Committee stage in the Lords
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)Conservative- Quote
- Good afternoon and welcome to the fifth day of the UK Borders Bill. There may be a Division. If there is, the speaker will desist and we will adjourn for 10 minutes. On Question, Whether Clause 21 shall stand part of the Bill?
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Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat- Quote
- I wonder what we shall do on wet Monday afternoons for the rest of the summer when we no longer have the UK Borders Bill to keep us happy and occupied. I remind the Committee that on the first day in Grand Committee we discussed assault, why it was necessary to have a separate offence of assaulting an immigration officer and whether this clause would come into force at the same time as Section 281 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The Minister said in response to that amendment that the penalty of 51 weeks would indeed apply from the date that Section 281 comes into force, as Clause 21(5) provides, but he said that the offence itself would continue to apply until then. Clause 21 comes into force only in accordance with an order made by the Secretary of State, not when the Act itself comes into force, so for the time being assaults on immigration officers will continue to be dealt with under the existing law. In his letter of 5 July, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that no separate statistics were held on these offences, but that in 2004-05 there were 28 assaults on BIA staff altogether. It was a little surprising that the Minister was unable to give a breakdown, because for all we know those assaults could have been against other staff working in the IRCs, Communications House and the AIT, for example, and if that appeared to be a problem there could have been an argument for widening the offence to assault on any employee of the BIA rather than immigration officers only. Perhaps when he replies the Minister will say why it was thought fit to confine this offence to assaults on immigration officers and not extend it to the rest of the BIA staff. The agency has around 17,200 staff in the UK, including agency, casual staff and consultants, and the Home Office has no idea whether immigration officers are particularly vulnerable compared with all those other people. If the Minister cannot say anything at all about the circumstances of the assaults that have taken place on immigration officers, then equally the Government have no justification for creating the new offence in this clause. It could be that in a subset of the 28 cases where the CPS decided to prosecute, common assault was the charge normally used, and that no problems had arisen with that. However, we shall never know because the noble Lord does not have that sort of information. If there were more serious cases, where actual bodily harm was inflicted on the officer concerned, this clause would not have come into play in any case because the offender would be charged under Section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. It would be useful to know how many of the 28 cases that the Minister mentioned in his letter led to this or some more serious charge. Perhaps he can tell us. In the cases in which the charge was common assault contrary to Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, we need to know what difficulties arose because the officer or one of her colleagues could not arrest the offender, not having the power of arrest in Clause 22. In cases of assault where no police officer was in the vicinity and the attacker absconded before the police were summoned, surely that problem would be solved by the power of detention in Clause 2. We still do not see the justification for creating this new offence, and I am afraid that nothing that the Minister said in Committee or in his letter has dispelled our concern.
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Lord HyltonCrossbench- Quote
- I fail to see why such assaults on immigration officers could not be dealt with under normal criminal law. Surely any court would take into account the fact that the assault was on an immigration officer and would treat that as an aggravating factor.
