Immigration Detention

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

This has been a very good and quite informative debate. Members on both sides of the Chamber have outlined problems with the system and the lessons we could learn from countries such as Sweden and Australia, but it strikes me that it is worth remembering exactly what has brought us to this point. We are having this debate because the system has become so bad that it is falling apart and failing other human beings.

I want to read a few lines of a briefing, which I must confess I stole from my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald). It states that the system has recently had

“a raft of high profile scandals including allegations of sexual abuse at Yarl’s Wood, the death of a frail 84 year old Canadian man with dementia in handcuffs, and a proliferation of human rights breaches where the detention of no less than six mentally ill detainees has been found by the High Court to constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”

The answer to the question of what has brought us here is twofold: a general attitude towards immigration and asylum—let us not kid ourselves: it has also been present in the Chamber during other debates this week—and the fact that successive Governments have been led by the nose by powers and forces that may not have many representatives in this Chamber, but have, my goodness, exerted an influence on this place of which most of us should be ashamed.

Years ago, during the last Labour Government, I used to campaign outside the offices of the Home Office on Brand Street with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), my old boss when she was a Member of the Scottish Parliament, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens). We used to go on marches campaigning for the rights of people held in Yarl’s Wood and Dungavel, and we used to stand outside those offices and watch going in and out the faceless people who presumably took them to detention centres. The point I am making is that this did not start recently; we have been on a slide for a long time. Under the coalition Government, the outside walls of the office where I used to campaign—asylum seekers had to turn up there weekly—were brandishing shameful posters telling them to go home and vans were driven around constituencies all across central London telling them to go home.

I hope that this debate marks a genuine change in spirit and approach on the issue of the detention of asylum seekers, but that change has to be so radical and so bold if we are to make any meaningful progress. How different would it be if, rather than having a Home Office Minister in charge of immigration, we had a Treasury Minister because, as we know, immigration brings economic benefits to this country? What would happen if, instead of having a Home Office Minister in charge of detention centres, we had a Minister from the Department for Communities and Local Government or the Department of Health?

I am sure that my party colleagues will back me up when I say that the UK Government must end their belligerent approach to the devolved Administrations on this issue. In the last Parliament, all but two of the elected Members of this House for the city of Glasgow were men. Many women who had been through terrible cases of torture and rape did not want to go and address the men who were their constituency MPs, some of whom were not known for having sympathy with such issues.

I remember the time when my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East was an elected Member of the Scottish Parliament and the Home Office would have nothing to do with her, or indeed with any other elected Member. Given the crossover in service use and delivery, it makes sense to involve not just the Scottish Parliament, but the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Welsh Assembly and the London Assembly, which I understand the UK Border Agency would correspond with in certain cases. I say that not to make a political point, but because it makes sense.

If we choose to be so bold and radical as to completely overhaul this system on a cross-party and cross-Parliament basis, our country will be much the better for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) for his important work in this area. I sense that there will be a change as a result of this debate, which is really exciting.

I agree with the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) that immigration is traditionally a minority policy interest, but it is wonderful to see how many people have attended and participated in today’s debate. That, too, is very exciting. I also support his suggestion that a working group should be established to look at some important questions, which could actually save the Home Office money. These would include looking at the statutory limitations; looking at community-based supervised alternatives; reflecting on policy on access to legal advice for immigration detainees; ensuring that there is a presumption against the use of immigration detention; assessing the impact of the removal of section 4(1)(c) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which deals with bail addresses; and examining the section 55 duty in relation to decisions to detain parents, separating them from their children.

I shall be brief, because I know you are keen to wrap up the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. On the separation of families, a series of reports have been undertaken on how the separation of parents from their children leads to long-term problems, which often have to be dealt with later, at a cost to local authority budgets and so forth. For example, a recent report, “Fractured Childhoods: The separation of families by immigration detention”, found that of 200 children separated from 111 parents, 85 were in foster or local authority care during their parents’ detention. I know that that is not only detrimental to the children’s welfare, but amounts to a significant cost to the public purse. Furthermore, parents were detained for an average of 270 days, which seems excessive. Children described the extreme distress they experienced: losing weight, having nightmares, suffering from insomnia, crying frequently and becoming deeply unhappy. In 92 out of 111 cases, parents were eventually released—with detention having served no purpose. In the light of the issues brought up in the debate, it is clear that there is so much that we could be doing.

