Immigration Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for highlighting this issue, which we consider carefully. I assure her that we will continue to look at those specific issues as we develop implementation of the policy. Important steps forward have been taken on the healthcare linkages at Yarl’s Wood and in the Bedfordshire healthcare system so that appropriate care and support is provided to pregnant women. I will reflect further on what she has said, particularly on her additional points about transportation.

I was pleased that the amendment to put the adults at risk policy on a statutory footing was accepted in the other place. However, on Third Reading it was amended further by the addition of a subsection placing an absolute exclusion on the detention of pregnant women. The Government do not agree that there should be an outright exclusion of pregnant women from detention. We must retain the ability to detain in certain limited circumstances—for example, where a pregnant woman who does not have the right to enter the UK is identified at the border and can be returned quickly, or where a pregnant woman presents a public risk or has a poor compliance history and the safe and most manageable way forward is a short period of detention prior to removal.

For some time now, I have listened carefully to concerns on the issue of detaining pregnant women pending removal. We had a wide-ranging Backbench Business Committee debate a few months back, and I have listened carefully to the representations made by my hon. Friends the Members for Bedford and for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden. Hon. Members will have noted that the Government’s written ministerial statement of 18 April has clearly set out our position on the detention of pregnant women. The Government have tabled a motion that will place a statutory time limit, broadly in line with that for families with children, which will end the routine detention of pregnant women. It would mean that pregnant women may be detained for up to 72 hours, for example, immediately prior to a managed return; to prevent illegal entry at the border where a return can be quickly arranged; or if a pregnant woman presents a public risk. There would be the ability to extend this up to a maximum of seven days in total in particular circumstances, but only on the basis of ministerial approval.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is important that we are very clear about whom we are detaining, particularly when it comes to detaining pregnant women. We know that the vast majority of people in Yarl’s Wood are victims of rape and sexual torture, and they come to us for sanctuary. The Minister talks about carrying out a review, but will he explicitly consider whether being a victim or a suspected victim of rape and sexual torture can be grounds for denying detention? It is the 21st century, and it is humiliating and not cost effective for us as a nation that we lock these women up, rather than set them free.

[James Brokenshire]

It is important to recognise that the majority of people in our immigration removal centres are not asylum seekers; some people will claim asylum when they have been taken into an IRC. The point the hon. Lady makes about vulnerability is powerful and important, which was why we commissioned Stephen Shaw to make the recommendations he did on these matters of vulnerability. I hope she will see when we publish the adults at risk strategy and those various points that weigh the relevant factors that we are taking precisely those elements into account and that the presumption should not be to detain unless there are overwhelming factors that support detention and mean it is appropriate. I ask her to hold fire perhaps until she sees that policy, and I look forward to engaging with her further once she has had that opportunity.

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The amendment to allow asylum seekers unrestricted access to the labour market after six months would completely undermine the current system and the measures in the Bill. Last year, I visited the refugee camp in Calais with my hon. Friends the Members for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) and for Gravesham (Mr Holloway). I spoke with a number of young people who wanted to come to the UK. They told me that they were coming to the UK to work and even told me exactly who they would be working for. However, they would be working illegally. In my mind, therefore, a move to allow asylum seekers unrestricted access to work would do nothing but encourage more young vulnerable adults or minors to come to the UK.

[Stella Creasy]

When I was first elected, an Opposition Member told me that there were two divisions in the House of Commons: one between left and right; and one between those who, as a matter of course in their constituency, have to deal with the UK Border Agency and those who do not. The hon. Lady is making a very compelling argument about some of the problems in our immigration and asylum system. Why then does she wish to penalise the young vulnerable people she talks about by not supporting them tonight and by not saying that the problems she identifies are to do with politicians? Let us not penalise these young people. Let us stand with them tonight and get our act together.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I am a constituency MP and I represent the people of Rochester and Strood. I have had a lot of representations, over an extended period of time, about what people have seen in my constituency and across the county of Kent. I represent what a large proportion of people in my constituency believe on this matter.

To allow asylum seekers unrestricted access to our labour market after six months would encourage more young men to make their way to the camps and make the perilous journey across the channel. Personally, I do not want to support that or be a party to it.

