Immigration Bill

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, many noble Lords have mentioned training for immigration officers. What training do they have on understanding the medical conditions such as sickle cell disorder that those with African and Caribbean heritage may have, which can occur under stressful circumstances and may require immediate attention because they can lead to fatal strokes and even death?

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it may be proper now to raise a point of detail on Amendment 12 in case the matter is taken any further. Noble Lords will know that the Bill applies to Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as to England and Wales. We see that in Clause 69, which applies to Schedule 1 as it does to most other provisions in the Bill. The problem with the amendment is that it refers to two people who have oversight of matters in England and Wales, but does not include their equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Certainly, so far as Scotland is concerned, there is a separate police complaints commissioner and there is a Scottish inspector of prisons. I am not sure of the details in Northern Ireland but they could no doubt be checked as well. My point is that if the oversight provisions are to be carried across all the jurisdictions, we should be careful to include and mention them in this particular clause.

There was a related point, which the Minister might like to confirm. I take it that the codes that have been referred to apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as to England and Wales. It is very important that there should be uniform standards throughout the entire country in these important matters.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, this has been a useful debate because it has enabled me to address a number of issues, some of which are the subject of the Bill's provisions and some of which go a little broader to address the role of contractors. The Bill itself and the amendments address only the powers vested in immigration officers. I would like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that effective regulatory oversight of the way in which the new enforcement powers in Schedule 1—and indeed other immigration powers—will be exercised, is already in place.

In England and Wales, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, pointed out, provides oversight of serious complaints, matters of conduct, and incidents involving immigration officers and officials of the Secretary of State exercising immigration and asylum enforcement powers. The IPCC’s remit also includes those officials exercising relevant customs and customs revenue functions within the UK Border Force. We should remember that this is UK-wide—there is no devolved power here. This is a reserved power for UK borders.

In relation to Scotland, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, is quite right to point out that the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has the remit to investigate deaths and allegations of criminality in respect of immigration and customs matters. In addition, all complaints about immigration officers and officials of the Secretary of State who are exercising immigration and asylum enforcement powers in Scotland may be investigated by the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner. That does not change under these provisions.

To ensure that this scrutiny is truly nationwide, we have included a provision in Clause 59, following agreement with the Northern Ireland Executive, to enable the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland to provide oversight of serious incidents, complaints and conduct matters in Northern Ireland where immigration and customs enforcement powers are exercised. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons has a statutory responsibility to report on the conditions and treatment in all places of immigration detention in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the UK’s border and immigration functions as a whole, including the use of enforcement powers such as those in Schedule 1, are subject to the independent scrutiny of the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, Mr John Vine.

My noble friend Lord Mawhinney asked what was meant by “reasonably required” because that seemed to exercise a number of noble Lords. It means to the extent of finding the object of the search and no further. Indeed, noble Lords might be surprised to know that immigration officers have powers to search people who are being examined in ports for passports and other relevant documents, but they are not permitted to search those in detention for weapons or other dangerous articles that might cause harm to themselves or others. A protective search power is currently only available in respect of people who have actually been arrested. Immigration officers have a number of powers to enter and search premises for the purposes of finding material that would facilitate the investigation of current immigration offences. But the powers do not apply to illegal immigrants in immigration detention who have been arrested by immigration criminal investigators rather than the police.

A further example is that officers can search for relevant documents in the home of an arrested person or the premises at which they were arrested. They are not permitted to search the premises of a third party—for example, those of a relative or partner. The Government, quite rightly, are seeking to ensure that immigration officers have the powers that are currently available to contractors but not to immigration officers themselves.

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[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.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I cannot claim first-hand experience like other noble Lords, but I went to a meeting chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, where we heard from organisations that work with immigrants in detention. I thought that a powerful case was made—and has been made by other noble Lords—for the principles behind Amendments 16 and 17 in particular.

I will quote from a recent report by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law that emphasised as its cardinal principle the assumption of liberty. It stated another principle:

“The duration of detention must be within a prescribed applicable maximum duration, only invoked where justified”.

The report quotes a number of statements from the United Nations, in particular UNHCR detention guidelines that state:

“To guard against arbitrariness, maximum periods of detention should be set in national legislation. Without maximum periods, detention can become prolonged, and in some cases indefinite”.

It also quotes from a UNHCR global round table on alternatives to detention for asylum seekers, refugees, migrants and stateless persons, which states:

“Maximum time limits on ... administrative immigration detention in national legislation are an important step to avoiding prolonged or indefinite detention. Lack of knowledge about the end date of detention is seen as one of the most stressful aspects of immigration detention, in particular for stateless persons and migrants who cannot be removed for legal or practical reasons”.

I am sure that I do not have remind noble Lords that we will probably have rather more people in that position as a result of Clause 60 of the Bill.

