Detention of Vulnerable Persons

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) on securing this debate, particularly as she has campaigned for many years for the rights of the very people who the UK Government choose to detain. She made a powerful and at times emotional speech.

I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), who asked some very pointed questions, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who used his Westminster Hall season ticket to give a very thoughtful speech this afternoon.

The Scottish National party has long opposed the UK Government’s approach to immigration detention, which is not only inhumane but ineffective and hugely expensive. It is inhumane because it allows the indefinite detention of vulnerable people without a time limit and children and pregnant women to be detained; it is ineffective because evidence confirms that the longer a person is detained, the less likely it is that their detention will result in removal; and it is expensive, as we are detaining far too many people at great cost to the taxpayer, many of whom are not removed in any event.

The SNP’s position on immigration detention is very straightforward: we oppose indefinite detention. We oppose an abhorrent policy that allows pregnant women and children to be detained in these environments; instead, we favour an alternative approach that treats people with respect and dignity, helping those in need but still enabling us to abide by our responsibilities. We also support the calls for immigration detention to be limited to 28 days and for it to be replaced with community-based solutions. We believe that detention should always be the last resort.

The UK is the only country in Europe that allows vulnerable people to be detained in prison-like detention centres for an indefinite period. The former director of Liberty, now Baroness Chakrabarti, has spoken about

“The scandal of limitless detention”.

She has explained how this inhumane practice was designed “unashamedly for administrative convenience” and said that it is

“one of the greatest stains on the UK’s human rights record…a colossal and pointless waste of both public funds and human life.”

The Home Office defends its inhumane approach to immigration detention by saying that detention can be used

“where there is a realistic prospect of removal within a reasonable period.”

However, that defence does not stand up to scrutiny. According to Government statistics, 7% of detainees have been detained for more than six months and in 2016 only 47% of those leaving detention in the UK were being removed from the UK. The figure for Dungavel detention centre is even more stark: a mere 23% of people leaving detention were being deported. However, those statistics do not reflect the true scale of detention in the UK; migrants detained in prisons by the Home Office rather than in immigration removal centres are arbitrarily excluded from them.

As we have already heard, in 2015, following a number of shocking stories that laid bare the toxic legacy of the UK Government’s present and past approach towards immigration detention, Stephen Shaw carried out a review of the welfare of vulnerable people who had been forcefully detained by the UK Government. My colleagues and others have spoken about this issue in great detail, but it is worth noting some of the Shaw report’s findings, which confirmed that the UK detained too many people and that detention was not an effective approach to removing people who do not have the appropriate right to live here.

The Government have appeared to accept many of Shaw’s recommendations; it is an indictment of them that, more than a year on from the report, the number of people spending more than two months in detention has actually increased. More than half the detainees across the UK and more than three quarters of those in Dungavel were released back into the community. If any other Government service or Department had that rate of failure, there would be demands for an urgent inquiry, to establish why so many people were being incorrectly detained and why so much public money was being wasted.

Those who defend the detention of innocent people in these prison-like environments suggest that the public generally support this policy. I can state firmly and with some authority that that is not the case in my constituency of Paisley and Renfrewshire North. Members might remember that, in an attempt to close Dungavel, the UK Government submitted a planning application to Renfrewshire Council for a short-term immigration detention centre to be built near Glasgow airport. That application was soundly and firmly rejected in a rare cross-party and cross-sector political and civic show of unity. Renfrewshire wanted no part in the UK Government’s inhumane, ineffective and expensive approach to immigration detention.

The Minister’s desire to build a short-stay detention centre in my constituency was put forward only to make it easier to deport vulnerable individuals from their homes. That shameful approach would have resulted in individuals being moved hundreds of miles away from their homes, their families and their legal advisers. Again, the application for the centre was put forward with little concern for the rights of asylum seekers.

On that point, I have recently contacted the Minister about one of my constituents, Jorge Kidane, who has been moved hundreds of miles away from his family to Brook House immigration removal centre in London, where he has been for seven months. My constituent is a Spanish national but has lived in Paisley for 16 years and wants to move back to Dungavel to be closer to his friends and family. I would be grateful if the Minister could treat this case as a matter of urgency, because Mr Kidane’s mental health is deteriorating severely.

I return to the issue of the detention centres themselves. In the response to me confirming that the UK Government had decided not to appeal the refusal of planning permission for a new centre in Renfrewshire, the Minister helpfully stated that the UK Government were reviewing the detention policy being used in Scotland. At first glance, that seemed a positive move and something that the SNP have long called for. We do not believe that the UK Government’s approach to immigration works for Scotland. We have continually called for immigration to be devolved, to allow Scotland to deliver a more flexible and humane immigration system that meets our own needs.

However, that review will be carried out away from the public eye, it will not consult widely with the public or experts, and its findings will not be published. The fact that the UK Government plan to review immigration detention away from the public gaze is telling, because the effectiveness of their approach is not and cannot be supported by evidence in any way whatever. The Government approach is flawed and ineffective. They should consult widely, listen to the views that have already been expressed in this place and beyond, and adopt a fairer and more humane approach to immigration detention—particularly the detention of some of the most vulnerable people in society.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East has said, Scottish Detainee Visitors carries out invaluable work. SDV staff have met people in detention who have serious physical health issues, including some people with scars that strongly support their claim to have been tortured. SDV staff have also met people in detention who are suffering from mental ill-health, including people with pre-existing serious mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia, and people whose mental health has deteriorated as a result of their indefinite detention.

The latest inspection report on Dungavel by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons highlighted concerns about the detention of vulnerable people, including a torture survivor and a women with a serious health condition. There are 14 bed spaces for women in Dungavel, compared with 235 bed spaces for men. In a film made by SDV, one woman who had been detained in Dungavel described her experience there as being like that of

“a chicken surrounded by dogs”.

Over the years that SDV has been visiting detainees, it has not been unusual for there to be just one or two women detained at the Dungavel centre. That is an isolating and potentially frightening experience, particularly in light of research by Women for Refugee Women showing that many detained women have historically suffered from gender-based violence.

The most recent inspection report on Dungavel noted that

“there were inevitable risks associated with holding women in a predominantly male population”

and that there were no specific policies focusing on this issue. That report recommended that

“a specific safer custody and safeguarding policy should be developed for women.”

I definitely support that call.

Regarding legal issues, wherever detained people are held, they are subject to frequent and arbitrary moves around the detention estate. Those moves are disruptive and disorientating for anyone who has been detained, but when the move is between Dungavel and centres in England the consequences can be particularly serious because of the differences between the legal systems in England and Scotland. A move to England often takes place just before an attempt is made to remove someone. It may not then be possible for a Scottish solicitor to make representations on a person’s behalf in England, and there may not be time to find an English solicitor to challenge a possibly unlawful removal.

As a country, we are better—much better—than the immigration policies that we have in place. Those policies do not stand up to scrutiny and are a blight on our human rights record. The UK Government should and have to use their power to reject this failed approach and replace it with one that treats people with respect and dignity.