Immigration: Detention of Children at Heathrow

Lord Henley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Report of the Independent Monitoring Board on the non-residential short term holding facilities at London Heathrow Airport for the year February 2011 to January 2012 on the “degrading and disgraceful” conditions in which children are being detained at Heathrow.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, we take very seriously the findings of the Independent Monitoring Board and are working with our partners, including BAA, to address them. We will respond to the report fully in due course.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, does my noble kinsman agree that keeping a child in these disgraceful conditions, in one case for 31 hours and 50 minutes, is inconsistent with the coalition’s commitment to end the detention of children and possibly with our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? Will my noble kinsman therefore consider appointing a joint inquiry by the chief inspector of the UKBA and the Children’s Commissioner into the conditions and length of detention at all the United Kingdom ports of entry by sea or by air?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I remind my noble kinsman that the holding rooms we are talking about are designed to hold people for relatively short amounts of time—a few hours in the main and up to 24 hours in extreme circumstances. We accept some of the criticisms that we have received from the Independent Monitoring Board and we hope that where it looks as though people, particularly with children, are going to be held for a long time, the relevant staff will make use of other available facilities, such as Tinsley House. However, I think that even my noble kinsman, and most Members of the House, would accept that where we are dealing with people who are going to be returned to another country, they have to be kept somewhere relatively secure, whether or not they have children with them, to make sure that they can be sent back, as appropriate, after their decision has been dealt with.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that we are talking here about children who are defenceless and need support? Does he further agree that the conditions in which they are being kept must be very stressful and distressing for them? What support are those children receiving to help them overcome the stress that they have suffered?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the IMB’s report makes it clear that it thinks the officials dealing with these matters are doing so in a professional manner. What it was complaining about was the actual facilities in which these people were kept for up to 24 hours at the maximum. If people with children are going to be kept longer, at Heathrow there are other facilities such as Tinsley House that can be used and where those children can be sent with their parents. The idea that the children should be sent off somewhere else, therefore bringing in social services, would create even greater problems and trauma for the children. It is far better that they should stay with their parents for what we hope will be a relatively short amount of time while a decision is being made on whether they can stay in the country or not; and, after that, while they wait for a plane to take them back to where they came from.

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, will the Minister clarify the Government’s position as regards the board’s report? The BBC website said that the UK Border Agency had reported that it had raised the issue with BAA on numerous occasions in the past and would continue to do so. However, the BBC website says that a BAA spokeswoman said that BAA was,

“somewhat surprised by UK Border Force's response, since we have had many meetings with them recently and it has not been raised”.

Who is correct?

[Lord Henley]

All I know is that the UK Border Agency and BAA have had considerable discussions about these matters over the years. Obviously I cannot give evidence about the precise detail of those discussions, but we know that they are aware of the problems because we have also discussed the matter with BAA. The important point to remember is that we will do what we can to improve things. We have only just received this report, which came in two days ago. We will be responding to it within the appropriate period of six weeks. We know that things are not entirely satisfactory but we are talking about holding people only in the very short term while a decision is made. We hope that that will not be longer than 24 hours. If it is, as I made clear, we have other facilities, such as Tinsley House, available.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

This matter was raised during the time of the Labour Government and the Liberal Democrats attacked us, understandably, about the detention of young children. They promised that once the coalition took over, the detention of children would be ended immediately. Now, two years later, children are still being detained. This is yet another promise—one put forward particularly by the Liberal Democrats—that has been reneged on.

[Lord Henley]

Dare I say that the noble Lord makes a very silly point, and not for the first time, as my noble friend the Deputy Leader says? We are talking about getting rid of detention. We are not talking about detaining children; we are talking about detaining people for as little as 24 hours in this facility.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

You are still detaining children.

[Lord Henley]

Is the noble Lord suggesting that they should be removed from their parents and sent somewhere else? That strikes me as even worse. This is complete nonsense. We think that the children should stay with their parents for that short time in the holding facility. If they cannot go there, they go to Tinsley House—a place that we have all accepted as being perfectly acceptable for children and their families to go to.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have a question. This Baroness—who has also been thought to have the first name Berenice—visited Cedars, a new facility near Gatwick. I was very impressed by the good work being done there by the border agency and Barnardo’s. Will the Government learn from that in dealing with families and children—some of them unaccompanied children—and deciding on the best way to respond to what everyone must acknowledge is a very difficult situation?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, of course we will learn from what we have done at Cedars at Gatwick and we will do what we can. I am very grateful to my noble friend for mentioning that. Because of where these very short-term holding facilities are located within the airports, it is very difficult to think of design solutions. However, if anyone is going to be kept longer than that very short period of time, we obviously have to look at other facilities.