Immigration Detention (Victims of Torture)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Joan Ryan

Thursday 14th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered immigration detention of victims of torture and other vulnerable people.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate and hon. Members from all parts of the House who supported the application.

I also thank the 131 Members who signed my early-day motion on immigration detention last December. It is the eighth most supported EDM in the current Session, which I think signifies the amount of concern on this matter. I am also grateful to the 118 and 114 Members respectively who supported my other two EDMs that prayed against the Government’s delegated legislation on these matters. Those were debated in a Delegated Legislation Committee last week, at which some hon. Members here were present.

I will return to the substance of those statutory instruments later. That the Home Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights are also currently investigating issues relating to immigration detention indicates the scale of concern across the House regarding current Government policy.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the debate. I know she is aware of it, but I draw other colleagues’ attention to the joint inquiry of the all-party parliamentary groups on migration and on refugees, which involved a number of Members from both sides of the House, including a former Conservative Cabinet Minister. Our recommendations were adopted by the House, albeit without a vote.

We recognised through our inquiry the impact of immigration detention on some of the most vulnerable people, hearing evidence of those who had been through trauma having that trauma multiplied through the experience of detention. We concluded that, as well as a different approach to vulnerable people, there should be a statutory time limit on indefinite detention. Will she join me in hoping that, when the Government look at immigration in the pending White Paper and the immigration Bill, they will also consider the whole impact of immigration detention?

[Joan Ryan]

I know that those APPGs do valuable work. After seeing examples of the harm caused to vulnerable adults by immigration detention—I am sure we will hear more today—I hope the Government will pay more serious attention to this than their legislation from past years demonstrates, particularly since the introduction of the adults at risk policy in 2016.

[Joan Ryan]

Absolutely. I will later ask the Government whether they are not ashamed of the harm caused in their name and which it is within their gift to change—not only is it within their gift, it is under the instruction of the High Court.

The debate provides an important opportunity to scrutinise these matters and to call on the Government to honour their promises to improve the protections for identifying and securing the release of vulnerable adults at risk in immigration detention. The debate also enables us to refer to there being no time limit for immigration detention, unlike in nearly all other European Union countries. That adds to the lack of protection, to the suffering and to the likelihood that the serious mental health harm being inflicted will increase suicide attempts.

The debate is particularly pertinent because the new Home Secretary has pledged to review the Home Office’s hostile environment policy—admittedly because of the Windrush scandal. The 70th anniversary of the arrivals on the Windrush is currently being debated in the main Chamber. I am sure that, as they arrived, they did not expect what has happened recently. The example of what has happened to the Windrush generation should be a warning to the Government that we do not raise these issues to make party political gains; we raise them because there is a humanitarian need and a human rights cause that the Government should not need reminding that they need to address, given what has happened with the Windrush scandal.

The treatment of vulnerable people in our country’s immigration detention system should be an important part of the Home Secretary’s review. It is the considered judgment of esteemed organisations, such as Freedom from Torture, Medical Justice, the Helen Bamber Foundation and Bail for Immigration Detainees, that the current safeguards and the Government’s proposed changes to the law have failed to provide, and will fail to deliver, adequate protection to vulnerable people. That view is held across the board.

[Paul Blomfield]

My right hon. Friend mentioned a number of organisations. Has she also seen this week’s report from the British Red Cross, which specifically and very helpfully proposed that the Government adopt a vulnerability screening tool, to provide more effective screening of individuals prior to the decision to detain?

[Joan Ryan]

I absolutely agree. As I am sure the Minister will mention, because it came up in the Delegated Legislation Committee just a few days ago, the Government consider they have done that. However, given caseworkers’ comments on the training, it is evident that that screening is precisely the problem in many ways. It is not clear to caseworkers how to identify those who are vulnerable or powerless. Those terms are too vague, and the catch-all simply says that the list of identifiers is not exhaustive, which in itself is not good enough.