Detention of Vulnerable Persons
Debate between Andrew Smith and Anne McLaughlin(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Anne McLaughlin
I echo that call and hope that the Minister will respond to it. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has fought long and hard for this woman who is fortunate to have her, but so unfortunate to be in the situation she is in—it is so wrong.
Mr Smith
The hon. Lady is being very generous. I congratulate her on the debate and agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has just said. On medical conditions, does the hon. Lady agree that the issue is not simply mental health conditions? I would cite the example that I was told about of someone with an urgent arthritic condition, who, rather than being given medical treatment in Campsfield House IRC, was put on a bus to central Oxford, where a taxi driver who spoke his language got him to Asylum Welcome, and an ambulance had to be called. Do we not need urgent re-evaluation and attention to the medical guidance?
Anne McLaughlin
Absolutely. As I said, my personal experience of the Minister for Immigration is that he listens. He cannot be expected to know absolutely everything less than a year into the job. I hope that he will respond to that intervention and do as the right hon. Gentleman asks.
Immigration detention attacks and destroys the soul—it is soul-destroying. As many of the groups have told me—some of their members are here today—“If you are not particularly vulnerable when you enter detention, it makes you vulnerable.” And there are alternatives that work. That is the ridiculous thing. The Government agreed to look into the alternatives, but they have not done so yet, and I think they still need convincing. However, before I attempt to do that, let me look at what we all agree on: the recommendations—or some of the recommendations—of the Shaw review that the Government agreed to.
Most hon. Members will be aware that the review was published in January 2016. Its remit was to “review the appropriateness” of
“policies and practices concerning the welfare of those who have been placed in detention”.
Shaw begins his conclusion with a comment that hints at the frustration felt by many of the organisations that have worked on this issue over the years. He says:
“Most of those who have looked dispassionately at immigration detention have come to similar conclusions: there is too much detention; detention is not a particularly effective means of ensuring that those with no right to remain do in fact leave the UK; and many practices and processes associated with detention are in urgent need of reform.”
Mr Shaw’s 64 recommendations include a number that focus on vulnerable people. To their credit, the Government have made a bit of progress with some of the recommendations, but when dealing with a system as fundamentally flawed as the detention system, and working with people who are so vulnerable, there has to be both an urgency to the improvements and a recognition by Government that a handful of adjustments are just not enough.
I obviously do not have time to detail everything today—there were 64 recommendations—but I hope that other Members will talk about the particular issues for stateless people, pregnant women and transgender people, among others. Shaw called for the definition of vulnerable persons to be extended. He said that the presumption against detention should also apply to victims of rape and sexual violence, to those with post-traumatic stress disorder, to transsexual people and to those with learning difficulties, and he rightly includes people who have suffered female genital mutilation in those groups.
Many of the recommendations are said to be addressed by the introduction of the adults at risk policy, which is apparently intended to better identify and lead to the release of vulnerable people. But so far there is no indication that, despite those intentions, the policy is actually having that effect. Aspects of the policy are subject to litigation. Medical Justice and a number of other non-governmental organisations have raised concerns that instead of increasing protections for vulnerable people, the policy does the opposite—including by narrowing the definition of torture so that less vulnerable people will not be identified as torture survivors and protected. The policy states that survivors of sexual and gender-based violence should not be detained, but there is no proper mechanism for identifying them and no mechanism for monitoring whether they are being identified. Will the Minister agree today to introduce such mechanisms and, if so, when can we expect that to happen?
Recommendations 62 and 63 encourage the Home Office to further consider ways of strengthening the legal safeguards against excessive length of detention, and to investigate the development of alternatives to detention. Shaw, in turn, was influenced by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who said:
“Pragmatically, no empirical evidence is available to give credence to the assumption that the threat of being detained deters irregular migration, or more specifically, discourages persons from seeking asylum.”
However, Shaw did note a broad consensus on the damaging effects of both lengthy detention and the threat of it, stating:
“The indefinite nature of detention was almost universally raised as making people more vulnerable and for its impact on mental health. There was strong support for a time limit for detention, starting at 28 days.”