I am sure my hon. Friends will say I have spoken enough already, but I would just like to say that I believe the Bill, as it stands and as I saw it in Committee, is right. I think it is a great step forward for the Government. It addresses what many people in this country have identified as issues and concerns for them. I will therefore be supporting the Government this evening.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

With a degree of prescience, my right hon. and learned Friend refers to the very next issue that I will address in my speech. I was going to point out that I know some right hon. and hon. Members have scrutinised the language in the Bill and have raised exactly that issue. I want to be absolutely clear: under the Bill, it will be for the judicial commissioner to decide the nature and extent of the scrutiny that he or she wishes to apply. Crucially, I can reassure right hon. and hon. Members that commissioners will have access to all the material put to the Secretary of State. The judicial commissioner will look not just at the process, but at the necessity and proportionality of the proposed warrant.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Mrs May]

If I may, I want to make a little more progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I have to say to my right hon. and learned Friend that that will not be the case. The point is that it is important that the Secretary of State and the judicial commissioner make decisions on the basis of the same information being available to both of them. If the judicial commissioner decides that there is not enough information available, he or she would presumably refuse the warrant. It would be open to the Secretary of State to appeal to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner to look at the warrant again, or if the warrant is refused in such a circumstance, the Secretary of State might themselves say, “Take the warrant back, put in more information and resubmit it.”

[Stella Creasy]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the Home Secretary give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I will come on to talk about the bulk warrants, but it was clear from the Committee reports that the powers in the Bill are necessary. The ISC raised a question about the bulk equipment interception warrants, but, following that, the Government have produced further information on all bulk cases. We published some case studies and examples of how the powers would be used alongside the redrafted Bill.

[Stella Creasy]

rose—

[Mrs May]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, who has been persistent.

[Stella Creasy]

May I take the Home Secretary to the other end of the telescope, as it were, on this matter? One of the concerns people have about a general access point is not about the warrants, but about the notion that, especially online, we can separate contact and content data. The idea is to allow access to contact data, but that will inevitably be blurred with content data online. Does she accept that there is a challenge in separating contact and content data, which could give rise to some people’s concerns about general access to information? Looking at somebody’s internet correspondence is not the same as looking at a record of their phone calls.

[Mrs May]

I know that that issue was raised when the draft Data Communications Bill was considered and has been raised in relation to the internet connection records power in this Bill, but such a separation is absolutely possible. We have talked at length with companies about being able to separate, for internet connection records, the websites that a particular device has accessed from the content of whatever has been looked at. It is very important for me to make it clear that when we talk about ICRs, we are talking not about looking at people’s web-browsing history, but about looking simply at the initial point of contact.

In relation to the authorisation process, which we have discussed in relation to the questions asked by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), I welcome the Joint Committee’s clear endorsement of the double lock regime and, specifically, the language of the Bill on that point. Right hon. and hon. Members who think that the senior judiciary will simply rubber-stamp Government decisions have clearly never dealt with British judges.

In the case of urgent warrants, the provisions have been tightened in response to the pre-legislative scrutiny.

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[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

A comment often made to explain why political events go on for so long is that, although everything that needs to be said has been said, not everybody has yet said it. In the spirit of trying to offer something different to this debate, I want to speak as a member of the Science and Technology Committee, which we might call Parliament’s geek squad, and raise a third set of concerns about the Bill as it currently stands.

Members have already talked about proportionality and people’s concerns about the balance between security and liberty, about the challenges of extra-jurisdictional legislation and whether, in a global world, we can pass national laws that make sense. I want to add concerns about the technical aspects of the Bill and, frankly, about whether it will work. Is this legislation designed for digital natives who are comfortable with the modern world, or has it in fact been designed by what we might call digital refugees—people who run away from the reality of the modern technical advances with which we are trying to deal?

All of us have had the experience of trying to explain to a person aged under 20 that, no, we could not google our homework when we were at school. Many of us may have jumpers that are older than the internet, which has fundamentally changed our lives. In this country, a third of all divorces contain a reference to Facebook, a technology that came into our lives only in 2007, but has fundamentally transformed that most personal of relationships. When we come to thinking about legislation that takes account of modern technologies and the ways in which they change, such legislation must be based on an understanding of those technologies and of the consequences of such changes to the law.

With that in mind, it was when the Committee looked at the question of surveillance, especially internet connection records, that concerns arose. Concerns arose in particular about the idea that, as the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) said, a dragnet could be used to bring together internet connection records for every single member of the British population for 12 months, and about what that might entail.

There is a fundamental challenge at the heart of the Bill about the idea that it is possible to separate somebody’s contact data from their content data. Many internet companies have made that point and said that they are concerned about such a definition. As yet, the legislation has not completely grappled with that definition. The Bill makes a distinction between identifying IP addresses and being able to know whom people have contacted, and what it calls anything else that

“might reasonably be considered to be the meaning…of the communication”.

That definition makes sense when we are talking about phone records, but the legislation has to cope with the world to come, not the world that has gone. If I send a message through Outlook, others do not need to know the content of the message to know that it is a request for a meeting. When we talk about knowing which websites people have visited, that of course brings with it content analogies: if I visit the Refuge website or the Alcohol Concern website, that is contact data, but because it is online contact, by its very nature it carries content information.

