Immigration Detention

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased to speak in this incredible debate, and to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and the hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller) for securing it. I thank members of the all-party groups on refugees and on migration for their joint inquiry, and I want to acknowledge the work of Sarah Teather in bringing this about.

This report has rightly been welcomed as a powerful intervention in the debate on the reform of our detention system. We have heard excellent contributions from, I think, 25 hon. Members today—contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central; the hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate and for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald); the hon. Member for Bedford; my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma); the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith); my right hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart); the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy); my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith); the hon. Members for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and for East Kilbride, Strathaven and—excuse me if I do not pronounce it correctly—Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron); the hon. Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani); my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq); the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies); the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael); the hon. Members for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) and for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens); my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) and for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell); the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin); and my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West).

The issue unites not just the House, as is clear from the debate, but the country, demonstrating the powerful and overwhelming case for reform of a system that is not fit for purpose. Members have raised a range of issues—on time limits; the detention of the wrong people; the unnecessary deprivation of liberty; the experience of women, often victims of sexual abuse or human trafficking, in detention; the need for gender-specific processes; poor case management; access to justice and legal advice; access to health services; the desperate issue of self-harm and suicide; mental health issues caused by, as well as worsened by, detention; family separation and accompanied minors; the long-term impacts on the well-being of children; the training of staff; and the desperate need to look at alternatives to detention.

We in the Labour party have repeatedly called for a review and reform of immigration detention policy. The current system is failing people who are scarred by a system where report after report shows detention being used disproportionately and for far too long. In fact, Home Office statistics for the first quarter of this year alone show 3,483 people held in immigration removal centres. Two thirds of them have been held for over 28 days. Of those, 488 had been detained for more than six months, 153 had been detained for more than a year, 25 had been detained for more than two years and one individual had been detained for more than four years. Not only is that expensive, but indefinite detention has been shown to have a highly negative impact on mental health and well-being. Will the Minister give the House more information on the reasons for such long detention times? What are the reasons for 488 people being held for more than six months? What countries are they from? What on earth could be the cause of someone being in detention for more than four years? What steps has the Minister taken to reduce that time?

Shockingly, between 2011 and 2014 the Government paid out nearly £15 million in compensation following claims for unlawful detention. The cost of failure is plain to see. What steps has the Minister taken to reduce that bill? What analysis has he undertaken of the root cause of these errors? The need for reform is clear, in order to achieve not just administrative excellence, with greater efficiency for the taxpayer, but a more proportionate use of detention in line with the principles of fairness and justice, with detention only as a last call, not a first call, as it has become.

I want to focus my remarks on three main areas: the need to end detention without limit; the reform so desperately needed for women detainees; and the need for us to rethink afresh about alternatives to detention. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate, along with many others, spoke eloquently and passionately about the need for time limits. The UK is one of only a few countries in Europe not to have a statutory time limit, and we are out of sync even with Taiwan, Georgia and the United States, to name but a few. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees detention guidelines outline the need for statutory time limits. In May, the Home Secretary indicated that the length of detention is being considered by Home Office officials as part of a broader review of immigration detention. It is four months since then, so will the Minister update us on the progress of those discussions, on whether that is part of Stephen Shaw’s review and on when that review is expected to report? With broad support from both inside and outside the House for limited detention times, including from Nick Hardwick, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons, and with so many calling for an end to indefinite detention, surely it is time to move forward. That point is made even more poignant with the extensive humanitarian crisis we are facing.

In August, we also saw another devastating report on Yarl’s Wood by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons, and the experience of so many women in detention remains shocking: a third of detainees were transported to the centre overnight; the reception process took too long; detainees did not receive an adequate induction; even with the knowledge that the risk of self-harm is high, safeguarding procedures are underdeveloped; women on suicide watch report being observed by male guards, even in intimate situations; and detainees report feeling unsafe and being subject to sexually inappropriate comments from staff. Those experiences would be harrowing for anyone, but we must recall that a high proportion of women asylum seekers have also reported previous experience of domestic or sexual abuse, and they will be particularly vulnerable. Nearly half of those who go to Yarl’s Wood report that they feel suicidal on arrival. Yarl’s Wood is an embarrassment and we need to look at closure.

