Immigration Detention: Brook House Inquiry

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will stick to the question at hand, and will happily provide some statistics on the number of people in immigration detention as of 30 September last year. That number was 1,841, including those detained solely under immigration powers in prisons. That was 11% lower than at the end of September 2022, when there were 2,077 people in detention. I think that those numbers are encouraging and heading in the right direction.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, another of the inquiry’s findings was that vulnerable people in detention are not being afforded the appropriate protections that the safeguards recommended by Stephen Shaw are designed to provide, because of their dysfunctional operation. The latest report of the independent monitoring boards and new clinical evidence from Medical Justice—a core participant in the inquiry—show that the safeguards are still failing, including not identifying people at risk of self-harm or suicide, with serious and sometimes tragic consequences for mental and physical health. What steps are the Government therefore taking, as a matter of urgency, to ensure a more consistent and robust application of the safeguards, as called for in the inquiry report?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I have said, the detailed recommendations remain under review, but a lot of these issues were dealt with in response to Stephen Shaw’s report of 2016, which was then updated in 2018.