I very much welcome the shadow Home Secretary’s comments about our needing to challenge such definitions. We need a much tighter definition of what it means to have an internet connection record and of what information is held as part of that record. All three of the Committees that have looked at the legislation have called for that. However, to date, we have not heard from the Government an understanding that in the modern world the distinction between content and contact is not viable. The distinction between entity and events, and everything else, must be much tighter in the Bill. If it is not, the question of who can access that information bleeds into the question of who can access the meaning of those content combinations.

Such questions will become starker as the internet develops, and particularly with the internet of things—I see that a few digital refugees on the Government Benches, and perhaps even some Labour Members, are querying what the internet of things is. It is the growing number of physical objects that are connected online. This Christmas I was given a coffeemaker that I can set off using my mobile phone, and it is wonderful to sit in bed and order several cups of coffee. So far, we have online airbags in cars, online burglar alarms, and some Members might even set their home electricity online. All those forms of contact are created through online mediums. We will soon have pacemakers that are electronically set up. People will be able to access their bank accounts in the same way. All such contact is potentially information that could be created in an internet communication record. It could also be useful in an investigation.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

With the internet connection record, we are looking for a past history for a future crime. If someone is investigating a child abuser or a terrorist, is it not relevant to see their past records and whether they have accessed sites with relevant material? We would be able to see that from contact information.

[Stella Creasy]

I am not quite sure about the hon. Gentleman’s point because no one is suggesting that we would not want to access such information. My point is that, from a technical perspective, separating contact data from content data is much more difficult than the Home Secretary suggests. That means that we need more honesty about the powers we are proposing that our police and investigatory authorities should have.

For example, if someone can get information about my use of an electricity meter, they might want to look at the contact between me and that meter. If I were accessing it a lot, they might wonder what I was doing in my home that required so much heat. Drug enforcement agencies might look at such contact patterns, and inevitably that brings with it content about what someone is doing. That does not mean that we do not need methods to access that information; it means that one thing missing from this debate to date is an honesty about the technological complications that will come with this Bill, and we must address those concerns.

[The Minister for Security (Mr John Hayes)]

Perhaps I can reassure the hon. Lady. The Home Secretary emphasised that we continue to have discussions with the providers for exactly the reasons she has described. It is essential that they can do what we oblige them to do, and we are determined to put those mechanisms in place. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) gave the game away because he said that repeatedly, over time, security services and the police have requested the ability to carry out such work, for the simple reason that they need to do that in order to protect us all.

[Stella Creasy]

I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging that the idea that one can always separate contact from content data is not viable. We need a much more honest debate about who will be able to access that information and under what circumstances. I hope that that will be discussed in Committee, because as the Bill is currently drafted, we cannot justify to our constituents the fact that their content data may be accessed—however inadvertently—because of the nature of technology. We must address that.

Let me move on to the question of honesty about encryption. A lot of technology companies and the technology industry in our economy are concerned about how the Bill may affect encryption. The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to serve technical capability notices, and to require companies to remove their electronic protection. Again, it is not yet clear what that means, what protection exists in terms of encryption technologies, and what that might mean for other consumers of services. That is a real concern for many.

We know that encryption is a vital part of security for services. Constituents will mention Ashley Madison and TalkTalk, or they may be aware of hospitals that did not have security measures in place and had their systems hacked. We are talking about whether the Government will require those companies to bring in those backdoor opportunities for accessing information. We need much stronger scrutiny of the Bill and of what the encryption process means, not least because removing some of the encryption requirements would create a security risk. The Government are making that choice in return for the ability to do some of the things they are talking about doing, and we need to be honest with the public about that.

There is also a question relating to the security of data. In 2009, the Conservatives made great play of turning back the “surveillance state”, but it seems to me that they are seeking to privatise the databases they told us they did not want to see developed. The Bill asks companies to hold the data, but the security of that data is not clear. We know that having to hold everybody’s internet records for a whole year will be a honeypot to hackers. That will be a massive security risk unless security processes are in place—even if data are held by private companies. The fact that the Government have not clarified who will pay for that security, what a reasonable cost is and how to resolve disputes about what a reasonable cost will be, leaves open a gap that not just hackers but consumers will be deeply interested in. The Government must be much clearer about how they will make sure they protect consumers from having their information hacked as a result of requiring companies to gather data.

There are similar concerns about bulk interference and encryption data, but my central point is this: there are questions about the proportionality and the judicial extent of the Bill and working overseas, but there are also concerns about technology. We have to be able to answer questions on all three issues to be satisfied that the Bill is appropriate for the 21st century. I hope those issues will be addressed by amendments in Committee. I believe that many members of the Science and Technology Committee share concerns about whether our technology industry is comfortable with the proposed legislation.

