in 2010-11.

However, one of the first actions of this coalition was to abandon the programme of salt reduction by not agreeing to any targets for industry to work to. This remained the case for three years. We have lost three years due to the food industry “men who made us fat” having effectively captured Andrew Lansley when he was in opposition. Leading members of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine have said that during these three years—2011-14—some 12,000 people may have died needlessly as a result of strokes and heart attacks. The policy and staff were taken from the FSA in 2010, into the Department of Health, where they were broken up and the policies conducted behind closed doors—unlike what happened when the matter was at the FSA.

Here is the rub: every time anybody raises these matters, the Department of Health claims that it has the backing of the World Health Organisation and says that,

“our salt reduction work is world leading”.

Knowing the responsibility deal was a failure, and that for three years no progress was made, I decided to look a little closer the next time that claim was made. On 9 March, the Department of Health stated in the Mail on Sunday:

“'Far from lacking momentum, the World Health Organisation has said our salt reduction work is world leading”.

Well, I set about asking the DoH where that support came from. In fact, I gave up on the website, which even GCHQ probably could not fathom these days, and wrote directly to the noble Earl, Lord Howe. Of course, he replied very quickly with his general great courtesy to the House. His letter said:

“The WHO has recognised the UK’s salt reduction work as world leading”.

Note the tense: “has recognised”.

The noble Earl went on to say that the WHO had approached us, the UK, “to share our experience”, and gave a couple of those huge web addresses that you get in letters these days. Both of them led me to the 2010 London WHO conference on salt reduction strategies in July of that year. I well recall the event because I opened the second day. By that time, the Food Standards Agency civil servants at the conference were answering to the DoH. It is therefore more than a little disingenuous for the Department of Health to claim World Health Organisation support in 2014 for what happened under the coalition, by using a WHO quote from July 2010 which referred to work from 2004 onwards by the previous Government, which the coalition abandoned within a month of coming into office. We have had three years of doing nothing, costing us thousands of avoidable premature deaths, while claiming World Health Organisation support. Then, in the year before the election, the coalition switches the programme on again.

Frankly, if I was still in the other place down the Corridor, I would bring the roof down on the Government for their despicable political shenanigans. However, I regret to say that all I hear from the Commons is a deathly silence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I cannot do that because I do not have the figures to hand, but I know that a number of noble Lords have mentioned legal aid. I have no need to tell my noble friend Lord Faulks how important the issue is to this House because it has been the subject of lots of debates in the last Session of Parliament. I will make sure that we write with an update of where we are on legal aid—we will be most happy to do that. All noble Lords who have raised the issue can then be reassured on the point.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, whose contributions are always good value, made an attack on the concept of the secure college and the lack of rules on the use of force to maintain good order and discipline. I have no doubt that we will have plenty of opportunities to debate this matter. The noble Lord will be aware that time spent in custody can represent a rare period of stability in a lot of young people’s lives. Some three-quarters of young people who leave custody reoffend within a year, so it is clearly an area where we need to be involved. The current system is not working well enough. Secure colleges will have education at their heart, with other services designed in support of educational attainment and tackling offending behaviour. Specifically on the question of force, as the Minister for Prisons has already stated, the Government intend to consult on secure college rules, including those in respect of force, and have committed to publish this consultation during the Bill’s passage. I hope that will give the noble Lord an opportunity to contribute to that discussion.

Many noble Lords talked about health. Indeed, it was helpful to have my noble friend Lord Howe here earlier in the proceedings. The noble Lords, Lord Patel, Lord Ribeiro and Lord Faulkner, talked about standardised packaging of tobacco. I can tell noble Lords that the Government will very shortly publish a final, short consultation, which will contribute to the final decision-making on this policy. The consultation could not be published during the period of the elections because of purdah. It is being finalised and will be published shortly.

I have been told that I have been going for 18 minutes. I am going to try to wind up but I want to try to cover points where I can. The Government are taking early action to introduce a ban on selling alcohol below the price of duty plus VAT. It does not go as far as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, would wish but it goes a long way towards it. When further empirical evidence becomes available, we will consider it very carefully.

Why is there no Bill on the regulation of healthcare professionals? The Government remain committed to legislating on this important issue when parliamentary time allows. We are working with the regulators to ensure that key provisions, such as faster fitness-to-practise tests for nurses and midwives, and English language checks for all healthcare professionals, are in place during this Parliament.

