The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that unexpected remark—I was slightly thrown by it—and, of course, I am very happy to reciprocate. There has been common ground in many of the areas that we have debated over the past six months while I have been in this role. On issues such as child sexual exploitation, counterterrorism legislation and modern- day slavery, we have, in the best traditions, worked together to provide better and more humane protection for people in this country.
It was typical of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, to choose the topic of this debate for his swansong. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said that Ministers quake in their shoes when the noble and learned Lord rises to his feet. If I am not quaking in my shoes it is only because the noble and learned Lord manages to prod the conscience of Ministers and hold them to account, not necessarily with a full, thrusting and aggressive approach but always with a very perceptive presentation of the case, and always on behalf of others and the most vulnerable in our society. I pay tribute to him. He will be sadly missed.
I realise that I have only a short time to speak because Standing Orders dictate that this debate should finish at 3.12 pm, I think. However, I do not think that we have anything else going on until people with strange tricorn hats start to appear at the Bar. I want to try to address some of the issues raised because they impact on the most vulnerable people in our society as well as some of the people from around the world who come here. We need to make sure that those issues are looked at carefully.
I join the noble and learned Lord in paying tribute to the authors, Sarah Teather and the others mentioned in this debate, for the way that they conducted both part 1 and part 2 of their review of detention in the immigration system and its effectiveness. I will return to that in just a second. Their work builds on a body of evidence that is raising deep public concerns. The undercover experiences at Yarl’s Wood in the Channel 4 documentary were deeply disturbing and are rightly the subject of an independent investigation. There was also the report by Women for Refugee Women, which I have read, about the daily experiences of people in that system. I think that one would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the stories that one hears and the accounts that one is given.
I am conscious that I am on a race to the bottom of the page already. My noble friend Lord Hurd is a distinguished former Home Secretary. I hope that he will be forbearing of a junior Minister in his former department who on the final day of term stretches the limits a little further than perhaps was initially thought. I shall try to do that in a number of areas, and he can come to my tribunal hearing if I go on a little bit too long and can perhaps defend me.
The first thing is to try to find the common ground. When I visited Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre, there were different categories of people whom I met. I met detainees and staff as well. A very large proportion of them were coming in from the centres at Calais where they get on to trains or lorries and are then picked up immediately at the other end. They are then brought into the detention centre and stay only for a matter of hours before they are moved on and processed elsewhere, often returning of their own choice to France or Belgium.
There are then the most difficult cases, the foreign national offenders who have been referred to in many of the contributions that I have listened to. These are the people who used to be held within the prison estate and were then deported from there when they had served their sentence. A small proportion of them are still in the prison estate but are held now in the immigration detention centre ready to be removed. I am deeply conscious of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is in his place. We had a very helpful meeting for interested Peers with officials dealing with these areas following the Yarl’s Wood allegations. The noble Lord rightly spoke of the appropriateness of mixing foreign national offenders who are on their way out with people who are seeking asylum in this country. That point has to be looked at. Clearly, one has a group of people who, understandably, want to do almost everything they possibly can to frustrate the removal process. They do not want to co-operate; they do not want to apply for identity documents. A principal reason why people are held there is that it is not in their interest to co-operate and give an accurate name, to give their passport details and date of birth, and to get replacement documentation for their country, because that would be, as it were, to co-operate in the process of the return which they do not want—they want to stay here. Having the privilege of being in this country, I am sure that we can all totally understand why they would want to do that. Virtually every foreign national offender whose case I have looked into has been there for a very long period and falls into that category.
The detained fast track is an issue which will have to be addressed. Normally, the Border Force feels that these people’s asylum claims at ports of entry can be dealt with quickly and a swift decision reached. Normally, under the detained fast track, that can take 10 to 14 days. Not all those people are then deported; many of those claims are immediately upheld and the individuals concerned are moved to be cared for in the asylum system. That is important, too.
There are some areas on which I should like to make progress and cut to the chase, as there have been some very serious contributions. On Yarl’s Wood, one of the issues was the proportion of female staff. Yarl’s Wood is principally a place of female detention, so it would be appropriate for the number of female staff to be increased. We have said that we want to see it increased further and expect it to grow to 60%. Some also asked for greater transparency and for the improvement plans, which were previously not published, to be published. Taking advantage of the leniency which my noble friend Lord Hurd gave me, I can say that that will now be released.
I can also say as a statement of intent that we do not, as a direction of travel, want to see growth in the numbers of people in the immigration detention centres. For that reason, I can inform the House that the planning application for an extension at Campsfield has been declined. Moreover, today we are announcing that we are handing the Haslar immigration removal centre back to the prison estate. These are very important points as a general statement of direction of travel as to where government policy is going.
On the Stephen Shaw review, without wishing to test the patience of people who say that this is a time for action and not for more reviews, I think that there is something to be said for the fact that on an issue of this sensitivity, the margins of an election are not necessarily the time to get an objective and fair review of the case. We want to do this in a thorough and careful way, and explore all possible alternatives. There is the Kate Lampard review being undertaken by Serco and there is also the review by Stephen Shaw, who is widely respected. He is particularly looking at welfare. I will write to him today to ask him to extend the remit of his review to cover, in particular, the detention of pregnant women and people with disabilities. When we talk about that, distinct from talking about foreign national offenders who I think we all recognise are a different category in this sensitive issue, we are talking about those in the detained fast track. We will ask him to look particularly at the appropriateness of the welfare of those groups.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
The Minister has been very helpful, but will he also extend that to cover women who have been subjected to rape and sexual abuse?
Lord Bates
I will need to double check on that, but I think that, under Article 5 and the rules governing when people have been subject to sexual violence or torture, that is the subject of the medical examination when they are brought into the system and therefore they should never be in the system. I will look at that— I will not look at the Box, because I will get a shake of the head, probably—and include it in my letter to Stephen Shaw today.
I could address other matters, but time has probably run out and so I am not able to.
Lord Scriven
Under the John Vine report on detention and sexuality, there is meant to be an action plan. Clearly, the recommendations are sitting in the Home Office. When will the action plan come forward so that issues to do with sexuality in detention can be addressed? We know what the issues are. The Home Office has accepted the recommendations and we are just waiting for the action plan.
Lord Bates
I do not have the details of when the action plan will be released. As the noble Lord said, we have accepted the recommendations and we will release it at some point. I shall get an answer for him today. My officials will have the answer and if he meets me at the back of the Chamber I shall quickly be able to give it to him.
I undertake to deal with the particular point raised by the noble Baroness. I recognise that this is an extremely sensitive issue and that we are talking about very vulnerable people. We are deeply concerned about it and are aware of our international obligations. It is that sense and that thought that I hope, in paying tribute again to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, is an example of his chairmanship, which he referred to, where he would take people who were a long way apart and then, step by step, bring them a little closer together. That is his legacy.