Immigration Bill

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 17 and 19 about bail. The provisions in our amendments are modelled on Part 3 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which was never brought into force and repealed in 2002. We ask, first, what has changed since 1999 that the sense of gravity about the shortcomings of the system of immigration detention and the urgency of addressing them has gone so entirely? One thing is certain: they have not gone because things have got better. Things have got very much worse.

In these amendments, we propose automatic bail hearings after eight and 36 days. How long have we debated the need to provide for an effective automatic review of detention? Detention under Immigration Act powers is a matter, I am told, mainly of administrative convenience and, in the UK, is not subject to a maximum period. A detained person is not brought before a tribunal judge or a court unless he or she instigates this. The lack of any maximum period of detention, combined with the lack of regular and independent review of detention, may render this detention arbitrary. Amnesty International is one of those organisations that has powerfully advocated that every immigration detention decision should be automatically checked to see whether it is lawful, necessary and appropriate. Why should we do this? Because, at present, there are greater safeguards for criminal subjects than there are for immigration detainees and because people sometimes need reminding that those detained for immigration purposes are not criminals and have not committed any crime.

The group Bail for Immigration Detainees found that 23% of detainees surveyed had never had a solicitor while in detention. Of those who had, only one-third had ever had an application for release on bail made for them during their time in detention. When this is considered alongside the general length of immigration detention in the UK, and the possible indefinite nature of that detention, adequate bail provision is an absolute necessity. Automatic hearings would benefit all detainees but especially vulnerable and isolated detainees. Very recently, we heard the case here of Isa Muazu. I can speak to his pain as I went to see him. He was one among many who should not have been locked up with all the problems he had.

We must protect the rights of vulnerable groups such as the mentally ill, torture victims, victims of sexual violence and victims of trafficking. Currently, almost one in four detainees is held in the prison estate, where they face many practical and procedural barriers to accessing immigration advice and the immigration tribunals where they can try to obtain bail. They are not able to instigate applications in any meaningful way—it is a dreadful situation. Will, finally, this Bill include a provision that will remedy such a sorry situation?

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

I, too, will speak to Amendment 17. When I was the Bishop of Oxford, I had something to do with Campsfield House. What really concerned us at that time was the length of time for which people were held in detention. It is not at all encouraging that, some years later, this is still a major concern. As we know, around 220 people last year were held in detention for more than six months, without even taking into account the 936 who are held in prison. Why is this country so different from the rest of Europe in having no limit on the length of time that people can spend in detention? It is obvious, from so many of the facts and figures that are put before us, that a time limit helps you to achieve your purpose of removing people who have no legal right to be in the country. France, for example, has a time limit of 45 days for people in detention and it enforces 31% more removals of irregular immigrants and asylum seekers than the United Kingdom. We all know that if you do not have a deadline, things can slip and slip. Those of us who write are grateful that there is always a deadline, otherwise we would never get it done. If that applies with simple things such as writing, how much more are things liable to slip when trying to deal with a person’s case?

To reiterate the point, it has also been shown that the longer people are held in detention, the less chance they will be removed. Only 37% of those who were detained for more than a year were eventually removed, compared with 57% of those who were there for less than 28 days. Again, so many facts show that having a limit, such as 28 days, allows you to achieve what you want far more efficiently. That is, of course, without even taking into account the expense. It has been estimated that this amendment would save something like £87 million if it were accepted, because it is very expensive to keep people in detention.

There are alternatives. In Australia, for example, where there is an alternative based on case management, there is a compliance rate of something like 93%, of which 60% are voluntary removals. This is even without taking into account the human factor and the distress and extra suffering caused by allowing people to be detained. From the point of view of financial efficiency, and every other consideration, it is surely right that other alternatives should be looked at much more seriously than they are at the moment.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, I support these amendments. I should explain that at an earlier stage in my judicial career it was necessary for me to visit prisons so that I could see the conditions under which people were being held and understand the regimes that were being operated in these establishments. I recall very clearly visiting one of these places, where I came across people of the kind we are discussing this evening—detainees awaiting decisions about their immigration status. It struck me at the time that it was quite extraordinary to meet these individuals—who, after all, had either committed no offence or, if they had, had served their sentences—being held in prison conditions along with other prisoners. It is fair to say that a separate wing was set aside for them; nevertheless, the conditions in which they were being held were prison conditions. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, said that it was a dreadful situation. I must say that I found it quite offensive to meet these people there when I spoke to them and discovered why they were there and what their problems were.

It seems that there is a great deal of force in Amendment 16, tabled by the noble Baroness, about the presumption of liberty, which takes us right back to the beginning of the exercise we are discussing. The points that are built into that amendment are those that would occur to any judge considering an application for bail in this situation. Most judges would, I think, see that the question to ask oneself is whether the individual would fail to comply with conditions or was likely to commit an offence. The value of having that set out in the Bill is that it will achieve some uniform standard throughout the system. The difficulty is that you have immigration officers and First-tier Tribunals up and down the country, and there will not be the same attention, uniformity of practice, application of presumptions and so on that one gets if the matter is set out in terms in the Bill. I would have thought that the matter was sufficiently important to do that, so that it would carry itself through the various steps that have been discussed by other noble Lords, with everybody knowing where they stand.

We are dealing here with people, many of whom will be held in prison conditions, who have either not committed an offence, or who have served their sentence and are being detained because time needs to go by for decisions about their status to be taken—that is all. It seems right that they should be given the benefit of the presumption of liberty.