Immigration Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and refer to my experience as a member of the advisory panel formed by the Government when they first considered the detention of children, particularly the detention of children who were going to be removed. We advised that it should be handled by a separate returns panel, which has since been established.

During those deliberations, we had several other concerns about a word that the noble Lord used in his address—namely, “safeguarding”. In addition to the safeguarding of children who are involved either in detention or in the removal process, there is a very large problem of unaccompanied minors applying for immigration or asylum who are distributed throughout the United Kingdom in order not to overload the social services immediately adjacent to ports or airports of entry. We felt that there was an urgent need for the handling of children, whenever they appeared in the immigration system, to be looked at particularly from the point of view of safeguarding. I am not aware that that has happened. I urge the Minister to give this his urgent consideration. Many of the things that have been said today arise out of the need to look at the treatment of children overall.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, we will listen with interest to the Minister’s response to my noble friend Lord Judd’s amendments, which he put across with the decency and humanity we all associate with him. The government amendments make concessions on a number of issues, which we and others, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, have made during the passage of this Bill through both Houses. The Minister has indicated the purpose of the government amendments, one of which seeks to make clear that all family members will be given prior notice of their liability for removal. Will the Minister confirm the position on the minimum period of prior notice that will be given in that instance?

Clause 1 provides a power for the Secretary of State or an immigration officer to authorise the removal of a person who,

“requires leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom but does not have it”,

or their family members as well. Subsection (6) provides a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations regarding,

“the removal of family members”.

As we know, the Government’s stance up to now, which continues to be the case, is that the regulations would be made by statutory instrument but that they would be subject to the negative procedure. We remain of the view that the affirmative procedure is justified. We are disappointed that the regulations under what will become Section 10(6) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 will not be subject to the affirmative procedure.

I was going to go on to refer to the comments made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its latest report, which was published yesterday. The report reiterated the committee’s view that the power should be subject to the affirmative procedure. The Minister, probably with a view to seeking to address the concerns expressed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, has indicated that the Government will be bringing forward, if I understood him correctly, an amendment at Third Reading. He mentioned that it would address the concern that the committee had over the words “in particular”, which the committee commented on in its report. I assume that the amendment that the Government will put down at Third Reading will seek to address the concern expressed by the committee.

For our part, we want to see what that amendment is before making up our minds about whether we find it acceptable or not. Certainly, our position is that the regulations ought to be subject to the affirmative procedure for the kinds of reasons that were given by the Delegated Powers Committee, but we will see what the Government’s amendment says and whether that addresses the concerns that we too have on that particular issue.

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Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

7: Schedule 1, page 60, line 13, leave out paragraph 5

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, in returning to the amendment, I shall concentrate on developments since it was debated in Committee. In his letter of 10 March to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, the Minister wrote that the reasonable force measure in Schedule 1 relates solely to immigration officers, and existing safeguards mean that force may be used only by officers who are fully trained and accredited to do so. He also wrote that all contractors were required to comply with current legislation, rules and guidance and that:

“Home Office monitoring teams ensure that there are robust systems in place for monitoring escort and detention providers, to ensure service delivery and accountability”.

When I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, I used to warn Home Secretaries and prison Ministers that there was a world of difference between the facts that I was giving them, based on what had been seen during inspections, and the fudge that was too often given to them by officials based on what it was alleged that they wanted to hear. Real improvement can be made only if it is based on fact, and I believe that one of the main reasons for so little consistent or significant improvement in the conduct of imprisonment is that too many Ministers have preferred fudge to fact. My successor had a more eloquent way of putting that, calling the prisons described by officials to Ministers “virtual”.

Having studied the enforced removals process for a number of years, I have to say to the Minister that there is more virtual than fact in what was drafted for him to write and that until and unless the whole enforced removal process is taken by the scruff of the neck, re-examined and revamped, it will continue to cause avoidable ministerial embarrassment and bring shame on the good name of this country.