For the Government to fail to act on any one of those questions will compromise the others. If we do not get the technology right and do not work with our overseas partners, we will not keep anybody safe. We could, in fact, create more problems. I hope Ministers will listen to those concerns and I hope they will recognise the spirit of what they said in 2009 about the importance of rolling back the surveillance state. I also hope they will be digital natives, not digital refugees. I will not support the Bill on Third Reading if they do not change it.

Healthcare: Yarl’s Wood

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) for securing the debate. For me, as for her and for the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), this is a powerfully emotive subject. It is a debate about pride and shame.

I am proud to be the Member for Walthamstow. When I was elected, the then Member for Blackburn told me that there were two divides in the House: between left and right; and between those who have to deal with the UK Border Agency and those who do not. That was a pretty accurate description.

I am also proud to be a member of the Set Her Free campaign and to work with Women for Refugee Women—some of those women live in my community and I have been proud to campaign with them about Yarl’s Wood. Set Her Free is above all about giving voice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton did so eloquently, to those women detained at Yarl’s Wood now and whose voices we cannot hear unless others speak out for them. We are here today to speak out for those 2,000 women, the majority of whom we know to be the victims of rape and sexual torture and of persecution in their own countries. Yet when they come to our shores, this is how we treat them.

The healthcare problems are only the pinnacle of the injustice that Yarl’s Wood represents in our community. Many of the detainees have mental as well as physical healthcare problems: one in five has tried to kill themselves and 40% of them self-harm. Those figures come from the valiant work done by Women for Refugee Women to hold us to account for the existence of Yarl’s Wood. That work was cruelly disbelieved by the Home Office, so the report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons showing a tripling in the number of women self-harming in Yarl’s Wood should be testament to the work done by Women for Refugee Women to uncover just what the truth is about such a place in our society here in Britain in 2016.

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend is making a passionate and excellent speech. Will she join me in underlining that when there is no statutory limit on the period of detention those mental health issues such as the self-harming become worse?

[Stella Creasy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for saying that, because she brings me to exactly what shames me. I feel shame about what is happening today in our country. I am ashamed that the UK is the only European country with no limit on detention, which absolutely compounds the mental health distress felt by many of those in Yarl’s Wood. I am ashamed that the HMIP report also reveals that male members of staff are supervising women on suicide watch—as Women for Refugee Women warned us was happening. What does that mean in layman’s terms? Vulnerable women are being watched as they sleep or as they use the lavatory. How is that happening in our country, on our shores?

I am also ashamed that all of that is futile, because two thirds of the women whom we lock up in Yarl’s Wood are then set free and, as Members have talked about, 90% of the pregnant women are set free. What is the point of putting them through that torture? I am ashamed, because it is not even value for money. As the right hon. Member for Meriden pointed out, it costs us £40,000 a year to hold those women in detention. We could find much cheaper, much more humane and much more dignified ways in which to manage our asylum system.

Above all, I am ashamed that we do not hear the voices of those women. I therefore want to read directly from their testament. The right hon. Member for Meriden cited a case, but I will read from the account of a woman who was not pregnant. The best way in which to guarantee the healthcare of women in Yarl’s Wood is to close the place down altogether. Let me read this out:

“When I came to England I was destitute, I was homeless. I went to Croydon to the Home Office to explain my situation. Before I could say anything, the lady said to me, you are lying. I said, God knows if I am lying…Then they took me to a room. Nobody told me they were taking me to detention. A lady said to me, they are taking you to another immigration office. They put me in handcuffs. I did not know what was going on. Since I was born I had never left my country before. They put me in the van and took me to Yarl’s Wood. They searched me. I wasn’t able to ask what was going on, because I was too scared of them. Nobody told me what was going on. They said, you are in fast track, but I didn’t know what that was.

While I was in detention, I was seriously sick, I was dying. My body collapsed. There were times when I could not walk. They took me to healthcare, they said you must eat, but I couldn’t eat the food. I was skinny, I was dying.”

This is 2016. We have had such debates for a number of years. It is not cost-effective, moral or effective in the modern world to have somewhere such as Yarl’s Wood in Britain. It should shame us all that it is happening on our shores. I ask the Minister, please, set her free.

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[The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. May I congratulate the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) at the outset on securing this debate and on her contribution? I know that she feels strongly about this subject and has been committed to it over a period of time and since she has been in the House. I know how deeply she feels about these issues, as her contribution showed. I am genuinely grateful for the manner in which she has approached this debate.

