Illegal Migration Bill

Apsana Begum Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Just when I think that I cannot be shocked any further by this Government’s inhumanity, they try to rush this abhorrent and unlawful Bill through Parliament. Human rights and legal organisations are calling this one of the most damaging Bills introduced by a British Government in living memory. That is because the Illegal Migration Bill amounts to a refugee ban. It breaches fundamental and internationally recognised human rights, and attacks our way of life and our communities all over the UK.

Let us be clear: persecuting refugees and anti-migrant scaremongering do not benefit the majority of people. The cynical and dangerous use of scapegoating to divide people by an unpopular Government who have overseen a horrifying death toll during the pandemic and continue to inflict hardship and suffering across the UK, damages our communities. We have already seen an alarming rise in violence and intimidation organised by the far right against refugees and refugee accommodation. But beyond the rhetoric, spin and fake news, the fundamental point is that most people in small boats are men, women and children escaping terror and bloodshed. Chillingly, it is a truth that the Government are obviously aware of, because the majority of people arriving in the UK via boats are granted asylum. They are creating a cruel mechanism to deny sanctuary to people who they know are legitimate refugees and in need.

Why are migrants being forced into risking their lives in the first place? It is simple: for many, there are no safe routes to the UK. In 2022, half the men, women and children who crossed the channel in small boats were from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan or Syria. We know the reasons that people from such countries are displaced, yet only 22 refugees came to the UK on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. How can that be true? Just recently, the Government confirmed that they do not intend to introduce any special visa routes for people in Turkey and Syria who have been affected by the earthquakes.

As the daughter of migrants who faced violence and persecution from the far right in east London, I am all too conscious of the consequences of pandering to racists. Whether it is the Bangladeshi community standing up and leading the anti-fascist fightback on Brick Lane following the murder of Altab Ali in 1978, or the Jewish community who came together in the battle of Cable Street in 1936 to stand up to Oswald Mosley, in east London we will never let our communities be divided or targeted. The Government should be saving lives, not salvaging their failing political record. We need an approach that prioritises people’s lives and dignity. We need safe and legal routes to the UK. We need the Bill thrown out of Parliament.

Illegal Migration Bill

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendments 131 to 134, which seek to strengthen the Illegal Migration Bill by preventing spurious claims—whatever they may be—being used to resist the removal of those arriving in Britain illegally. The amendments aim to close any potential loopholes that would limit the Bill’s effectiveness.

I have listened carefully to many thoughtful and technically excellent speeches from hon. Friends and hon. Members across the Committee for whom I have the greatest respect. I cannot match their legal expertise and detailed understanding of the legal complexities of the Bill, but I want to argue for the principle of strengthening the Bill, which I think the Government have accepted, to ensure that it is effective. It is essential that it be effective, because more than 40,000 people arriving illegally on small boats in a year is a serious safety issue, national security issue and economic issue, with £6 million a day being spent on hotels to house migrants. It is a crime issue, with many illegal immigrants engaging in illegal activity or being drawn into slavery and exploitation. It is also a sovereignty issue. Many ask: who is really in control of British borders—our elected Parliaments or foreign courts?

If the Bill does not work and does not result in the swift deportation of those who arrive here illegally, it will not have a deterrent effect and we will not stop the boats. The objective of the amendments is therefore to strengthen the legislation to significantly reduce the likelihood of unjustified legal challenges that use human rights legislation that was never meant to provide cover to international gangs.

I thank Ministers for their consideration of the intention of the amendments. Some of those who oppose them and the Bill will cite compassion. I wholeheartedly agree that those who are genuinely fleeing war and persecution deserve our compassion. Many should be—and are—offered a home here in the UK. Our compassion should be directed at those who are genuinely helpless and without agency—such as children—but not those who have a choice about whether they leave their home country, or those who choose to exploit others through international human trafficking.

