Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 10th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

I thank noble Lords for being provided with the opportunity to speak in the gap. It is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. I will focus my comments on pregnant migrant women. A lot has been said already by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister, Lady Sugg and Lady Brinton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, and many others.

Like them, I am gravely concerned about the safety of pregnant women, new mothers and their babies. The legislation in its current form may result in them being detained indefinitely and being taken out of the UK. Pregnant women and new mothers are among the most vulnerable in society and we have a duty to safeguard them. We therefore need to provide them with the right nutrition, healthcare, and physical and mental health monitoring to detect problems.

Making them stay in overcrowded centres can increase the risk of infectious disease and result in poor mental health. They cannot be provided with the right care at the right time. Why cannot these small numbers of pregnant migrant women be housed in the community? I say that because, this morning, the Minister mentioned that most illegal migrants are men. What risks can these pregnant women pose in society? If I remember rightly, this morning it was mentioned that the measures in this Bill are needed to keep us safe.

The Government already have a terrible record on pregnant women who are detained. For example, women in prison have a probability of suffering stillbirth that is up to seven times higher than in the general population. Pregnant women returning from abroad during the Covid pandemic were put at risk when the Government made them stay in quarantine hotels. I remind this House of what happened to Amna Bibi: when she returned from Pakistan, she was in a quarantine hotel and asked for help, but someone decided that she had gone to the hospital too many times and, at 34 weeks, she lost her baby, nearly bled to death and was in intensive care.

As noble Lords will be aware, maternity disparities have had a lot of publicity. I declare an interest as the CEO of Muslim Women’s Network UK and an officer of the APPG on Muslim Women. We produced a report on maternity disparities that, like many other maternity reports and the statistics on maternity care, shows one thing very clearly: minoritised women and their babies have a higher mortality rate and are more likely to have a miscarriage. Women born outside the UK are more likely to have worse maternity outcomes.

The Government pledged to address these maternity inequalities, so how can they, on the one hand, say they will reduce harm for pregnant women, while, on the other, bring in legislation that will create a system that will cause harm to pregnant women and their babies? It is cruel, heartless and inhumane—I say to the noble Lord, Lord Frost, that I am using those words again, and I do not apologise for them. The medical and maternity experts all state that the government proposals are putting pregnant women and their babies at risk of physical and mental harm. Among them are the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives, Doctors of the World, Maternity Action and many more. Disregarding expert opinion and safeguarding is shameful.

Timely, safe and adequate maternity care can be received only if pregnant women live in the community. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, mentioned that the UK could become a magnet for pregnant women—I respectfully and strongly disagree with that point. Therefore, I urge the Government to do the right thing and not to detain pregnant women.

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has expertly outlined why these amendments are needed. My good friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester has added her name in support of Amendments 68 and 70, and regrets she is not able to be here to give her support in person. I share her concern about the impact of detention on pregnant women in particular, impact which we know is considerable. Others will rightly draw attention to the impact on children, and the suggestion of the use of force against either group is unspeakable. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons advises that there

“is no safe way to use force against a pregnant woman, and to initiate it for the purpose of removal is to take an unacceptable risk”.

I turn now to Amendment 68, which is a preservation amendment. This simply asks that the Government maintain the status quo. In 2016, the Immigration Act introduced a 72-hour time limit on pregnant women’s detention, which saw the numbers detained drop from 99 in 2014 to just seven in 2021. It is alarming to think that we may see numbers rise, and the consequences are disturbing. According to research by Women for Refugee Women,

“women seeking asylum who are pregnant are an extremely vulnerable group. Many have experienced trauma such as rape, trafficking and torture, and have significant physical and mental health issues”.

I appeal to the Minister to consider also the well-being of the unborn child involved. The Royal College of Midwives has said:

“The detention of pregnant asylum seekers increases the likelihood of stress, which can risk the health of the unborn baby”.


Antenatal care and support provided to women who are detained has often fallen short of the care normally available to pregnant women.

Research by Medical Justice found that in Yarl’s Wood, women often missed antenatal appointments. Some had no ultrasound scans while detained, and women did not have direct access to a midwife and could not request visits. In recent years we have seen the devastating consequences of holding pregnant women in prisons. These facilities, including detention centres, are on the whole not set up to provide the necessary health and welfare oversight. This violates women’s dignity and puts lives at risk. The indefinite detention of pregnant migrant women, who are often extremely vulnerable and the victims of abuse and trafficking, is a very worrying and regressive move. The implication that force may be used against them, and against children, is beyond words. I hope wholeheartedly that the Committee supports these amendments and that His Majesty’s Government give them the consideration they so justly merit.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

I thank noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for putting forward Amendments 68 and 70, to which I have added my name. I also support Amendment 76A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. Let me address Amendments 68 and 76A first.