I am disappointed that I have not yet been able to visit Yarl’s Wood. Perhaps I should not have asked permission. I should have just gone in, like my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). A constituent came to see me at my advice surgery on Friday. I am not sure whether data protection applies, but he was detained up to August; perhaps we can compare notes and establish whether my hon. Friend had anything to do with his release! The sense of despair that comes from the deprivation of liberty was evident. We believe that we should try to make a strong case to overcome that.

Finally, for the benefit of curious MPs, if the Minister thought that there was some sort of conspiracy in Members of Parliament wishing to visit Yarl’s Wood, it is worth recalling that the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) said that he had visited social care places when he was a member of a local authority. I am a huge believer in elected members across the piece—whether it be at regional, local or national level—visiting children’s centres, care homes, schools, workplaces and so forth. It is crucial, for example, that Members who do not have a formal role on the Front Benches know what is going on. When it comes to Feltham or other places, visits by elected Members are important, as special provision can be made for our visits.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Does the hon. Lady agree with the point I raised earlier—that the Border Agency must start to work better with elected Members of the devolved Administrations and allow them to represent constituents in the same way that she and I can represent them?

[Catherine West]

Of course. An earlier contribution highlighted the crucial work of volunteer visitors. As elected Members, we have a special duty—a “conscience of the nation” approach—in maintaining that visiting. It is particularly important in the summer, when MPs are sometimes accused of having too long a summer holiday, for MPs to fill up their time with helpful visits to these sorts of places.

In conclusion, I reiterate the importance of the potential working group. Colleagues have said how it might work. It is important for it to examine the questions I mentioned earlier. I thank the Minister, in advance of his summing up, for this morning’s letter to me, advising that I could have a meeting with the Minister for Community and Social Care, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). I understand that Yarl’s Wood is in his constituency patch. Who knows, he might invite me to visit the centre some time to have a cup of tea together.

Refugee Crisis in Europe

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

I should like to make a little more progress; then I might give way.

I do not believe that people in the United Kingdom will tolerate a situation in which the Government simply wash their hands, Pontius Pilate-like, and walk by on the other side of the street in the face of the desperate plight of those people who are now in Europe. The point has already been made that the UK has a proud history of taking in refugees, from the Kindertransport of the 1930s through to the Ugandan refugees in the late ’70s. Even Mrs Thatcher’s Government took in 10,000 Vietnamese boat people after a bit of pressure was applied. The people of the United Kingdom will be ashamed if this Government do not relent and take a fair share of the refugees who have come to Europe.

We should not use the fact that we are not part of the EU’s borderless Schengen agreement, or that we are not at present part of the relocation initiative, to distract from what is a moral imperative to reach out to those who are suffering and in need, and who are coming to our relatively wealthy continent of Europe seeking sanctuary. They are, of course, coming to the poorest part of Europe, the south, and the people in the south, particularly in Greece, need the support of the richer nations in the north if they are to cope with the crisis that is unfolding on their doorstep.

[Stewart McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Another thing that the UK Government could do—I think both sides of the House could unite around this—is put pressure on other states in the region such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are supposed to be Britain’s allies, to take in some refugees. Some of those countries do not even recognise refugees in their constitutions. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the southern European states could be helped if the UK Government exerted their influence in that way?

[Joanna Cherry]

Yes I do, but it will be difficult to have any great influence when we are not seen to be making an appropriate response to the crisis ourselves.

We are an island Union of nations, and the point has been made that we are at the northern end of Europe and therefore rather removed from the apex of the crisis. We are also Europeans, and we will continue to be Europeans even if this Government take us out of Europe following their referendum. We have been good Europeans in the past, so let us not dishonour our forebears by turning our backs on those in need who are arriving on our doorstep in numbers bigger than at any time since the second world war.

Yesterday, the House debated the European Union Referendum Bill. In the context of that debate, we should be asking what sort of Europe we want to see. The Scottish National party is in no doubt that what Scotland wants—and, I believe, what the United Kingdom wants—is a humanitarian Europe that extends compassion to our fellow human beings in their hour of need.