In many ways, this debate epitomises the great argument of our times between those whose understanding of human rights is that anyone should, more or less, do whatever and go wherever they want, and those who believe that strong boundaries, firm rules and proportionate restrictions are essential for strong families, communities and nations. It is an argument between those who think that, as a wealthy country, we somehow have unlimited resources and who do not acknowledge that population growth over recent years has seriously limited and stretched our capacity, for example on housing, and those who realise that even though we are in a wealthy and fortunate position, there are serious limits on our resources.

Many of those who argue against strong borders and strong action against illegal immigration are not personally affected by illegal immigration. Their wages are not threatened by the black market economy, they do not rely on essential local resources that are taken up with housing migrants, their children are not sent to school with young men who are clearly not children, and their sense of agency and national identity does not rest on the integrity of our borders or the sovereignty of our Parliament.

For those whose lives and culture are not negatively impacted by thousands of people arriving here on small boats, it makes sense to argue for open borders in the name of compassion, but for many people, including many of my constituents, those are luxury beliefs. The reality is that high and clearly visible levels of illegal immigration are a threat to ordinary people’s safety, security, identity and sense of fair play. Believing in and upholding strong borders and firm boundaries is not uncompassionate or bigoted; it is a prerequisite for a fair, safe and cohesive nation.

Ultimately, when boundaries are not upheld or laws not enforced, it is always the vulnerable that suffer, as criminals exploit loopholes and drain much needed finite resources away from those in genuine need. [Interruption.] I will not give way because I have been given a five-minute limit by the Chair.

We all want genuine asylum seekers to be able to find safety here in the UK. As the Minister said, this country is surpassed by only three other nations in our acceptance of refugees from UNHCR schemes. But the exploitation of our borders and laws by those who are not in genuine need and, worse, by abhorrent international people-smuggling gangs is neither fair nor compassionate and it must end. A strengthened Illegal Migration Bill will deter people from making the treacherous journey in small boats, and give us the resources and focus to go after those safe and legal routes that everyone in the House agrees should be there.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I rise to speak against the Government clauses before the Committee today and in favour of several amendments that seek to limit their horror and inhumanity.

The changes made by clauses 37 to 48 to the legal and human rights of asylum seekers breach the UK’s human rights obligations. The proposed timescales and tests, combined with the lack of judicial oversight, build in unfairness and undermine access to justice. It is difficult to see how a vulnerable and traumatised person will be able to engage with the process, especially as the provisions do not set out any right to legal advice and representation.

That is one of the many reasons that I support new clause 26 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), which would require an equality impact assessment about how people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 will be impacted by the Bill. Indeed, protections for vulnerable people, pregnant women and children are being tossed aside in favour of new powers to indefinitely detain people at greater risk of harm, including survivors of torture, trafficking and modern slavery.

The new and sweeping powers of arbitrary detention are nothing short of spine chilling. The Bill will increase the number of people detained, while removing the bulk of the essential safeguards that were put in place to protect people, adding to the inherent harm caused by indefinite detention. That is despite the UK’s immigration detention system being plagued by mismanagement, profiteering by private companies and incidents of systemic and direct abuse and neglect, including the scandals reported at Brook House immigration removal centre, the Manston short-term holding facility, Harmondsworth IRC and many others.

What is the purpose of this sweeping and illegitimate restriction of people’s liberties? What is the crime that such individuals have committed to be treated worse than serious criminals and to have fewer rights? Today, this Government propose to punish people for seeking asylum. Not satisfied with that, they seek to ensure that those people cannot challenge this injustice—all essentially to deter anyone else from coming to the UK to seek sanctuary. They are literally planning to persecute the already persecuted.

Denying access to asylum on such a basis undermines the very purpose for which the refugee convention was established. The convention explicitly recognises that refugees may be compelled to enter a country of asylum irregularly. The United Nations Refugee Agency has said:

“Most people fleeing war and persecution are simply unable to access the required passports and visas. There are no safe and ‘legal’ routes available to them.”

The reality is that the UK offers safety to far fewer refugees per capita than the average European country, such as France or Germany, and to far fewer than the countries neighbouring those from which 70% of the refugees from the global south flee. That is why I support new clause 10 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), which sets out a requirement to introduce a safe passage visa scheme. She has spoken eloquently about the stories behind the numbers and statistics—the people with real lives, hopes and dreams.