Before I raised the amendment in Committee, I wrote to the Minister drawing his attention to the report of the National Independent Commission into Enforced Removals that I chaired in 2012, following the death of Jimmy Mubenga while under restraint from three G4S detainee custody officers in an aircraft at Heathrow. Noble Lords will no doubt have noted that, since Committee, the Crown Prosecution Service has brought charges of manslaughter against these three, following a verdict of unlawful killing by the inquest jury. In view of what we learnt during the commission, I have to admit that I found the Crown Prosecution Service’s earlier refusal to prefer charges perverse. However, now that the CPS has done its U-turn, I hope that the questions which this tragic affair asks of the current enforced removals process will at last persuade Ministers that it is in need of urgent attention.

To assist with this, I also sent the Minister a copy of a draft code of practice that I and my fellow commissioners had drawn up. I suggested that the draft code might be considered with advantage by Home Office officials outside the timetable of the Bill, and said that I and my colleagues would be only too delighted to assist with that consideration. The failings described in our report were not new and had been drawn to the attention of the Home Office a number of times by many people over the years. Furthermore, the coroner who conducted the inquest into the 16 year- old Gareth Myatt, who died in Rainsbrook secure training centre in 2004 at the hands of G4S employees, had ordered the Home Office to publicise the dangers inherent in the restraint technique that subsequently was used, again by G4S employees, on Jimmy Mubenga. I must ask the Minister: was its use ever monitored by a Home Office team?

In setting about such a revamp, the Home Office has a priceless asset in the current Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, who keeps on turning up examples of bad practice that have gone unchecked for years. Only last Thursday, he published a damning report on his inspection of the emergency travel-document process highlighting, inter alia, that the quality assurance process set up by the Home Office was not standardised, nor did it have an audit trail. He also reported that 78% of the cases of those in contact with the Home Office were not actually being worked on and that 11% of the inspectorate’s chosen sample had been granted some form of residency or leave to remain and so should not even have been in the removal pool. He also drew attention to something that I have often raised in this House, namely the detention of too many foreign national offenders in immigration detention centres for long periods after they have completed their prison sentences—the average time being 523 avoidably expensive days. Not least to save money, documentation should be completed during their imprisonment so that they can be deported the moment that that imprisonment ends.

There are two reasons why I am raising this amendment again. First, I thank the Minister for meeting me, along with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and officials, to discuss the draft code of practice, and for a subsequent meeting last week that was also attended by the Immigration Minister, James Brokenshire MP. I also commend the Minister for the assiduous way in which he has set about educating himself on the issues involved, not only by visiting Harmondsworth but by accompanying a return flight, during which he saw at first hand the demands made on detainee custody officers in what is never an easy exercise, and the problems caused by failure to pass on legal judgments. I am sorry, but I simply do not believe that courts make these judgments at 3 am, and the upheaval of taking a returnee and his luggage off a flight confirm that both the bureaucratic and removal parts of the process need attention.

My second reason for moving the amendment is to ensure that what I and my commission have offered, as well as the Minister’s response to our proposal that a code of practice be drawn up and adopted, is recorded in Hansard so that both can be followed up. I know that the Home Office has appointed a commission to examine and authorise restraint techniques, though I regret that it continued the Home Office practice of calling on inappropriate Prison Service advice because restraint techniques are not used by detainee custody officers in custodial settings. It is almost a year since I and some of my fellow commissioners gave evidence to it, and I look forward to hearing when it will report. The Minister has also been kind enough to offer me the opportunity of visiting the new training arrangements that I understand are now being developed, which I look forward to doing.

I therefore ask him to consider redrafting paragraph 5 of Schedule 1, because the force used currently by immigration officers is neither clearly defined nor reasonable. I beg to move.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. We have “reasonable force” at the moment, but I am concerned that if we left it like that then we would have reasonable force that was unreasonable. I am therefore asking that the work should be done, consideration should be given to this and, if necessary, that it be mentioned in the wording that the reasonableness refers to what has been authorised as being reasonable within the Home Office.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has spoken with his considerable knowledge of the enforced removal process and of restraint techniques. It is fair to say that his criticism is not confined to what he thinks is going on at the moment but extends to what has gone on under previous Governments as well. I do not think that his comments are geared to a particular Government; I think that they are geared to what has been happening over a period of years.