As the hon. Lady indicated, one of the first things I did following the general election and my reappointment as the Immigration Minister was to visit Yarl’s Wood, recognising a number of the issues raised about the centre, and I specifically visited the healthcare centre at that time. I can certainly assure her and other Members of our focus on this issue and, indeed, the importance that the Home Secretary and I attach to the dignity and welfare of those in detention. That is of the utmost importance, and we take those responsibilities extremely seriously. I hope to talk about some of the generalities of the policy, to focus on Yarl’s Wood specifically and to address rule 35 access to independent medical examinations, as well as some of the other points flagged up, in the time available to me.

Our policy is that vulnerable people should not normally be detained under immigration powers. Our processes are designed generally to prevent vulnerable individuals from being detained unless there are very exceptional circumstances and, when vulnerability emerges after the point of initial detention, we aim to act quickly and appropriately.

Reference has been made to the Shaw review. Indeed, the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) highlighted it in his contribution. The Home Secretary commissioned Stephen Shaw to carry out an independent review of welfare in detention—that is, in immigration removal centres, in short-term holding facilities and for detainees under escort. The review considered many of the issues discussed in today’s debate. Mr Shaw was asked to look at current systems and policies, including those in place for identifying vulnerability, managing both the mental and physical health of detainees, providing welfare support, preventing self-harm and self-inflicted death, assessing risk, managing food and fluid refusal, and safeguarding. We have received Mr Shaw’s report and, as I indicated on Report of the Immigration Bill, it is our intention to publish both the report and our response to it before Committee consideration of the Bill in the House of Lords. That remains our intention.

[Stella Creasy]

Will the Minister give way?

[James Brokenshire]

I was just about to address the detention issues raised by the hon. Lady, as well as those raised by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) referred to fast track in her contribution. I underline that I made the decision to suspend detained fast track—in other words, where an asylum case is being considered—because I was not satisfied with the safeguarding provisions around vulnerability. I will reintroduce it only when I am satisfied that appropriate processes and procedures are in place to ensure its safe reintroduction.

[Stella Creasy]

Will the Minister confirm whether, when the Government respond to the Shaw report, there will be clarity as to whether they consider women who are victims of rape and sexual torture—that is, two thirds of the residents of Yarl’s Wood—to be vulnerable in and of themselves, and therefore inappropriate for detention?

[James Brokenshire]

I will be careful not to pre-empt the Government’s response, but the hon. Lady will not have long to wait for the Shaw report. I recognise the importance attached to it. Indeed, the Home Secretary commissioned the report because of the importance we attach to it. My comments today will be based on the position as it stands, but the Government will have more to say on these issues shortly.

Counter-terrorism

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Importantly, we have enhanced the resources going into our security and intelligence agencies. He of course has a particular interest in GCHQ, given his constituency. The work being done there is very important, not just because of the information and intelligence that might be helpful in counter-terrorism, but because of what is done there to counter the cyber-security threat we face.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many people in Waltham Forest are extremely shocked at the possibility that someone who lived in our community could be involved in atrocities. They would want me to make it clear that we do not consider that he represents either our community or Islam, and we condemn utterly his ideals and actions. However, the Home Secretary will also be aware that there are growing concerns that innocent individuals and families may be unfairly caught up in the activities necessary to keep our country safe. Will she meet me and other MPs representing those UK citizens who have been denied the right to travel to discuss their experiences and how we can reassure them that efforts to tackle terrorism are based on good intelligence and effective partnership, not prejudice?

[Mrs May]

First of all, I thank the hon. Lady for the remarks she made about Waltham Forest in her constituency and her constituents’ condemnation of the barbaric activities of Daesh and anybody involved in them.

The hon. Lady asks me about the whole question of those who have been denied the opportunity to travel through the exercise of the royal prerogative. If she wishes to bring up particular cases, I am sure that the Minister for Security will be happy to meet her. But I have to say to her that on the one hand her party’s Front Benchers are encouraging us to exercise greater powers and make greater use of the power to prevent people from travelling while she is indicating concern about it. They ought to get their story straight.

Immigration Detention

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I very much agree with him. That was a feature of the evidence we received. Addressing that issue is important to ensure justice and speed in processing applications, which is in the interests of everybody.

I mentioned poor working in the consideration of cases, and the representation we heard from the prisons inspectorate suggested that, in one quarter of the cases it had looked at, prolonged detention was the result of inefficient case working. Therefore, having a time limit is not simply about justice and humanity; it is about ensuring a focus in the system and changing the culture. Medical experts also told us that the sense of being in limbo—the sense of hopelessness and despair—leads to deteriorating mental health. One expert from the Helen Bamber Foundation told us that those detained for more than 30 days had significantly higher mental health problems.

Although they are called immigration removal centres, we found that most people who leave detention do so for reasons other than being removed from the UK. That is an important point. According to the latest immigration statistics, more than half the detainees released are released back into the country, so this is not just about the impact on those detained; it is also about cost and the good use of public money. It costs some £36,000 a year to detain somebody for 12 months, so a huge amount of taxpayers’ money is being spent on detaining people who we will eventually release into the UK anyway.

