Immigration Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman will probably know that Yarl’s Wood is the only immigration removal centre that specifically detains women, so when we review it we must ensure that the best facilities for pregnant women are in place. This is not just about what happens in the centre; it is about how that links up to the broader health service. That is why we judge Yarl’s Wood to be the most appropriate place, but we keep such issues under careful review, including the continuing improvements that we want to see.

I promised that I would return to the point raised earlier about assessments. The family removals process operates removal plans for children, and as I said, we are taking a new approach to the use of detention, with focus on a removal plan. Therefore, when anyone goes into detention, that removal plan will need to be considered. As that work develops, there will be detailed consideration of the appropriateness of detention as part of a removal plan, and we are now implementing a number of reforms to detention.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for acknowledging the work done across the House in changing the detention of pregnant women, and for coming before the Home Affairs Committee and responding so openly to the questions from me and my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). In the debate in Westminster Hall I mentioned the midwifery unit in my constituency. Will the Minister shed light on what midwifery support will be available for women who will now be detained for a much shorter period?

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her searching questioning and desire to bring about change, and I am pleased that we are considering these amendments this evening. As I have explained, there is a link between health services in Yarl’s Wood and the way that extends and links into midwifery services provided through the Bedfordshire healthcare system. We believe that that arrangement is right to provide joined-up care, with nurses and other health professionals coming from Bedfordshire into Yarl’s Wood to provide support for pregnant women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I support the statement that was made last week about up to 3,000 children being taken from the region. However, it should not be an either/or when we have a refugee crisis on a scale not seen since the second world war. This is a limited and proportionate number—3,000 children who are in desperate need in Europe right now. I, for my part, do not subscribe to the categorisation of vulnerability. I think that any child alone, fleeing across a border having made a treacherous journey, is vulnerable wherever they have found themselves. Certainly all the children I have spoken to—those in the camps and those who had made it to this country—were very vulnerable, not only when they started those journeys but when they made them. It is not an either/or.

[Nusrat Ghani]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way, but I am conscious that lots of other people want to get in, and by taking interventions I am holding them up.

[Nusrat Ghani]

This is a very sensitive and difficult issue. The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned vulnerability. Surely the most vulnerable children, families and communities are not those in Europe but those closest to conflicts.

[Keir Starmer]

I am sorry, but I really do not want to go down this path. One of the 10,000 who has disappeared and may be subject to sexual exploitation or trafficking right now is extremely vulnerable, and I am not going to categorise him or her as being any more or any less vulnerable than a child who may be in a camp elsewhere, vulnerable though they are. Hon. Members across the House have approached this with principle and with humanity, and there has been a shared cause of concern in many of the debates we have had. The “pull factor” argument whereby we leave people to their fate lest others follow, or the idea that we categorise the vulnerability of children, are not points well made in a debate that is usually conducted in a framework of real principle.