We are aware of what the noble Lord has proposed about a code of practice, and I have to say that there seem to us to be some fairly strong arguments for seeking to have such a code, in view of some of the terrible difficulties and events that there have been and to which the noble Lord has referred. He has referred today to the redrafting of paragraph 5, as I understand it from the closing words of his speech.

We on these Benches have sympathy with the arguments that he is putting forward, which are clearly addressed to trying to resolve the significant difficulties that have arisen, and may well continue to arise, with the current process and techniques. We very much hope that we will hear a helpful response from the Minister to the quite powerful points that the noble Lord has just made.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I do not think that there is going to be any marked division in this House on this issue, to the extent that I think we are agreed that whatever is done in our name should be done in a civilised and proper fashion. I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing this issue to the House’s attention through Amendment 7, but perhaps I might start by repeating what I previously said in Committee. The provision in Schedule 1 to extend the use of force affects only those powers exercised by immigration officers. It does not make any change to the separate statutory powers of detainee custody officers and escorts, who are private contractors, to use reasonable force in the exercise of their particular functions.

As the noble Lord kindly mentioned, last week the Minister for Immigration and Security, my honourable friend James Brokenshire, and I had a very helpful and thoughtful meeting with the noble Lord where we discussed the proposals in his draft codes of practice for enforced removals and where I believe we agreed that there are a number of areas of common ground where the Home Office is making improvements. I think the noble Lord will know that my honourable friend Mr Brokenshire and I share an interest in this matter. He kindly mentioned my trip on a removals flight, which I found extremely interesting. I feel much better informed through having made that journey.

The noble Lord has proposed in the draft code of practice on use of restraint that any use of force must be justifiable, proportionate, accountable, necessary, safe and supportive and must be applied for only the minimum period necessary to achieve the lawful objective. Published enforcement instructions and guidance explain that the use of force must be proportionate, lawful and necessary in the particular circumstances, and also set out that force should be used for the shortest possible period, be the minimum needed, be used only when all other avenues of securing co-operation have been exhausted and should be de-escalated as soon as possible. Whether that use of force was reasonable must be justified by individual officers on a case-by-case basis. I can assure noble Lords that only those immigration officers who are fully trained and accredited may use force. Arrest training is currently provided by the College of Policing, and training on the use of force, including control and restraint techniques, is in line with ACPO standards.

If we were to accept this amendment, although it would maintain the status quo, there are half a dozen coercive powers which sit in the 2004 and 2007 immigration Acts, where there is no specific reference to the use of reasonable force. Although the use of force is currently implied in these arrest and entry powers, it is our intention that this should be set out explicitly in statute to ensure that there is greater transparency. I previously gave noble Lords the example of an immigration officer trying to safely arrest a person for the specific offence of assaulting him or her, under Section 23 of the UK Borders Act 2007, where it is not expressly stated in the legislation that an immigration officer can use reasonable force to restrain that person in doing so. The extension of the power for immigration officers to use reasonable force beyond that contained in the 1971 and 1999 immigration Acts will ensure that existing powers can be operated effectively and are in step with other law enforcement bodies’ powers and that current enforcement practices are not at risk of legal challenge on the grounds that the ability to use force is not explicitly set out in statute.

The noble Lord asked whether the Home Office monitored the restraint techniques used at Colnbrook removal centre in 2004, which led to the tragic death of a 16 year-old. I cannot answer that question at the Dispatch Box but will write to him and copy the letter to other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.

With the assurance that we in the Home Office very much value the noble Lord’s input in this area, which reinforces our interest in making sure that these jobs are done in a proper fashion, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will fell able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his considered reply and, indeed, for the meetings we have had. I admit that I was seeking an opportunity to raise this issue because it has gone on for too long. The procedures being exercised in our name have gone unchecked and unsupervised in a way that has allowed bad procedures to be passed from one contracted company to another contracted company over the years, which really ought to have been checked.