Our central recommendation is for a maximum time limit set in statute, not simply to right the wrong of indefinite definition, but to change the culture endemic in the system. We settled on 28 days, not only because it reflects best practice from other countries, but because it is workable for the Home Office, given that in the first three quarters of 2014 only 37% of people were detained for longer. It also reflects the evidence of the mental health impact on those detained for more than a month. We also recommended that decisions to detain should meet the aims of the Home Office’s own guidance—that is, taken more sparingly and only genuinely as a last resort to effect removal. Deprivation of liberty should not be a decision taken lightly, nor should it be taken arbitrarily. Currently, decisions are taken by relatively junior Home Office officials, with no automatic judicial oversight. With no time limit, it has become too easy for people to be detained for months on end, with no meaningful way of challenging their continued detention.

The introduction of a time limit and the reduction in the reliance on detention would represent a significant change. In order to detain fewer people for shorter periods, the Government will need to introduce a much wider range of community-based alternatives. In our report, we give a number of examples of those alternatives, from places as different as the United States and Australia, which is often cited as an example because of its tough immigration system, as well as Sweden, which we visited in the course of the inquiry. These alternatives allow people to remain in communities while their cases are resolved, including when making arrangements to leave the country. These alternatives are not only more humane, but cost less and have a higher compliance level.

There is a UK precedent. When the coalition Government committed to reducing the number of children detained, they introduced a family returns process, which the House of Commons Library described as designed

“to encourage refused families to comply with instructions to depart from the UK at an earlier stage, such as by giving them more control over the circumstances of their departure.”

It worked. There has been a dramatic fall in the number of children detained, and the Home Office’s own evaluation of the scheme found that most families complied with the process—with no increase in absconding.

There are a number of other recommendations in the report; others will refer to them, but let me briefly cover them. We recommend that pregnant women and victims of rape and sexual violence should never be detained, and that the shocking harassment and abuse experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex detainees must be addressed.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend on securing this very important debate. Will he join me in putting on the record his thanks for the work done by Women for Refugee Women to uncover some of these problems in Yarl’s Wood—often against blanket denials from the Home Office that these problems are happening?

[Paul Blomfield]

I will indeed, and I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I understand that some of the representatives are here today, which is welcome. I hope to meet them after the debate.

We echo the call of the chief inspector of prisons to allow detainees more freedom when it comes to internet access, which was needlessly denied in many cases. We hope that the Shaw review will look at our concerns about the treatment of individuals with mental health problems and of vulnerable detainees for whom detention is clearly not suitable.

Our central recommendation, as I say, is for a statutory limit on detention—not simply because it is more just and more humane, but because it would be less expensive and more effective in securing compliance. Moreover, this unanimous recommendation stands in line with the practice of the majority of countries with which we would compare ourselves, and with the views of most experts in this country who have looked at the issue. We hope that the House will agree that the Government should positively consider our report and take up our recommendations.

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[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

In my first speech to the House as a Member of Parliament, I said that I wanted to be able to speak on behalf of those whose voices were small and might not be heard. In this debate, I want to speak up on behalf of the women who are detained at the Yarl’s Wood removal centre, which is on the outskirts of my constituency. Those women have to deal every day with a sense of despair, a sense of uncertainty about their future and, most crushingly, a sense of disbelief about all the encounters that they have, because from the point of view of the state they have no right to be here.

It was inspirational of Sarah Teather to set up this inquiry, and I am so grateful to her for the work that she put into it and for enabling me to be part of the review that we are debating today. In my view, it is also a great benefit to us that the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire) is responsible for immigration issues, including detention. It is fair to say that he has inherited a mess when it comes to the use of detention. This goes all the way back to the 1970s, when the process of administrative detention was put in place. That led to a massive growth in the detention estate and introduced the principle of indefinite detention, and has led us to incarcerating children again. Those are the results of the way in which policy on the detention of people who have no right to be here has evolved over the past 30 or 40 years, and it is entirely correct that Parliament, ahead of any Home Office review, should express a demand for change by the Government.

We know that the current system is a mess not only because the Home Office is undertaking a review of the extension of the detention estate but because it has set up the Shaw review of the healthcare and wellbeing of people in the detention system. One of the administrators of the system, Serco, is carrying out its own review under Kate Lampard into the role of immigration detention and the quality of the services provided to the people in Yarl’s Wood. Her Majesty’s inspector of prisons has said that Yarl’s Wood is a place of “national concern” and the independent monitoring board of the detention estate has expressed concern not just about the practice of immigration detention but about the policy, which is the direct responsibility of this Government.