If the Government seriously wanted to protect the lives at risk from small boat crossings, they would back more generous family reunification rights and support safe, functioning routes. Instead, the Bill is the latest in a long line of measures that form their hostile environment and the toxic, racist and xenophobic narrative that is taking hold in many parts of the world, based on fear and the manipulation of that fear. It is immoral, deeply cruel and divisive. It breaks international law, it crushes human rights and it is shameful.

[Tom Hunt]

I have waited for a very long time to speak on the Bill. On Second Reading, I think I waited for four hours but did not get called. I have waited for a good amount of time today, too, but it has only made me more determined to get my points across.

I did not sign any of the amendments before the Committee, but I have sympathy with many of them, particularly amendment 131 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), amendment 132 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), and amendments 133 and 134 in the name of my hon. Friend and very senior colleague the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). Although it might surprise some people, I have a little bit of sympathy with amendments 72 to 75 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), but I do not think that now—before we have sorted out the scourge of illegal immigration and its impact in this country—is the right time to pursue such amendments.

In a general sense, it will not surprise people to know that I welcome the Bill. We have 45,000 people a year entering the country illegally. They are mostly young men, as has been statistically proven; many are from safe-origin countries; and every single one of them has gone through France and multiple other safe European countries but has refused to claim asylum. They have decided to shop between different safe European countries, and they have come here. Being an economic migrant and moving to the UK because there are job opportunities here is a very noble dream, of course, but my advice to them is to engage with our legal migration points-based system, and we will make a determination as to whether their dream and our needs meet.

We are the party that believes in controlling our borders. We are the party that believes in strong border controls. Labour Members get incredibly sensitive whenever anybody suggests that they believe in open borders, but I simply say to them, “Show me the evidence. Show me the evidence that you believe in controlled immigration. Show me the evidence that you don’t believe in open borders. When I look at your record, every single thing you vote on is against precisely those things, so I don’t think it is unreasonable for me and colleagues to come to the conclusion that you are opposed to all border controls. As I say, show me the evidence.”

I turn to amendment 131. When the Rwanda policy was first introduced, a lot of us supported it because we saw what had happened in Australia. Australia had had a massive problem with illegal immigration, but it went down the route of offshore processing, and today it no longer has that massive problem. It is quite simple. A few Opposition Members are saying, “Australia did not work”, but we looked into this in detail and met Australian officials, and it did work. We think that going ahead with the Rwanda policy, if it were given a chance to work, would provide a significant deterrent. It would save lives at sea, and would enable us to operate the compassionate, controlled asylum system that virtually all of us in this place want.

Illegal Migration Bill

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am flattered by the idea of my good offices with the Government, and I will take that at face value—thank you very much indeed. I will speak to the Government about that, and I accept that we need to get that replacement made very quickly.

The most important point is that we need to think about exempting any victims exploited in the UK from the disapplication of modern slavery protections. There is a very good reason why that is the case. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead laid out clearly, if we do not do that, those who are affected will simply dismiss any idea of coming forward to give evidence, because they will fear that they will not be accepted and that they will therefore have to go. Many of them will not yet have given evidence to the police. The Bill suggests that the Secretary of State will be able to assess whether they have given evidence to the police, but this a longish process. This accounts for more than 60% of cases, and I really wish that the Government would think carefully about protecting them. I think the police will back us on this, because they want those people to give evidence.

The irony is that the more we help those people and the more they give evidence, the more traffickers we will catch and close down, which will probably result in fewer people coming across the channel on boats. This is all part of a circle of trust, identification and final prosecution, and it is really important. We should amend clause 21 to exempt victims exploited in the UK, and the new threshold for a positive reasonable grounds decision requiring objective evidence would prevent spurious claims. The whole point of this is to find a way.

