Immigration (Detention of Pregnant Women)

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this debate and to call for the ending of the detention of pregnant women for immigration purposes. In making my case, I want to challenge my hon. Friend the Minister on the numbers; on the efficacy of current Government policy; and on the ethics of the Government’s policies on the detention of pregnant women for immigration purposes. However, in those challenges, I want to encourage him in making the change; it is an achievable change in the context of the Government’s policies to reduce immigration. Such a change will say more about the morality of the Government and the country and our handling of our immigration policies than any other change within his control as Minister for Immigration.

I am motivated in introducing the debate because I believe profoundly that there is no incompatibility between effective control and limited numbers, and the standards of our behaviour and how we treat people caught in the historical mess of the UK immigration system. I am motivated because of the excellence of the Medical Justice report, “Expecting Change”, which, for the first time, pulls together information that can provide a clear picture of the reality of the situation for pregnant women in detention in the UK.

I am also motivated by news that has come to me today from Yarl’s Wood Befrienders—Yarl’s Wood is a detention centre for women just outside Bedford—that directly contradicts the Government’s stated policy on the detention of pregnant women. Today, a lady who was 28 weeks’ pregnant was released from Yarl’s Wood after six weeks’ detention. That detention was in complete contradiction of the current UK Border Agency policy on the detention of pregnant women. I will point out the reasons for that discrepancy.

This debate is core because of the consequences of the disastrous open-door immigration policies pursued under the previous Labour Government, and the efforts of this coalition Government to deal with them. This debate is often held in the context of people talking about statistics and numbers, or the effectiveness of current Government policies to deal with that open-door policy. It is right that we have a debate about the number of people allowed into this country, the growth of our population and whether public services can manage. That is exactly right; we should be doing that. Equally, it is right that we talk about the efficiency and effectiveness of our border controls, so that we can hear the Minister—as he did yesterday so admirably—explain how we are managing to improve the situation and get our borders under control.

We must also ensure, however, that we do not lose sight of the individual people caught up in this bureaucratic mess, and its impact on them and their children. The Government recognised that when they ended the policy of detaining children for immigration purposes. That was the right thing to do: it was right from the point of view of effectiveness and right from the point of view of morality. It is important that we recognise morality in our immigration policies. Imprisoning children was not only ineffective; it was morally wrong. It should not be seen as just an inconvenience of bureaucratic policy.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He makes a compelling case that, in practice, when it comes to pregnant women, the policy of not detaining is not enforced. Is he aware that the same is true of children, who are also being detained at present, despite Government policy to the contrary?

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I am sure she would want to welcome the changes the Government have made after the previous Government’s policies on detaining children. There are always things that need to be done to improve policies. The issue here is this: how are our bureaucratic systems harming children, whether they have been born or are being carried by pregnant women?

The report produced by Medical Justice provides the most effective understanding of the current situation for pregnant women, and is why 334 organisations and charities support its recommendation to end the detention of pregnant women. I would also like to point out to the Minister that that position is supported by the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists—the experts in this field. They have set a challenge for the Minister. Ahead of his response, I want to explain that challenge.

Let me start with some statistics. Every year, about 27,000 people are detained for immigration purposes, of whom 4,000 are women. Of those, approximately 100 are pregnant women. One hundred women—that is what this debate is all about. In the grand picture of immigration control, that number barely registers, but in an assessment of what type of people we are, and how we manage and care for those 100 women and the children they are carrying, it matters a great deal.

The reason for detaining pregnant women is to achieve their removal. Home Office policy states that:

“Pregnant women should not normally be detained. The exceptions to this general rule are where removal is imminent and medical advice does not suggest confinement before the due removal date.”

However, the stated policy is not, in my view, and according to the evidence that I have been given, being implemented in practice. In practice, pregnant women are not being detained in exceptional circumstances only. This concern has been raised by Medical Justice and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons, and the pregnant women are not detained for periods of time that would match any description of what an imminent removal would be.

It concerned me that the UK Border Agency was not collecting information on the detention of pregnant women, so questions could not be answered about whether policy was being followed. With no information, how are we to understand whether this important policy relating to vulnerable people is being pursued correctly? I asked Medical Justice to review the 20 cases in its report. It found that the average detention period was 11 weeks, and that in four of the 20 cases the women were detained for 20 weeks or more. By no stretch can that be described as pursuing the stated policy of the UK Border Agency.

A trimester ago, I asked the Minister to ask the UK Border Agency to check its facts. I appreciate his response, but I would like to ask him again today, because collecting information is so important. Does he know how many pregnant women are currently in detention? Can he advise the House what the detention period has been for each of those women and for all other pregnant women detained in the past 12 months? Is he satisfied that the procedures for identifying pregnant women and applying the UK Border Agency’s policies are being implemented fairly? Only 5% of pregnant women who are detained are deported, with 95% released back into the community. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister could confirm those numbers. If he can, what is his assessment of their implications for the efficacy of the UK Border Agency’s policy? Spending more than £700 a week to keep a pregnant woman in detention when we are going to release her, compared with spending £150 a week to keep that lady in the community with people who can support her, is the complete opposite of an efficient and effective policy.

There is another issue: our ethics. In my view, a pregnant woman who is in detention is vulnerable almost by definition. The circumstances that led her to that position will already be associated with heightened vulnerability. She might have been seeking asylum or she might have been trafficked. She might have been left on the streets and made vulnerable in terms of accessing housing, which might then have made her vulnerable to the actions and motivations of people who wanted to provide her with housing. Then, while she is pregnant, she is put in prison—we can use the language of “detention centres” all we like, but it is a prison. That tells us something about how we are treating people.