I made a strong case at Second Reading as to why pregnant women should not be detained. I followed this up with a letter to the Minister. In the letter, which I sent on 19 May, I acknowledged that the Minister has a difficult job in trying to tackle illegal migration but inquired about the following points. I asked about what the Minister had said in his opening comments at Second Reading. He said:

“More than 45,000 people came here by small boat last year. The overwhelming majority of arrivals were adult males under the age of 40.”—[Official Report, 10/5/23; col. 1781.]


This suggests that there were only a small number of women. However, I asked for clarification to understand fully the numbers. If the number was indeed small, then the number of pregnant women would have been negligible. I therefore asked also for evidence of how many pregnant women had entered the UK illegally and whether there had been sharp rise in the figures. I asked this because if not detaining pregnant women was going to act as a magnet, we would have seen the sharp rise suggested by the Government. I chased up a response yesterday and was informed that a draft letter has been prepared and is going through final checks, and I will be receiving it soon. I wonder whether there could be a response today to my points.

It seems obvious that there are probably only a few pregnant migrant women coming to the UK every year, but of course I am happy to be corrected on that point. If the Government are trying to make a case that not detaining them would act as an incentive for more smugglers to bring pregnant women into the country or act as a magnet, that does not stack up. What assessment has been made to arrive at that conclusion?

Illegal Migration Bill

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 3rd July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who expertly outlined why the amendment is needed.

I will not repeat all the points made, but this is an issue of dignity for a highly vulnerable group. I will highlight one or two things that have been said. There is no evidence to suggest that the current 72-hour time limit on their detentions resulted in lots of pregnant women making the crossing. The Government have previously conceded that the adults at risk policy would not adequately safeguard pregnant women, and, in response, the 72-hour limit was brought in. We have research from prior to the introduction of this time limit that highlighted the inadequate healthcare for detained pregnant women. It is hard to believe that any healthcare arrangements would therefore relieve the stress of detention and the damaging impact on both a pregnant woman and her unborn baby.

We have already heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the number of medical organisations and people who are opposed to removing the 72-hour limit. I join with them by strongly supporting this amendment, and I urge noble Lords to do likewise.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, to which I have added my name, because this Government are compromising the safety of pregnant migrant women and their babies.

To date, the Minister has not provided evidence that the numbers will increase if women are not detained. I wrote to the Minister and last week he acknowledged that, since January, no pregnant migrant women have arrived in this country illegally. Evidence has also not been provided that housing a few handfuls of migrant women, who have probably arrived over several years, will provide a danger to our society. For those reasons, I urge the House to support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I support the cross-party amendments in this group. I thank my noble friend the Minister for his engagement, which I have truly appreciated, but I regret to say that I have yet to hear an argument as to why this amendment should not be accepted.

This is a very narrow and focused amendment that simply maintains the current protection on the detention of pregnant women. There is a clear medical case, which is why it is supported by the royal colleges, medical professionals and over 140 groups representing women. It will not create loopholes. It will not incentivise pregnant women to make a dangerous crossing across the channel. It does not exempt women from the rest of the provisions of the Bill, such as removal. It will not create a pull factor, and there is really no way it can be exploited by the criminal gangs who arrange crossings. There cannot be false claims of pregnancy, as the time limit starts only once the Home Office is satisfied that a woman is pregnant.

Some have said that pregnant women are unlikely to be removed, given fitness to fly, but that is not the case, as NHS guidelines say that women can travel safely well into their pregnancy. That argument also misses the point, as this narrow amendment is not about removal; it is about detention. If it is the Government’s case that pregnant women may not be removed, it is even more important that this amendment be accepted, so that pregnant women are not detained for lengthy periods of time.

The amendment does not undermine the Bill. It is not a wrecking amendment; I have been very careful to try to avoid those. It impacts just a small number of women, but it will have a big impact on those women’s health and futures.

My noble friend the Minister is sincere when he says that the Government do not wish to detain pregnant women for any longer than is strictly necessary. Sadly, however, before this protection was in place and in legislation, women were kept in detention for weeks and sometimes months. We should not return to that. This narrow amendment is designed to ensure that that does not happen and that no women can slip through the cracks. Even at this last minute, I sincerely hope that my noble friend will accept the amendment. If he does not, however, and the amendment is pressed, I will, with regret, vote against the Government and in support of the amendment.