Immigration Detention

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this vital debate.

Every year, approximately 2,000 women seeking asylum in the UK are detained, many at Yarl’s Wood detention centre near Bedford. The majority of those women have survived traumatic life events such as rape, domestic violence and threats of abuse, and many have been psychologically affected. Being locked up or detained can be particularly distressing and counter-productive, forcing some to relive their traumas.

Some 40% of those women who were interviewed recently admitted that they had self-harmed and 20% admitted to having attempting suicide. In a recent report, the chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, said:

“Yarl’s Wood is rightly a place of national concern.”

The inspectorate found that about half the women who were in detention centres pending an asylum decision felt unsafe. Worryingly, the report detailed that since the previous inspection, the treatment and condition of those held had deteriorated significantly.

One woman said:

“I felt so upset and frightened because I was arrested and locked up and tortured back home. I have scars on my feet and arms where I was beaten by police and guards and so the situation and male guards in Yarl’s Wood made me feel extremely frightened…it feels like being locked up in prison back home.”

Women have alluded to significant breaches of privacy while being held, including allegations of sexual harassment and violations of dignity. Female staffing levels are also considered to be inadequate.

The parliamentary inquiry recommended a mandatory 28-day limit on all immigration detention. Referring to cases involving women, it called for gender-specific rules for detention. It stated that there should be no detention of pregnant women or survivors of rape and sexual abuse. The current Home Office policy stipulates that pregnant women should be detained only in the most exceptional of circumstances, but in 2014, 99 pregnant women were held at Yarl’s Wood alone.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is suspicious that when I visited two women at Yarl’s Wood this summer, both of whom had suffered exactly what she is outlining, they were released that day? Does she agree that the reason might be that the Government do not want too much scrutiny of what is going on at that centre?

[Paula Sherriff]

I absolutely agree with those comments.

Detention is a costly exercise at about £40,000 a year. The comparative cost of maintaining those seeking asylum in the community is significantly cheaper. There is significant evidence that the detention of asylum seekers is expensive, unnecessary and unjust. There is a clear appetite across the House for a change in culture and I look forward to seeing real progress on this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I have been exceptionally moved by all the stories I have heard since I joined the debate from Committee, but the story told by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) in particular highlighted some of the effects of detention suffered by young men. However, I want to focus very much on the detention of women.

As I said, I visited Yarl’s Wood detention centre in August, completely freely—I was allowed to go because I did not ask the Government whether I could go, but had arranged to visit residents with a refugee women’s organisation. I went to see an individual who had been detained there and then deported and who, when she returned, was detained there again. When I arrived, I was told that I was not allowed to see her because she had been released—which I was utterly delighted by, to be perfectly honest. I then made a request to visit another inmate. When I was talking to her, I found out a few startling things about the place and about her case.

The woman had been there for four months—long beyond any 28-day period. She had come from Nigeria, seeking asylum due to her sexuality—she told me a horrific story, which does not bear repeating, about why she had to come here. When she arrived, brought here by somebody she trusted, she was kept in a cellar in London for two years and repeatedly raped by men who had paid to have sex with her. This woman is a victim of human trafficking. As somebody with some expertise in this field, I asked her why she had not qualified for the national referral mechanism for human trafficking, which would certainly not have detained her, but given her a 60-day reflection period, along with benefits and support. She said that two inconsistencies in her story meant that she was not believed to be a victim of trafficking and, because she had known the person who brought her here, she had not qualified.

I have met lots of victims in my life, many from this country. Let us imagine having to give evidence—to tell the same story over and over again—in a language other than our mother tongue. Things are going to get confused; and maybe, in a room in Solihull or Croydon, people do not want to talk to the man behind the desk about how they were ritually raped. It was easy for me to do a basic risk assessment for this woman and find that she was a victim of a horrific crime. I am delighted to say that the next day she was released from Yarl’s Wood. I am no conspiracy theorist, but it seems a bit suspicious that every person I have been to see has been released, so I plan on visiting every woman in Yarl’s Wood over the next few weeks.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

If that is true, as everybody accepts it is, we will ask my hon. Friend to visit all the centres in future.

[Jess Phillips]

I am on quite a lot of Committees, I have two small kids and I do not live anywhere near Bedford, but I will give it a go: I will shut the place by stealth if that is what it takes.

What I saw when I visited Yarl’s Wood was not some horrific sort of gulag; there was a visitors centre on the front of what was clearly a prison, on a really weird and eerie estate, and the staff were all completely lovely. It was more than reasonable of them to let me see another person who I had not been down to visit. I did not see any horrors, but given the stories that the women told me, and because I am trained and have an understanding of what it is like for women who have suffered terrible crimes against their person, I can totally understand why they find detention so difficult.

If the detention system has to continue, there is an absolute need to ensure a gender-specific service, exactly as we would commission gender-specific services in our local authorities. No local authority commissioning framework would ever allow a women’s refuge to be run completely by men. We have to stop detaining women who have been victims of brutal and enduring sexual violence without even offering them proper counselling or any support while they are there. None of these women seems to have had anyone talk to them about these problems.

Furthermore, we have to make sure that 28 days actually means 28 days and that the very first questions asked by those processing any women are what has brought them to this country and whether they have been trafficked. We should be using the very good systems put in place by the Government in the national referral mechanism—although they are good only if they are used. In my opinion, Yarl’s Wood should be closed immediately, because the detention system as it stands is not fit for women.