It is almost beyond question that the current process of immigration detention is costly, ineffective and too often unjust for too many of the people involved. How on earth can I justify to my taxpayers the expenditure of £100 a night to incarcerate someone in a prison, only then to put them back where they came from in the first place? How can the Minister defend a policy that results in 50% of the people who are put into detention centres being put straight back into the community rather than being removed? Why on earth will he not take the advice of the all-party parliamentary groups and look into the proposed alternative case management systems, which would offer a lower-cost solution for the taxpayer?

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman and I have shared a platform before to express our concerns about Yarl’s Wood. The fact that two thirds of the women in Yarl’s Wood are released back into the community demonstrates the futility of that place. Does he agree that it is time to move on and close it down?

[Richard Fuller]

Absolutely: it is time to close down Yarl’s Wood. I say that not just because it would be a satisfactory end to the policy, but because it would be an emblem, a sign, that this Minister has decided that it is time to call an end to the extensive use of immigration detention. Closing Yarl’s Wood is exactly what we should do.

Refugee Crisis in Europe

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holloway]

I myself wonder how many people have not drowned because of those policies, but, again, we shall have to differ.

We must return those who are not entitled to claim asylum to their countries of origin, and—as we heard from the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford—try to find mechanisms to help the very, very large numbers of refugees in the region. We must consider establishing migration centres in safe places outside the EU, or possibly within it, for those who are rescued or those who have arrived. I believe that, in the jargon, that is called “extraterritorial processing”. In 2003, the Labour Government presented their idea for “transit processing centres”. Those proposing such an offshore asylum strategy could also learn from what the Australians have done in Papua New Guinea.

There are millions of genuine refugees from Syria alone, plus millions of economic migrants from numerous countries, whom we must discourage, and those are not numbers that it will to be possible to accommodate through dispersal within Europe. Besides, Syria needs a regional solution; relocating people away from the region does not offer the long-term approach that it requires.

At some stage, we shall have to realise that big boys’ toys—that drones, lean men with unseasonal suntans and Viking moustaches, and fast jets—do not end wars. What ends wars, ultimately, is working on the politics, and sometimes that means going into partnership with some pretty unpleasant people. However, that is for another debate.

Let me say this in conclusion—Members will be relieved to hear that. If we do not act to break the link between a journey and a right to remain, millions of migrants may arrive on European soil over the next couple of years alone. Today, if we keep sending people in poorer or less stable countries the message that once they are picked up by the Royal Navy, or walk into Hungary, or reach a Greek island, they will have a ticket to a whole new life in Europe there and then, ever-growing numbers will come. Wouldn't you?

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman’s argument seems to be predicated on the idea that the fact that Australia has said no to boatloads of people has had the effect of stopping people going. Is he aware of the number of people who are continuing to drown while trying to get to Australia? Is there not just a vague possibility that the boats are not a pull factor, and that it is the need to flee for their lives that is making people take this risk? Operation Mare Nostrum was stopped in the Mediterranean because there was an idea that doing so would somehow stop people coming, but that simply was not true. People are dying and fighting for their lives; surely they deserve our protection.

[Mr Holloway]

They absolutely deserve our protection, and that is where I am coming from in this debate. We have to be hard-nosed and realistic. It is all very well to try to make oneself feel better, but we must do what is sustainable, moral and right in the long term.

Unless the message gets through to people in these countries, we are inviting hundreds of millions to seek a better life in Europe and Britain. Either we are a nation state or we are not. Either we are able to be serious about helping the many millions who are affected, or we are not. We should decide who comes into our country, not the German Government, and not the people smugglers. The message needs to be much clearer, or the drownings and the chaos will go on.

I completely understand the sentiments of those, here and in my constituency, who are demanding that something be done. We must do the right thing for the long term, in order to prevent the tides of death many of which we will never see in a newspaper. We need to resist the temptation to do what makes us feel better, and start coming up with some proper ideas that could solve the problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is sobering to realise that one in every 122 people in the world is a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) might be surprised to learn that they are not just coming from Syria. People face political persecution in Pakistan and in Iran. Those coming to us today from Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe are not a new phenomenon—the Huguenots, the Jews, the Ugandan Asians, the Vietnamese boat people and the Kosovans came before them. Every generation faces those who meet the test of being people who are

“outside their country and cannot return owing to a well-founded fear of persecution”.