I think we can agree on this. The work the UK has done on modern slavery, the evidence and all the rest of it, is now helping to prosecute the traffickers. If we lose that delicate flower of success, we will find ourselves in a worse position, with many more people being deliberately trafficked because we have become a soft touch on trafficking.

I fully understand why the Government are trying to deter the illegal use of these boats to cross the channel, both for people’s safety and because it puts huge, unnecessary pressure on services here, but I beg my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration to accommodate these concerns about modern slavery and to make sure that we do something in the Bill to protect these people in the long run.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I support the amendments on the rights of children, because the Bill punishes children just for being refugees and puts unaccompanied children at risk. There is not enough time to go through every clause, but I will highlight some of the many cruelties.

The measures before the Committee today not only abolish the protections afforded to children but allow unaccompanied children to be routinely detained beyond the 24-hour time limit, and to be detained anywhere the Secretary of State considers appropriate. Detaining children for prolonged periods is utterly unacceptable and poses serious risks to their health, safety and protection.

Clauses 2 to 10 will create a large and permanent population of people, including children with families and unaccompanied children, living in limbo for the rest of their lives. Clause 3 could see a child who arrives alone, fleeing war and persecution, being allowed to integrate into UK society, only to be forcibly removed from the UK as soon as they turn 18.

Clauses 15 to 20 give the Secretary of State a range of astonishingly far-reaching powers, including the power to terminate a child’s looked-after care status and the key legal protections provided by local authorities.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has raised these clauses. Having spoken to the Minister, I know he is keen to ensure that we have clarity on this issue so that when the Home Office provides appropriate accommodation for children, in addition to the other care and support required, we know what that means in practice. We also need to understand the justification and reasons for enabling the Home Secretary to remove a child from local authority care under the vice versa clause, clause 16. At the moment, the explanatory notes do not seem to give any reason why the power is needed.

[Apsana Begum]

I hope the Minister will address the hon. and learned Gentleman’s point.

There is an array of evidence on the significant harm facing unaccompanied children who are accommodated by the Home Office in hotels. For vulnerable children, this Bill denies refugee and human rights protections and recovery from trafficking, and it prolongs their fears and insecurity by denying them the reassurance that they have found safety.

This Government are not only targeting children. They are removing almost all protections for victims of modern slavery and trafficking who are targeted for removal. As such, I also support the amendments on equalities and human rights, including my new clause 20, because the Bill will be disastrous for disabled and LGBTQ+ children and adults. Women fleeing persecution will be prevented from claiming asylum and will be detained indefinitely, with no exemption for those who are pregnant. Indeed, clause 11 will enable the Home Secretary to enforce the indefinite detention of children and pregnant women in camps such as Manston on a statutory basis. That goes back to what was happening before 2016, when pregnant women were being detained for weeks on end, and in some cases months, with no idea when they would be released. This is utterly disgraceful.

How can it be right that people are to have their human rights ripped away because they are from a different place? Surely human rights are inalienable and universal. Persecuting some of the most vulnerable people fleeing torture, war or oppression during a climate of increasing anti-migrant hostility, with attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers and a growth in far-right activity, is cowardly and dangerous.

The Illegal Migration Bill will be marked for years to come as an extraordinary and chilling attack on our values and way of life. Not in my name. I oppose the Government’s clauses before the Committee today. I reject their purpose and principle in their entirety, because all human beings are born free and equal in dignity, and with rights. In the words of article 2 of the universal declaration of human rights:

“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs”.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendment 181, which appears in my name. I ask the Minister to think about my request over the coming days. I am not asking for a commitment now, and I will not seek to divide the Committee on this question.

The purpose of amendment 181 is to get an opinion from the European Commission for Democracy through Law, otherwise known as the Venice Commission, which is part of the Council of Europe. It consists of lawyers from across wider Europe, including the UK, and its individual members include professors of public and international law and supreme and constitutional court judges. The UK members are Mr Timothy Otty and Mr Murray Hunt, who are both competent lawyers.