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Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour- Quote
- At present, there is no specific offence of assaulting an immigration officer. Assaults on immigration officers from members of the public are charged under the offences applicable to a physical attack, and the power of arrest would lie with a police constable in the usual way. This is in contrast to the other public servants who exercise similar—and, one must recognise, coercive—powers, such as officers from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the police. The key motivation for taking this power is to provide immigration officers with the tools necessary to enable them to take the initiative and to deal with incidents of assault as they arise. This is wholly consistent with our commitment to enhancing the powers of our border services to strengthen inter-agency working. The Government believe that it is important to give appropriate protection to agents of the state who exercise coercive powers in their front-line role to protect the public. The exercise of powers of arrest and the use of force mark out immigration, Revenue and Customs and police officers from other government employees. A key aim of the border management programme is to enhance joint working between the border agencies to create the more effective, efficient and flexible border staff that the public expect. In this, it is important that we mirror for immigration officers the protection already afforded to the officers of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and police colleagues. As with other offences in immigration legislation, where a power of arrest is appropriate, we intend that a suitably trained immigration officer may exercise a power of arrest in respect of this offence. Clause 22 creates this power of arrest. This power should exist for the same reasons why we already provide immigration officers with powers of arrest in other areas. To rely on a police officer in such circumstances undermines the benefits of ensuring that each agency can prioritise resources that will otherwise be delivered by introducing the primary intervention capability. Moreover, enabling immigration officers to arrest individuals who commit or attempt to commit an offence of assault against a colleague will ensure that we have the means to deal immediately with those who threaten the safety of front-line immigration officers. This is a sensible power and provision, and I do not quite understand the problem that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has with it. Thankfully, there are not too many assaults on our immigration staff. However, those who assault them should be treated appropriately, and giving immigration staff these powers will enable them to deal with assaults much more easily. This is a sensible measure, as I said, and I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his objection to the clause.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- Obviously I have no option but to withdraw my objection to the clause, because that is how the procedure works in Grand Committee. I cannot say that I am satisfied with the Minister’s reply. No one is arguing about whether there should be charges made against someone who assaults a front-line officer, whether that be an immigration officer, a customs officer or a member of the police force. Nor are we arguing about the penalties, because the existing penalty for each of those offences is six months, and when Section 281 comes into force, that will be changed to 51 weeks, as we have discussed. There is no question but that where people commit criminal offences against front-line workers, they should be charged, they should be brought before the courts and they should be given the same penalty, whichever service the assaulted person belongs to. We are arguing about whether there needs to be a separate charge relating to immigration officers in the Bill or whether the existing procedures work perfectly satisfactorily, and particularly whether they will work satisfactorily once the immigration officers have the power to detain, which they will have under the Bill. The noble Lord cannot even tell me whether there is any problem with people absconding at the moment in cases where someone commits an assault on an immigration officer and, because he does not at present have the power to detain, by the time a police officer is called to attend the scene the offender has already vanished into the crowds. We have no breakdown whatever of the 28 cases that the noble Lord gave in his letter, whether they are assaults against a person in the front line, as he puts it, or against personnel working in immigration removal centres or some other part of the BIA. The noble Lord did not even bother to address the question that I put to him of why there should be a particular offence relating to immigration officers and not to the rest of the BIA’s 17,200 staff, some of whom may be equally vulnerable. I am wholly dissatisfied with the Minister’s reply but, as I said, I have no option but to accept the position. I will not pursue my objection at this stage. Clause 21 agreed to. Clause 22 agreed to. Clause 23 [Seizure of cash]: [Amendment No. 49 not moved.] Clause 23 agreed to. Clauses 24 and 25 agreed to. Clause 26 [Employment: arrest]: [Amendment No. 50 not moved.] Clause 26 agreed to. Clauses 27 to 29 agreed to. Clause 30 [People trafficking]:
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Lord JuddLabour- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 51:
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- I pay tribute again to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on his remarkably assiduous work on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the way in which he has pursued many of the issues on which it has made recommendations in Grand Committee. It is very useful that we have had that voice raised periodically throughout these proceedings. We also had a useful debate on trafficking initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, on 27 June in which, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has pointed out, the House gave a general welcome to the Government’s signature of the Council of Europe convention, to their production of the UK action plan on human trafficking and to the establishment of the UK Human Trafficking Centre and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, all of which are very useful measures that should help us to make a real impact on this wicked phenomenon of trafficking. As often happens, in that debate far more points were raised than the Minister was able to cover in his response. I think that I am right in saying that we still look forward to his promised letter following up all those points, although