Immigration: Detention

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I know of his work as Chief Inspector of Prisons. I had a large young offender institution in my former constituency and a large prison, and the meticulous care and concern that he brought to his investigations were deeply appreciated by those who saw and benefited from them.

This is a debate initiated by—I am going to call him this—my noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd of Berwick. Nothing has more become the man than the manner of his leaving, because he has brought to this House today a subject about which he feels passionately and which is of crucial importance. Others have referred to Magna Carta. I hope that I will be forgiven for being the third but, particularly this year, we have to have uppermost in our minds at all times that clause that rings through the ages:

“To none will we … deny or delay … justice”.

My noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd of Berwick talked about the corrosive effect of indefinite detention and my noble friend Lord Hurd talked about the lack of certainty. However, it is worse than that, because it deprives people of hope. I remember when many years ago in the other place one of my colleagues said that the real poor of the 20th century were those without hope. The same applies today. I very much hope that when my noble and very sensitive friend Lord Bates comes to respond to this debate, he will at the very least indicate that it would be his wish that the recommendation of the report—that this should be referred to a working party at the beginning of the new Parliament—will be taken up. It is essential that it should be.

I first came across the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, when he was chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee, on which I had the dubious honour of serving for some 40 years. He was the last in a long line of distinguished Law Lords who took the chair. He brought to that role a judicious insight, an incisive mind and, above all, good humour. If you are going to cope with the Church of England, you certainly need a good sense of humour. He displayed this perhaps at its best in October last year when we were debating in this House the Measure on women bishops. There were those of us who are of the catholic persuasion in the Church of England who had some misgivings. What I found particularly notable about the noble and learned Lord was that he accepted that the bar to further ecumenical development, which one hopes is temporary, was something that we all—whichever side of the argument we were on, and he was emphatically pro—had to bear in mind. In that recognition, he showed a tolerance that must be an essential characteristic of any Law Lord and we are all in his debt for that.

I deeply regret that the noble and learned Lord’s amendments on the office of Lord Chancellor were rejected in another place. I was very much on his side. I have come to accept the virtues of genetically modified crops, but I am not quite sure about genetically modified Lord Chancellors. This is no criticism of the present incumbent, who is a consummate politician and who has certainly worked with great industry, but in my view a deep knowledge of the law is an essential qualification for anyone who holds that high office.

The noble and learned Lord has indeed done this House a great service on his last day in the House. He retires tomorrow, but we shall all hold him in the highest regard and hope that he will exercise the club rights to which he is entitled. We have had two very remarkable speeches from retiring noble Lords this week. On Tuesday, my noble friend Lord Eden of Winton talked about the appalling problems created by the exploitation of palm oil and woke us all up to the reality of that problem. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, has today brought home to us the crucial importance of treating the most vulnerable in our country with true understanding and sensitivity. While we all have to have regard to those who would exploit the hospitality of this country, it is crucial that in the new Parliament we look carefully at the recommendations of this report.