Draft Immigration Act 2016 (Consequential Amendments) (Biometrics and Legal Aid) Regulations 2017

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 General Committees

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Davies. Illustrious—you’ll have people talking about us.

The Minister will be aware that the amendment we are discussing could well have been included in the body of the 2016 Act, and the fact that we are discussing it today indicates that the Act was prepared in haste. We need to be cautious that that haste is not replicated. We are concerned that legal representatives for bail applications were unaware that the proposed commencement date of the immigration bail provision was 30 April 2017 until they received revised bail forms on 4 April. Charitable organisations working with those on temporary admission, and indeed Members of this House, were left to find out about these changes at third hand.

The term “immigration bail” stigmatises an individual as a criminal, when in reality many on immigration bail are asylum seekers. The terminology risks fuelling hatred and xenophobia, which was arguably the cause of the recent, very vicious attack on a young man in Croydon.

The light in this dark tunnel is that with the new immigration bail provisions will come an automatic judicial review for detainees, in the form of a bail hearing every four months. We need to ensure that those brought before an immigration judge for the lawfulness of their detention receive the appropriate consideration, because getting it wrong is a high price to pay.

The adults at risk guidance brought in as a result of the 2016 Act was intended to increase protection from wrongful detention for those at particular risk, such as survivors of torture and trafficking, and those with mental and physical health problems. Instead, it has been more difficult for those people to secure release. In order to ameliorate the situation, the courts were forced to issue an injunction to require the Home Office to revert to the more inclusive definition of torture used in the old guidance. That is a direct challenge to the restrictive definition used in the new guidance, which means that most survivors of torture are at risk of detention.

We have already seen two fatalities in immigration detention this year: a 27-year-old Polish man was found dead in January—the day after his wife gave birth to their child—and at the beginning of April a 44-year-old man died at the Verne immigration detention centre. I urge the Minister to review the adults at risk policy and lay more proactive guidance before Parliament.

With regard to legal aid, I ask the Minister to place on the parliamentary record the statement in the explanatory memorandum that there is

“no change in policy… The policy intention is that legal aid availability will be maintained as before, ensuring that there is no effective change to the availability of legal aid when the Schedule 10 provisions are commenced and the existing powers repealed.”

It is imperative that the Government’s review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, scheduled to commence this year, examines legal aid for those deprived of their liberty. There is legal aid for challenges to immigration detention, but without dealing with the merits of the immigration case it may be difficult to secure release, and there is no legal aid for immigration cases. For those detained in the prison estate, even a challenge to detention may be out of reach in practice.

As of September 2016, 558 prisoners were held under Immigration Act powers in prisons. In February 2017, the charity Bail for Immigration Detainees published “Mind the Gap: Immigration Advice for Detainees in Prison”, which found that less than a quarter of immigration detainees surveyed in prison have access to an immigration solicitor. That situation must be addressed.

Although Opposition Members will cautiously support the Government today, we ask that the issues I have raised receive the appropriate attention and scrutiny they deserve.