The Venice Commission exists, in part, to comment on whether and how legislation, in either draft or final form, is compliant with the UK’s obligations as a party to the European convention on human rights. I have previously used its offices to comment on draft legislation before the Turkish Parliament. It can be quick. I believe the Turkish legislation took about a month to examine. France and Germany have also used the Venice Commission in reference to constitutional law. Incidentally, I am already negotiating hard with German socialists to stop a hostile motion being tabled against the UK.

How much better it would be to go to this organisation, as part of an international and multilateral community, than to be dragged there? I have ensured that any reference to the Venice Commission in my amendment does not hold up the Bill, as the amendment would come into force a month after the Bill’s enactment.

I understand from the Minister that he has consulted other countries on this legislation. How much fuller and more expansive would it be to use this vehicle, with its wider remit, to get an opinion—not a guarantee but an opinion—that would mean no one had to guess the chances of the Bill meeting the requirements of the convention? I cannot see the harm in using this vehicle to do that, and I am very happy to be involved in helping to facilitate a reference to the Venice Commission.

I ask the Minister to consider this proposal further in the days ahead, and I am fully available to discuss it with him.

Illegal Migration Bill

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The key element at the heart of the Bill is deterrence. We want to deter individuals, families or adults from going into these dinghies, putting themselves at the behest of people smugglers. Ultimately, that is the way that we protect children. If we allow this issue to escalate—that is not the intention of those who oppose the Bill, but it is the logical conclusion—it will simply see more children placed into these boats and we have to stop that. That is what we are setting out to do here. As my hon. Friend has raised the point, I would praise the authorities in Kent, which have gone above and beyond to support young people. I have recently visited the facilities there.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, and then I should make more progress.

[Apsana Begum]

Does the Minister agree that it is deeply harrowing to learn of pregnant women arriving in the UK on these boats and that perhaps they should be exempt from the provisions on removals in the Bill?

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not want to see pregnant women placed in a difficult or compromising position. The scheme is structured in such a way that a suspensive claim can be brought where there is serious or irreversible harm, which, in most cases, is physical harm, that would prevent an individual from being placed on a flight either back home to their own country, if it is a safe place, or to a safe third country like Rwanda. The usual fitness to fly procedures will apply. Therefore, a pregnant woman would not be placed on a flight to Rwanda or elsewhere unless it was safe to do so. There are long-standing conventions of practice on how we would make that judgment.

On the issue of detention of unaccompanied children, I understand the concerns that a number of hon. and right hon. Members have raised about the prolonged detention of children without the authority of a court. I thank those Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, for their very constructive engagement with us on that and other matters. As a result of those discussions, we have introduced Government amendments 134 and 136 to enable a time limit to be placed on the detention of an unaccompanied child where the detention is for the purposes of removal.

I acknowledge my hon. Friend’s and other hon. Members’ concerns—indeed I share them. I commit to working with him and others, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), with whom I have had a number of conversations, to set out the new timescale under which genuine children may be detained for the purposes of removal without the authority of the court and what appropriate support should be provided within detention, recognising the obligations under the Children Act 1989, an important piece of legislation.

I can also confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham and others that it is our intention that, where there is no age dispute, children are not detained for any longer than is absolutely necessary, with particular regard to the risk of absconding and suffering significant harm. I trust that those amendments and commitments will assuage the concerns that he raised in Committee and that he will not feel the need to press his amendment 138 on this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

That is what we put in the Immigration Act 2014 with the then Immigration Minister, now the Transport Secretary. What has changed between 2014 and 2023 that means apparently we have to detain children indefinitely? We need timescales in the Bill, as we had in 2014. I appreciate there are practical problems about age verification for those who are challenged. We may have to have a two-tier system, but certainly those children who are recognised generally as children should not be locked up in detention centres and Home Office facilities, and that has to be made absolutely clear when this Bill goes to the Lords.