As has been mentioned today, nearly 100 pregnant women were detained last year, yet 90%—I repeat, 90%—of them were released. When 12 cases were examined, it was found that eight of these women should not have been detained or they should have been released earlier. A response to a written question about women detainees over the past three years showed that 834 out of more than 1,600 detained were released. Why were so many just released back into the community and not sent abroad?

I thank organisations such as Detention Action and Women for Refugee Women, which are represented here today, for the extraordinary work they do in raising the needs and the voices of those they support. In December last year, the shadow Home Secretary called for the prohibition of the detention of pregnant women and of individuals who have been trafficked or tortured or who have suffered sexual abuse. That proposal was also in Labour’s manifesto. It beggars belief that in the face of so much evidence the Government have still sat on their hands. It is also disappointing that the UN special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, who published her report on the UK in June, was denied access to Yarl’s Wood; the Home Office has another chance here, and I hope the Minister will take that much-needed step and make a positive announcement today.

Finally, I wish to say a few words about alternatives to detention, as the report we are debating has laid out clear arguments for reviewing those. The UK has a long way to go to identify alternatives that are more cost-efficient and, in many cases, more effective. There is growing evidence from other countries, including Sweden and Australia, as to the benefits of stronger community- based approaches which allow for individualised case management, better access to legal advice and far less of a negative impact on well-being. Research has also shown that individuals who believe that they have been through a fair refugee status or visa determination process are more likely to accept and comply with a negative outcome. Will the Minister therefore update the House on the steps he may now be considering and how he plans to develop effective alternatives that go beyond a requirement to report or electronic monitoring?

We welcome this report and its findings, and thank those who have taken part. We also welcome the challenge it has laid out on the wholesale need for reform. More people who are detained are subsequently released than return to their country of origin. We now have an opportunity to do the right thing, at a time when we know that there will be no expansion of the estate but that demand is increasing. It is not just humane but vital that we see a culture change in our system and a change in the use of immigration detention so that it is a measure of last resort, not first resort. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), and my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller) on securing today’s debate on the report of the joint inquiry by the all-party group on refugees and the all-party group on migration into the use of immigration detention in the UK. I am aware that all three of them, as well as others who have contributed to this debate, were part of the panel that produced this report, and I thank them and their fellow panel members for their work. The report raises interesting points on an extremely important issue, which we have examined and continue to examine carefully. Like other right hon. and hon. Members, I also want to place on the record my thanks to Sarah Teather, who chaired the panel and did some extremely important work. This was certainly a topic on which she was very impassioned, and remains so to this day.

This debate has highlighted the fact that immigration detention remains an important and emotive subject. Depriving an individual of their liberty is one of the most serious acts a state can take. The decision to detain should never be taken lightly and, once the decision has been taken, it is incumbent on the state to take proper steps to safeguard the health and welfare of those in detention. I always stress that those detained should be shown respect and dignity. This has certainly been an area of particular focus for me since I became the Minister for Immigration last year. I have visited a number of immigration removal centres; indeed my first visit this Parliament was to Yarl’s Wood, and last week I was over at Heathrow seeing the two immigration centres there. The issue will command a continuing focus, on the part of not only the House, but Home Office Ministers.

The Home Office uses immigration powers of detention to prevent unauthorised entry to the UK or to effect the removal from the UK of people who have no right to be here. A lot of the debate has highlighted asylum, but IRCs deal with many broader matters, including foreign national offenders and cases where people have overstayed and are abusing their right to be in this country. It is therefore a complex picture, but it is important that we discuss these points in the way we all have during today’s debate.

[Seema Malhotra]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

I have a limited time to cover quite a lot of points. My normal approach would be to take lots of interventions, but I would like to make a number of points in response to those raised, if hon. Members would allow me.

It is very important that we are able to remove people who have no right to remain in the UK and those who have abused our hospitality by committing crimes. We would always prefer those with no right to be here to leave of their own volition, and a number of mechanisms in the Immigration Acts and the forthcoming immigration Bill are designed to promote that, but unfortunately it does not always happen. When individuals refuse to leave voluntarily, we must be able to enforce their removal. That may well require a period of detention, which we aim to keep as short as possible.

We need to be clear about the fact that detention is not only a necessary tool to support the removal from the United Kingdom of foreign criminals, which I am sure Members in all parts of the House would endorse, but equally important in managing non-compliance by people who are here without lawful basis of stay.