[Jim Shannon]

One of the greatest groups of people persecuted across the world includes those of a Christian denomination or religious view. Does the hon. Lady accept that many of those who are trying to escape Syria have been given the ultimatum of convert or die? In other words, they are being asked to give up their Christianity and their beliefs. We need to respond to that welfare need, too.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman raises the point about the well-founded fear, but my point is that every generation faces the test that the 1951 convention sets us. When a person comes to us and says, “I am in danger, will you help me?”, how we answer defines us as much as it defines their future. As the hon. Member for Gravesham said, it is a moral question. When we signed the convention in 1951, nobody could have predicted the situation that we are in now, but the fact that we could not predict it does not absolve us of the responsibility to answer the question. We are not absolved when the people fleeing the murderous intent of ISIL ask, “Will you help?” Our answer should be yes. When people are fleeing sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, will you help? Yes. When people are fleeing the repressive regime of Robert Mugabe, will you help? Yes. When people are fleeing civil war in Sudan and Eritrea, will you help? Yes. How we answer says as much about us as it does about them, so when we quibble about numbers and qualify them by saying that we will take 20,000 but over a number of years, or perhaps that we will take not 20,000 but up to 20,000—

[Mr Holloway]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I will give way very quickly, and only once.

[Mr Holloway]

So rather than quibbling, will the hon. Lady tell me how many people we should be taking in her constituency and for how long?

[Stella Creasy]

I shall come on to talk about Walthamstow and am happy to invite the hon. Gentleman, who need not come under cover, to see the welcome that we give to people in Walthamstow. It is not easy, but we do it because it says something about us as a country and a community that when people are at risk we answer the call. When the people of Germany have answered the call to the tune of 800,000, when the people of Sweden have answered the call by taking eight per 1,000 of population, that challenges us all in the UK.

Let us look at the camps, because the Government are specifying that we should take people from the camps alone. When we consider the figure of 800,000 taken by Germany, it is sobering to realise that Lebanon has taken more than 1.1 million people in a country of 4.5 million.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Stella Creasy]

I am sorry, but I have taken a number of interventions.

Turkey has taken 1.9 million people. If we think that taking 20,000 over five years is big, we do not understand our own history or the scale of the challenge. The UK has taken just 1% of the world’s refugees. What does that say about us?

I know that answering that question is not easy, because we have answered it in Walthamstow. It is not an easy challenge to accept people and be able to integrate them. I am proud of the way that people in Walthamstow have responded to the situation in Calais. Many have gone there themselves with goods to help support people and show their solidarity. I am proud that that is not a one-off—we have set up our own migrant welcoming centre. Walthamstow means welcome; it is what we do in my community.

I know that it is a hard question to answer when the voices of the persecuted are sometimes quiet and vulnerable, by comparison with the other voices we hear, such as the headlines that say, “Halt the asylum tide now”, “Draw a red line under immigration or else” or “The swarm on our streets”, or calls for deployment of the Army against the people that the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) has accepted may well be fleeing persecution. It is hard to hear their voices. We should also understand the consequences of not hearing their voices. We cut the funding for Operation Mare Nostrum, thinking that somehow that would stop the boats. The boats came anyway, and the lorries are still running.

Let us think about the people whose lives we have not been able to save, and of the contribution that they would have made to our world. Think of the men who might fail school exams or lose jobs and who we will not give visas to—men like Einstein, or the father of Steve Jobs. The people fleeing persecution have so much to contribute to our world, so when we answer the question “Will you help?” with a yes, we do everybody a benefit. Think of the doctors, engineers, writers and lawyers currently in those camps.

It is not the thought of life in Britain that is the pull factor. It is not the £35 a week we give people. It is not the misery of dealing with UK Border Force, or the threat that even if you are a victim of sexual violence we will lock you up in Yarl’s Wood. The pull factor is staying alive. The pull factor is being able to give your children the possibility of adolescence. That is why people are making that choice. There is no speech we can make here, no threat we can make to those boats and no lesson we can learn from Australia that will override the enduring wish of every parent to give their child that kind of future.

If we do not hear those voices, the question is not about them; it is about us. The problem is not refugees or migrants; the problem is politicians not doing their job. It is our job to ensure that the benefits of migration are equally distributed in this country. It is our job to ensure that we help those people who are fleeing persecution, and that is what we should do. Let us not be the problem; let us be the solution. If we can take 20,000 and there are 20,000 now, let us take the 20,000 now. Let us not quibble or qualify that; let us take them now. The Government accept that we can house these people, so let us do it now. Let us not make it an either-or with our European neighbours; let us help all those people. If we want to stop the boats and lorries, that is what we must do.

I want to make a final plea to the Home Secretary. Save the Children is putting out a charity single that has been set up by Caitlin Moran, Pete Paphides and Mat Whitecross. Will the Home Secretary please join me in calling for the VAT on that charity single to be waived so that the money can be used to help the refugees? The single is called “Help is Coming”. Let that be the message that comes from the House of Commons today, not the quibbling, quantifying and denying. Let us send the message that help really is coming.