We also need to know how and where the Government plan to accommodate those children once identified. The accommodation does not exist at the moment, and the Government have only a few months to magic it up if we want to get this legislation through in a matter of months. I share the Children’s Commissioner’s concerns. She said:

“The Bill is unclear on what the state of the accommodation will be for children while awaiting transfer to local authority care or removal from the country…What regulations will be in place for Home Office provided accommodation? If the accommodation is regulated which body will inspect them?”

There are a lot of questions to be asked. We are taking the assurances from the Minister on trust. We will not continue with a lack of detail when the Bill gets to the Lords, but for the moment we will not force it, because I trust the Minister to do the right thing before the Bill goes through its final stages.

[Apsana Begum]

I rise to speak to a range of amendments and new clauses seeking to protect people from the attacks on basic human dignity that are before the House today. I am supporting new clauses in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) about the ongoing human rights breaches that migrants endure, which have been happening for some time, but today I shall focus on how the legislation treats those who are pregnant, because not only will the Bill persecute and imprison people fleeing torture, war and oppression, but it will put the health of some of the most vulnerable of them—pregnant women—and the life of their unborn children at risk. That is why I have tabled new clause 2 seeking to exempt pregnant women and girls from provisions about removals. My new clause 3 seeks to require an independent review of the effect of the provision on pregnant migrants, and my new clause 7 is about a review of the effect of the measures on the health of migrants.

I am also supporting related amendments to prevent an immigration officer’s and the Secretary of State’s detention powers from being used to detain unaccompanied children, families with dependent children, or pregnant women, as tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson).

In order to cut through the dehumanising othering that too often plagues debates on migration—I note the awful nature of the comments made earlier today in response to the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) about the dental testing of young migrants, which I find dehumanising and an othering of different communities—I would like to draw the House’s attention to a real-life example to illustrate the human reality of what is being debated today.

Najma Ahmadi and her family fled from the Taliban and made 20 attempts to cross into Greece from Turkey—20 attempts. On two occasions, Najma nearly drowned, once while pregnant with her baby daughter. She finally arrived in the UK last July on a boat, her terrified one-year-old baby girl clutched against her. Najma and her family were entitled to asylum, which was granted last December, but we must not forget those pregnant women escaping persecution who have died seeking refuge. For example, Yohanna, an Eritrean woman thought to be about 20 years old, who gave birth as she drowned alongside many others, when the boat she was travelling on, trying to get to safety, capsized. And there are many other women who remain unnamed.

These women are not criminals, but this Government are proposing today to treat them worse than criminals, despite knowing that such women are in fact victims of foreign policy failures and the simple, indisputable fact that there were no safe routes for them. They are fleeing countries such as Afghanistan, which has barely had a mention today. As I said during the previous stage of the Bill, as of last month, 22 people had been granted asylum through the Afghanistan resettlement scheme. If that figure has changed, I would be more than happy for the Minister to address it in his closing remarks, but that is such a small number—unless of course the Government have changed tack and do not think there are women trying to escape the Taliban in Afghanistan and believe that they do not deserve safe routes through which to escape.

Not only will the Government refuse sanctuary to those who survive these horrors, but clause 11 will enable the Home Secretary to condemn them to indefinite detention. The Bill will therefore see migrant women who should have finally escaped persecution facing pregnancy and birth alone, without adequate medical support and with the fear of potential separation from their baby.

There is a wealth of information and evidence that the imprisonment of any pregnant women is wrong. We know that pregnant women in prison are almost twice as likely to give birth prematurely and are five times more likely to experience a stillbirth. Yet pregnant refugees are to be placed in circumstances worse than the already inhumane situation of pregnant women in UK prisons such as Manston, where there are outbreaks of illness and disease, reports of assaults and drug use by guards, and which last year was estimated to be detaining thousands of people arriving in Britain via small boats, some for as long as 40 days or more. No one should be detained in such places, never mind those who are pregnant.

The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Midwives, and Maternity Action have all raised that healthcare in immigration detention is often very poor. In 2014, some 99 women were locked up in Serco-run Yarl’s Wood detention centre while pregnant, and research by Medical Justice found they often missed antenatal appointments—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. The hon. Lady is out of time. I call David Simmonds.