As a number of Members have mentioned, the report’s principal recommendation is that immigration detention should be subject to a statutory time limit of 28 days. I should explain that it is not possible to detain under immigration powers indefinitely, although some have sought to suggest otherwise. Indefinite detention is unlawful. To be lawful, detention must be based on one of the statutory powers in the Immigration Acts, and must accord with the limits set out in case law from both the domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. There must be a reasonable prospect of removal within a reasonable time frame, and the Home Office must continue to show how a case is being progressed to removal if detention is to be maintained.

Our published policy makes clear that there is a presumption in favour of liberty and that detention should be used only as a last resort, but there will be some cases in which longer periods of detention may be appropriate. The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) asked me about that. “A reasonable prospect of removal within a reasonable time frame” is a highly case-specific consideration. A reasonable time frame may be longer, for example, for a person with a history of non-compliance with immigration conditions than for a more compliant individual. Criminality and public protection concerns will also play heavily into the consideration of the length of the reasonable time frame. There are some very difficult cases involving foreign-national offenders who may be seeking to frustrate their removal. No doubt we will return to the issue of how that can be managed, in the context of, for instance, the use of electronic tagging, and I look forward to those future debates.

I am sure Members agree that it would be totally unacceptable to reward foreign criminals and illegitimate migrants who refuse to comply with immigration law by requiring their release, even when removal was imminent, simply because a blanket time limit had been reached. Members may recall that an amendment to introduce a statutory limit of 60 days was proposed in another place during the Report stage of the Immigration Bill last year, and was rejected by a majority of over 300. The rejected time limit was significantly more than the 28-day limit proposed in this report. In the light of that earlier clear vote, the Government do not currently propose to return to legislate on the issue, but we will keep it under review.

The report recommends that more use should be made of alternatives to detention in the UK, and I entirely agree with that recommendation. Our published policy already reflects the view that detention should be used only as a last resort, and that alternatives should be considered whenever possible. I am considering carefully what further steps may be taken in that regard.

Concerns have been raised that we do not deport or remove people quickly enough, and that they may therefore spend longer in detention. Concerns have also been raised about the number of people who are released from detention rather than being removed from the UK. We are keen to ensure that deportation or removal takes place promptly. We streamlined immigration and appeal processes in the Immigration Act 2014 to support that, and we are considering what further steps can be taken.

People may be released from detention for a wide variety of reasons. For example, their circumstances may have changed in a way that makes detention inappropriate, they may have been granted bail, or their removal may have been prevented or delayed by unexpected obstacles such as the securing of travel documents or the lodging of late legal challenges. It does not follow automatically from a release that the original decision to detain was wrong.

However, there is more that we can do in this area. Work is in hand to examine the purpose, operation and size of the detention estate. As part of that work, we will be looking at the issues of gatekeeping for entry to detention and the review of detention, once authorised, to see how those important functions might be enhanced. We will certainly reflect on the points that have been made about caseworking. I take this very seriously, because I want to ensure that the use of detention is appropriate and is applied in the right manner.

Part 2 of the report focuses on the physical conditions of detention, including the standard of accommodation provided in immigration removal centres and healthcare representation. It is common ground that when we do detain, it is vitally important for individuals to be held in humane but secure accommodation, and for us to ensure that their welfare is safeguarded at all times. Obviously, we have an overview from Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons, and I meet representatives of the independent monitoring boards that operate in immigration removal centres, whose reports I take extremely seriously.

Following the publication of the report, we asked Stephen Shaw, who was conducting an independent analysis of welfare in IRCs, to look specifically at part 2 as part of his review. We have not yet received Mr Shaw’s report and had an opportunity to consider it fully, and it would not be appropriate for me to speculate on its findings, but I assure the House that we will be considering it very carefully indeed. It is a serious piece of work, and we will give its response serious consideration.

I am conscious that I am nearing the end of the 10 minutes that Front Benchers are customarily allowed. I apologise again to Members for that fact that I may not have been able to respond to every single point. I thank the members of the all-party parliamentary groups for their work in putting the report together, and I thank the Members who secured today’s debate. I take this issue extraordinarily seriously, and the Home Secretary does as well. That is why we commissioned Stephen Shaw’s report, and, once it has been concluded, we will update the House accordingly.