Let us put ourselves in the shoes of people who are detained. What would it feel like not knowing how long you are going to be detained? I am not surprised that it is one of the most stressful things. I think that not having that knowledge could drive people over the edge, particularly when I hear about the conditions in which some people are being kept.

The UN Committee Against Torture urged the UK to introduce,

“a limit for immigration detention and take all necessary steps to prevent cases of de facto indefinite detention”.

We have already heard from other noble Lords that we are out of step with many other European countries and that there is no justification for it, not only on grounds of humanity but also of effectiveness. I hope that the Minister will listen to what is being said across the House and take it away to consider a possible amendment on Report.

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[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I very much agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said and I am delighted that my name should be attached to his amendment. I shall not therefore repeat his powerful arguments but should like to add just one further thought.

As everyone in this House knows, the United Kingdom is second only to the United States in terms of the number of universities that it has in the top group of the world’s universities, not just in absolute terms but in all kinds of important subject areas such as engineering; figures last week showed that Cambridge, Imperial College and Oxford were still in the very top group. That was as much as the rest of Europe put together was able to provide.

There are many reasons why British universities are in the top group of world universities but one is that there is a free market in talent that enables them to attract it from all over the world, not only in the students but in the teaching staff. To some extent, there is a chicken and egg factor here. They are great universities partly because they can attract talent from all over the world, and because they can attract that talent they remain very good universities.

There is a similarity between the university world and financial markets. Neither of them is purely national. Both are totally international with seamless connections across the world. Therefore, if you try to turn us into an island and cut us off from this stream of talent that is crossing the world, you will do great damage to British universities. It will not show up in the short term, as the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, just pointed out. These things take a long time to show through. But it will very seriously damage over the long term the ability of the greatest British universities to remain in the top group—and not only them. For 15 years, I was chancellor of the University of Bath, a university that was founded less than 50 years ago. This has nothing to do with me because the outstanding vice-chancellors that it has had deserve the credit, but in the past 20 years the University of Bath has moved from obscurity not only into the top group in the United Kingdom but now into a number of world league tables as well. That is because it has both a student body and a faculty that are drawn from all over the world. In fact the previous vice-chancellor was American. It has had people from the Far East, North America, South America and all kinds of places.

I beg Ministers to consider the fact that clauses such as this one that we are seeking to amend have a deleterious effect on the ability of British universities to perform adequately on the world stage. We do not have so many institutions, so many industries and so many spheres of our national life that are indubitably regarded as absolutely among the best in the world. Universities are one and it would be extraordinary to kick them in the shins.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, just said and what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said earlier. My background is that I was for 17 years chancellor of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Our experience has been that we are operating in a global market not only for teachers but for students—those coming to the university and those going out from the university to other countries to take on part-time study or study together with employment experience.

There are a number of aspects that I might very quickly mention one after the other. The first is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made about the cumulative effect of policies that have been building up over the years. One of the most injurious in our experience has been the inability of foreign students to stay on after they have completed their degree courses. I know that there is strong feeling in government that we have a policy about people who stay on who should not do so. These are people who in the previous system were able to remain here for a given period. They used that time to gain work experience in some of our leading companies. Together with their academic work, they took that back to their own countries, developed their own expertise and thereby maintained a continuing link not only with the universities but with the companies with which they worked. That has gone. We are not talking about that in this Bill, but it is against that background that this has become a much more serious issue. The noble Baroness made the same point. We have reached a point where we are losing contact and the competitive edge that we must maintain if our universities are to remain as competitive as they are in the world.

The second point is about revenue, which the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, made. Certainly, our experience when we were getting students from India and China was that they were paying substantial sums to come to the university, and we are losing that. I am told that there has been a 25% fall in students from these countries coming to Strathclyde for postgraduate degrees. That is a drop in numbers that is difficult to make up for in the market in which we work.

The other aspect is the exchange process whereby our students go away in the course of their studies for a year out. Because we are driving away international students from elsewhere, it is more difficult for us to get places for our students to go to.

The final point is that one of the essences of university is the ability of students to mix with each other, gain experience from what other people have done and make friends across the faculties and across the nations throughout the world. The opportunities for doing that will be diminished if we do not sustain our effort of attracting students from other countries from outside the EU who have so much to contribute. Therefore, I warmly endorse the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay.

I should add, in response to a point made by the noble Baroness, that I believe it is a very carefully crafted amendment because it is seeking to direct attention to a very particular category. Those are the categories described very precisely in the amendment, which is the point that I and, I suspect, the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, have addressed. It is a very particular category. It does not include language schools and all the other fringe elements, which might give rise to abuse. These are people who would be here for very good reasons, carefully monitored, and would take enormous benefits back to their own country if they were allowed to continue to come here.