I like to think that the exercise that the Minister has outlined means that this will at last be put to an end. The people who have actually been served worst by this are Ministers, who have been put into embarrassing positions which they really should not have been. I am happy to withdraw the amendment because I think that the point has been made fully, and I am grateful to the Minister for doing so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 7 withdrawn.

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[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I do not think that support for this amendment should be limited to beyond my own Benches. I feel very strongly in favour of it and I congratulate those involved in drawing it up. I care passionately about the issues and values behind it but I want to make one other point, which I made in Committee. We are involved across the world in a struggle for values, and we like to hold to the principle that we offer values that present a better prospect for humanity. We try to contain extremism.

During my life I have come to recognise that those who advocate extremism do best in a climate of ambivalence—when there is doubt and cynicism on a significant scale. People who individually might never embrace extreme action nevertheless have a shadow of doubt: however distasteful they find the methods that the extremists use, perhaps these people are on their side. This may be a very dangerous thing to say but I sometimes wonder whether it is a bit too easy to refer to people as extremists. People who take that kind of position point to hypocrisy and inconsistencies and to examples where those whom they want to undermine do not, through their practice, begin to uphold what they advocate.

Therefore, I am totally concerned not only with the humanity and the principle behind the amendment but with its relationship to the struggle for security and stability in the world. We simply cannot afford to let areas of our administration and our justice system be a living example of contradiction of all that we have traditionally held dearest in our society. From that standpoint, as well as the one of values, I believe that it is a timely amendment and that it deserves support.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment because I absolutely agree with everything that has been said about unlimited detention, which is hinted at. First, I salute the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, for the powerful and eloquent way in which she moved the amendment, and I salute the power with which my noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd of Berwick and the noble Lords, Lord Roberts and Lord Judd, have supported it.

I have three things to add. Recently, I have been privileged to be a member of a Select Committee of the House on soft power, chaired most admirably by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. One of the most powerful witness statements I remember listening to was by the high commissioner for Mozambique, who described the qualities that encouraged Mozambique to apply to join the Commonwealth. In particular, it was the qualities of Britishness, headed by the rule of law. The fact that that made so much of an impression on him and is why Mozambique made such a change suggests that we go against our reputation for the rule of law at our peril when we are trying desperately to think about how we project our image in the emerging world of the 21st century.

I used to inspect detention centres and they always worried me. They were bleak places, not designed for holding people for long periods. They were originally designed for only very short periods while documentation was checked. They are neither one thing nor the other. There is nothing to occupy people, and of course that is not good over time. Nor are they good at short-term holding, which is why we wait to hear what will happen about the short-term holding facilities so urgently required. The other thing about them is their staff. The trouble with the staff in such places is that they tend to turn over extremely quickly. They cannot communicate with the people there, and they cannot provide anything other than the normal meals and so on. They can provide none of the succour. Remember that the people there have come under some form of mental turmoil. The other thing that always worried me about detention centres is the absence of the proper medical treatment—in particular, mental health treatment—that so many of the people in them require, especially under the strain and stress of being held for an uncertain period while their circumstances are investigated.

Thirdly, at Second Reading a number of noble Lords drew attention to the millstone of the 500,000 unresolved cases with which the Home Office is currently faced. They said that until and unless that backlog is removed, you will never have a system where it is possible to process things and people quickly. That requires urgent remedial action. I should like to make certain that, in future, the stimulus of having to complete cases within a period of time is applied to the system so that we are never able to build up such a backlog again. That is bad not only for the system and the people concerned but also for the staff, who in no way can help people by giving them some indication of when and how they might be released from what they are doing.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak very briefly in support of this amendment so that my noble friend Lord Judd is not on his own on these Benches in supporting it. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, likened detention to hell, but it is probably more like purgatory because people are in limbo. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the mental health problems faced by people. Is it surprising that there are very serious mental health problems when people do not know how long they will be there? Just from common decency and humanity, I hope we will be able to support this amendment.