Detention of Vulnerable Persons

Diane Abbott Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin]

What I am suggesting is that this Government will always raise that point. They will always say that. I am talking about people who have committed no crime. The Minister wants to talk about people who are in immigration detention because they have a criminal conviction; I am going to assume that they were sentenced, served a prison sentence and should be treated the same as any other prisoner. If they are a danger, they should not be out of prison. If they are not a danger, they should not be in detention.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

As one of the few people in the Chamber who was actually in the House when immigration detention as we know it was introduced, I have never forgotten that when we queried the lack of due process and safeguards we were told that people would only ever be in detention for a few months. The use of immigration detention has mushroomed, and the length of time has expanded, and that has shone a light on the lack of due process. We should never forget that none of these people, as matters stand, has committed a crime.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Absolutely. I could not agree more. I was not here at that time; I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I think, and very aware of the arguments being used.

I want to say a little about how we treat people with mental illness. Often they have an illness that did not exist or that lay dormant before they were detained, and the detention exacerbates it. I mentioned some of the organisations that have sent me information for today. One of them, Detention Action, helped Mishka to tell his story. This is what he said about being detained:

“I was detained with my twin brother. It was very difficult for us. We went in ok and we came out broken. The last three days before my brother was removed he tried to commit suicide two times. The first time, there was blood everywhere. The officers and nurses were so annoyed. They are thinking he is just trying to escape from removal. The nurse put a plaster on his wrists and took him to segregation.”

For goodness’ sake! Those are my words, not his. He continues:

“There he ripped a piece of metal off the wall to cut himself again. He was very, very vulnerable by the end. He was not the only one. There were many other people in bad states—mental and physical. There is more than one suicide attempt a day in detention now. All I know is that when suicide becomes normal—anywhere, ever—something has gone very, very wrong.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) on securing this really important debate on a subject that does not get enough public scrutiny.

In 1998, the Labour Government—my Labour Government—published a White Paper with the title “Fairer, Faster and Firmer—A Modern Approach to Immigration and Asylum”. That Labour Government had many great achievements to their credit but this White Paper, and the legislation and the actions pursuant to it, was not one of our finer moments. It was that White Paper, and the legislation that followed, that led to a flurry of new detention centres being opened, mostly under the private finance initiative—Oakington, Yarl’s Wood, Dungavel and Harmondsworth. That is how we went from fewer than 50 immigration detainees in 1988, mostly detained within the airports where they had come in, to the current figure of 3,000, with the number of people detained at one time or another during the year now exceeding 30,000.

It is important to remind the House that we were told initially that we should not worry about due process, human rights and fairness because the people would be held for only a few months, but there is now very little due process around immigration. That is why we are faced with exploding numbers and a situation that is hard to defend.

Stephen Shaw was asked to report on the detention of vulnerable persons, and he recommended a series of exemptions for vulnerable immigration detainees, including, as we have heard, for victims of rape and other sexual or gender-based violence such as female genital mutilation; for those with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder; for transsexual people; and for those with learning difficulties. He also called for a presumptive exclusion of pregnant women to be replaced by an absolute exclusion, and for the words, “which cannot be satisfactorily managed in detention” to be removed from the section of the guidance covering those suffering from serious mental illness.

I am interested in hearing from the Minister how far advanced we are in putting in place those exemptions recommended by Stephen Shaw, who the Government themselves asked to report on the detention of vulnerable persons.

We have seen the explosion in numbers. The hon. Member for Glasgow North East asked the question more than once: given that it is so expensive and there are so many human rights issues involved, why do we not examine cheaper and more effective methods of managing immigration detention, possibly in the community? I have followed this issue for my entire career as a Member of Parliament and I am afraid that, for me, the reason the Home Office seeks to cling to the notion of immigration detention is that it is seen as a deterrent. There is always a debate in immigration policy between push factors and pull factors, and the notion, certainly at the time, was that if individuals were detained in this way—quietly, contrary to any due process and with no consideration of their human rights—that would somehow deter people from seeking to come here as immigrants and asylum seekers. Of course, that has not proved to be the case.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East also talked about cost. The annual cost for one person is £34,000 and the total annual cost of detention is approximately £120 million. It is hard to believe that we could not spend that money on dealing with whatever immigration detention challenges we face more humanely, and in a way that reflected better on us as a country.

I have done a certain amount of work with Bail for Immigration Detainees and it has briefed me on some cases it has dealt with recently. Last week it won bail for a client who had spent 15 months in detention after serving a six-week prison sentence. How can that be proportionate? It also had a client held in detention in prison for almost a year, despite mental health problems and an outstanding appeal; and a male client, the sole carer of a child, who had a serious health condition and who was released on bail after nine months in detention. Another client spent 27 months in detention despite the fact that it would not be possible to remove them anyway and, finally, a client was released in January after spending two and a half years in detention, despite suffering from schizophrenia and, again, despite not being removable. Those cases are unacceptable, and I think that Members on both sides of the House want to hear what progress the Government are making towards living up to what the Shaw inquiry said.

Stephen Shaw also stated that there is little or no correlation between the number being held and those later deported, and that other methods, such as electronic tags, should be considered. He talked about mental health, which right hon. and hon. Members have spoken movingly about, and he also mentioned the number of cases in which the Home Office has breached article 3 of the European convention on human rights in respect of detainees.

I have always taken an interest in detention because of having been in Parliament when there was the explosion of detention that we now see. I am perturbed that, although I have been asking since November to visit Yarl’s Wood detention centre, we have yet to have a reply from Ministers. I remind the Minister, in case it has slipped his mind, that the chief inspector of prisons described Yarl’s Wood as a place of national concern. It was burned down three months after it was opened and there are current accusations of abuse, poor healthcare and inappropriate sexual contact. I put it to the Minister, therefore, that if four months after I first asked to visit he is not able to respond, people might ask what he has to hide.

In common with Members of all parties who have spoken in the Chamber today, I think it is time to address the long-running concerns about immigration detention—concerns that go back to the measures introduced in the ’90s by a Labour Government. I have talked about the role of the Labour Government because I do not approach the matter from a party political perspective. I have visited Campsfield, Oakington and Yarl’s Wood and, with the help of the Minister, I will visit Yarl’s Wood again. The conditions in which these people are held is a shame for this country. If people have a criminal record and should be deported at the end of their sentence, it is for the Home Office to organise itself so that they can be deported directly from prison. People should not be deprived of their liberty, with no due process, because the Home Office is chaotic in how it deals with people who have a recommendation of deportation when sentenced.

In common with other speakers this afternoon, I think we need to see an end to indefinite detention. I am glad that the numbers of detained children have fallen, but there are still 71 children entering detention, and that is 71 too many. Despite the fact that this subject does not excite the attention of the tabloid press and that Ministers might think there are not many votes in making immigration detention fairer and more humane, this is a long-running cause for concern. I hope that, decades after we introduced immigration detention at this level and on this scale, the Government will move to bring about some of the changes recommended by Stephen Shaw.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Minister, you may wish to allow a minute at the end for Anne McLaughlin to wind up.