A number of noble Lords spoke about residents in care homes being abused. We are introducing a new fundamental standard for care homes. We are bringing in specialist inspection teams involving people who have experience of care services. They will take action and will have the power to bring prosecutions if necessary. Noble Lords asked about the lack of action on carers. I apologise if I have not addressed all the health matters that noble Lords have raised but the Care Act was passed by this House at the end of May, including significant changes for carers, and for the first time there will be a duty on local authorities to meet carers’ eligible needs for support and consider the impact of their caring responsibilities when undertaking an assessment.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, made his usual stimulating speech. I cannot give him an answer on the points that he raised.

[Lord Rooker]

There isn’t one.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

That is reassuring but it says here, “We will write rather than respond now”. Perhaps that will give me time to write one.

I have a few things here on education. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Peckham, talk about his role in education, particularly in south London, was remarkable. It shows what has been achieved through the academy principles. The Department for Education has been working closely in toughening up the curriculum to ensure that what pupils learn in school equips them for the future. There were a number of criticisms on the education front. I would like to think that apprenticeships can now be seen as a genuine alternative to university, equipping people for life and for the opportunity of getting jobs in a growing economy, which we now have the prospect of sustaining.

I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for not answering everything at this stage. I intend to do so when I write to your Lordships within the next few weeks.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

With respect, the Minister has now said, on about three or four occasions, that we are tying the other place. If this amendment is passed, it has to go to the other place for agreement. The other place can choose not to accept it—we are not forcing legislation on the other place. The House of Lords cannot force legislation on the House of Commons; the House of Commons must agree to this and may choose not to.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

That is perfectly correct. I was just asking noble Lords to consider where that puts this House in its relationship with the other place. Where does it put this House to provoke and to seek to deny, at our instigation, the Boundary Commission whose review both Houses of this Parliament determined should take place and should apply to the forthcoming election? I think it quite remarkable that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, seeks to pretend that there are not implications for this House in this particular amendment being passed. I think that there are and that it would be irresponsible of me not to advise the House that there are great dangers in this.

Women’s National Commission

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I am afraid that I have to disagree with my noble friend because, having spoken to many women through consultation, we found that a lot of women were not being talked to or involved in the sort of decisions that my noble friend would want. Also, because of social media and the internet, we are able to reach out far more to a greater number of women and women’s organisations. The fact that the Government are at the heart of this is the key to addressing those issues.

[Lord Rooker]

What is the gender of the head of the Government Equalities Office?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I am not quite sure that I can understand the noble Lord’s question, but I should say that we have a Home Secretary and a Minister, Lynne Featherstone, who lead on this area in the departments.

[Lord Rooker]

My question was simple.

[Noble Lords]

No!

Police: Officer Numbers

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am sure that the noble Lord will be able to enlighten us as to what the optimised level is. I did not say there was no link; I said there was no simple link. It is very clear that there is no simple link. Numbers of police officers began to decline before this Government came into office and the level of crime continues to decline. The level of crime began to decline in 1995, well before our predecessors came into office, and when police numbers were stable. There is no simple link between these two things.

[Lord Rooker]

How many briefing meetings has the noble Baroness had in the Home Office about a Question that has been awaiting answer since 1 December? It would be quite normal for a delayed Question like that to be the subject of considerable ministerial questioning, so why has it not been answered? How many briefing meetings has she had?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am afraid I am at a loss to know to what Question the noble Lord is referring, but I will look into it.

Immigration: Detention of Children

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, if there are security factors in place, those of course introduce elements which are not necessarily present in all other cases.

[Lord Rooker]

Can the Minister confirm that Yarl’s Wood, which was opened on my watch as a Home Office Minister, remains a removal centre and not a detention centre? As she will find out, if people are reluctant to go and they have children, it is not possible to organise removals economically and humanely by knocking on their doors; nor, if one wants to keep the family together, is it possible to do so other than by the family spending a minimum short period in a removal centre. That is not detention in the normal use of the word.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord points to some of the difficulties that arise. In our view, it is certainly not humane to knock on people’s doors and require them to go absolutely immediately to a train or plane. Indeed, removal to a centre such as Yarl’s Wood, which has facilities, is sometimes the right procedure. The situation varies from case to case but we entirely accept that the procedure to be followed should be humane and in the interests of the family, and the children in particular.