It seems utterly wrong to ignore the moral and ethical arguments. I am concerned about the response of the UK Border Agency when ethical issues are presented. Let me present two ethical differences and concerns of mine. The first concerns the use of force to remove a pregnant woman, which has now been resolved. In 2012, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons said:

“Force should never be used to effect the removal of pregnant women or…children.”

However, only in February 2013, and only after a High Court case, did the Government yield on that point. I do not understand the ethics of that. That leads to another question. If we have accepted that force cannot be used in the removal—as we have heard, only five out of 100 women are removed—why detain pregnant women at all?

The second ethical question relates to the medical guidelines for pregnant women who are deported to countries with a high risk of malaria. That issue was given particular focus in Medical Justice’s report. The NHS guidelines for British citizens are quite clear: “If you’re pregnant, do not travel to a country with a high risk of malaria.” However, the UK Border Agency guidelines say: “It’s okay to go, but take your tablets”—have pill, will travel. Why the double standard? It is important that the Minister is clear. Do we want to treat the health of those who have come here in that way—I understand that they are here illegally—differently when we deport them to other countries, or do we think that the United Kingdom Government should take the same approach in their treatment of all pregnant women? If he accepts that point, which I hope he does, he must accept it as another strike against the ethics and morality of detaining pregnant women for immigration purposes.

I am no expert on pregnancy and the issues that may arise. The Minister may have more understanding than me—you yourself may have more, Mr Speaker—but I am sure we would all yield to the experts on this issue. Let me quote the director for midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives:

“The very process of being detained interrupts a woman’s fundamental human right to access maternity care. The detention system makes it very difficult for midwives to put women at the centre of their care. We believe that the treatment of pregnant asylum seekers in detention is governed by outmoded and outdated practices that shame us all.”

The previous Government lost control of our immigration system. That has led to major concerns around the country about immigration levels, and this Government are rightly focusing on reducing them and ensuring that we control our borders. However, I urge the Minister to recognise that it is morally wrong for a bureaucracy to act wilfully to harm a child’s prospects when there are superior alternatives available that would reduce or eliminate any such harm. Those alternatives exist.

I urge my hon. Friend to listen to the experts who understand the care of pregnant women, to understand the facts—which we have and he does not—as they are presented, to consider that the ethics involved here are the same as those that motivated this Government to end the detention of children, and to end now the detention of pregnant women for immigration purposes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I do not agree with my hon. Friend, for this reason. The use of statistics was mentioned, but we do not collect statistics on this matter because women are not, of course, obliged to tell the Home Office whether they are pregnant. They may tell us, and if they do, the information will be held on their individual case file and they will be provided with appropriate health care, broadly comparable to what is available from an NHS general practitioner. The women are under no obligation to tell us, and I do not think forcing them to disclose the information would be right. That is an issue about the statistics.

Making decisions about the imminence of removal is clearly based on our best intelligence, but as we know, the people who have no right to be in the United Kingdom and who should leave the country voluntarily often throw all sorts of legal obstacles in the way. We may detain a woman when removal is imminent and she may attempt to secure a last-minute legal challenge to throw a roadblock in the way of her removal, and we have no way of anticipating that before she does so. That provides my hon. Friend with an example.

If we were to do what my hon. Friend suggested and have a blanket policy of not detaining women, first, having read many cases, I fear we would find quite a lot of people saying they were pregnant as another method of delaying their departure from the UK. I have seen people throw many obstacles in the way when they have no right to be here, and I do not want this to be one of them. We are committed to treating pregnant women properly, providing proper health care and treating them well. I do not want this to be an excuse that women who are not pregnant dream up in order to throw a legal obstacle in the way. I fear that that would be the result of adopting the blanket policy suggested by my hon. Friend.

A logical follow-on policy from what my hon. Friend suggests would mean not removing the women from the UK when they were pregnant and allowing them to give birth to their child, but then seeking to remove both the woman and the very young child from the UK to their home country or country of origin—and I am not sure that that would be an improvement. If I anticipate correctly, if we did that, we would then be criticised for trying to remove the mother with her very young child back to their country of origin. As I say, I am not sure that that would be an improvement on the present situation, because the fact remains that these women have no right to be in the UK: they should not be here and they should leave voluntarily. [Interruption.] I cannot quite tell whether the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) is dying to intervene.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I was squeaking—the Minister is right—because I cannot believe that someone is going to get pregnant in order not to be detained. Secondly, it is quite easy to find out whether someone is pregnant, so that bit of the Minister’s excuse proves his hon. Friend’s very powerful argument that this is a moral case. I fear that I hear in the Minister’s response a kind of Home Office “jobsworthness”, which I think he should be above and is usually above.

[Mr Harper]

I am not going to let the hon. Lady put words into my mouth. I did not say—I chose my words very carefully—that women would get pregnant; I said women would say they were pregnant in order to throw a legal challenge. I know it is perfectly easy to test whether women are pregnant, but we do not have the right to do that. The Home Office does not have the right to insist that a women disclose that she is pregnant. We do not have the right forcibly to test people to see whether they are pregnant. If I were to propose that, I doubt whether the hon. Lady would support it. To be clear, I did not say that people would get pregnant; I said that they would say they were to throw a legal obstacle in the way of their removal from the country. I have seen enough cases—and I know the hon. Lady has—to know that there are people who would stoop to doing that to delay their removal from the UK.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

However, the Home Office could easily say, “We will release you if you provide evidence of pregnancy.”

[Mr Harper]

That may be the case, but our objective is not to let the people out of detention, but to remove them from the UK. That it is the point, and it is one I think my hon. Friend is missing, too. The fact is that these women have no right to be in the UK and should leave. I am not sure that a policy that allowed them stay in order to give birth to their child, when we would immediately want to remove both the woman and the child from the UK, would be a better policy than the one we have today.