we understand that, as he has to cope single-handedly with all the Home Office work, including this Bill, it is not easy for him to keep up with that correspondence. Article 13 of the Council of Europe convention stipulates a minimum of 30 days for recovery and reflection, but the JCHR heard evidence—as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has just told us—suggesting that three months would be more appropriate. The impact on victims can be devastating, resulting in a variety of physical, psychological and emotional problems, as the UK action plan emphasises. The experience of women referred to the Poppy Project, whose needs were culturally diverse as well as varying widely according to their particular experience, seems to indicate that a more flexible approach is required, covering not only the immediate assistance to be provided but also the range of support and resettlement services needed by the women given leave to remain. The action plan calls for, among other things, the establishment of a multi-agency group to review victim-centred trafficking measures. We would like to see the more radical and comprehensive programme that will emerge from the trafficking centre and the NGO advisory group’s recommendations, which will address three areas: better identification and referral procedures, enhanced support and rights for adult victims and their reintegration and resettlement. With regard to children, in previous debates we asked a number of questions and had answers to many of them in the Minister’s letter of 19 July. It is apparent that, as a result of the global visa regulations introduced in February 2006, the number of UASC entering the country is falling and because every child subject to an entry clearance must be accompanied by what is called a “vignette”, on which is recorded the personal details of the child and of the person with whom the child is supposed to be travelling—or, in the case of an unaccompanied child, of the UK sponsor—the opportunities for trafficking have, we hope, already been reduced. However, where there is a discrepancy between the information on the vignette and the actual details of the child or sponsor, the possibility of trafficking should be flagged up. I asked whether a central record was kept of the discrepancies and the action taken to follow them up. Having been unable to find any reference to it on the web, I also asked about the best practice code on the carriage of minors which the action plan said was to be published in May. I asked whether, in the event of any suspicion arising, the child and the adult sponsor would be interviewed separately. The Minister’s letter of 19 July was very long—in fact I think it was something of a record at nine pages. We are grateful to him for all the information that he has provided, but I wonder whether he could check it again and ensure that those questions were answered. On a quick skim, I think that they may not have been covered. The arrangements for the protection of child victims of trafficking are, of course, different from those for adults. They would be in no danger of removal as illegal entrants because all children, trafficked or not, are given “discretionary leave” under APU Notice 3/2007, to the age of 17 and a half since March, so they would have no need of the first leg of this amendment. Once identified as trafficked, a child must be provided with care and protection under the Children Act 1989 and equivalent legislation in Scotland. The action plan promises that national best practice guidance will be issued to professionals on how to provide support for trafficked children, supplementing the DfES publication Working Together to Safeguard Children, published in April 2006. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the Committee when this guidance is to be published. I have every sympathy with the thinking behind this amendment, but I wonder if the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and others may think that we should await the revised version of the action plan, following the Government’s consideration of the 200-odd responses to the consultation on the plan, to see how far it meets the needs of victims of trafficking—not just for recovery and reflection, but for their care, rehabilitation and resettlement. It would be useful if the amended action plan could be published before Report so that the House could then consider, in the light of all that work, whether any legislative changes need to be inserted into the Bill.
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Lord Roberts of LlandudnoLiberal Democrat- Quote
- I strongly support the amendment. I also reinforce the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Avebury that the Government could implement the report on the action plan—the valuation—when we discuss this early in October on Report. I feel fairly optimistic for once that the Government have a heart and that that heart will include some reference to trafficking. Will it be in Amendment No. 51, which I prefer because it is far fuller and gives greater guidance, or even in Amendment No. 65? Not to implement it would be in total contravention of our signing of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. We cannot do something in that direction one day and refuse to implement it the next. Without saying anything further, I hope that my optimistic heart will be reflected in the Minister’s answer and in the final Bill which is before us in October.
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- Since the Official Opposition are so bashful, I shall go next.
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Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative- Quote
- As I have explained before, it is for the convenience of the House that the opposition spokesman should speak last in all proceedings, including those in Grand Committee. Although I appreciate that that is less helpful in Grand Committee than on the Floor of the House, the reason is simply that it gives an indication to noble Lords who are not taking part in the debate that when they see that name up, the Minister will be coming next. I am merely trying to follow the procedures of the House.
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- I am intrigued to know what line the Conservative Party is taking on this important amendment which has come from the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I shall look at it item by item. I suggest that subsection (5) is of crucial importance, come what may. I have reasons for saying that, the principal one being that the process of dealing with a probably trafficked person will be vitiated. The person will be sent perhaps to their country of origin, or perhaps somewhere else, and will be wide open to being retrafficked. They will be put into an extremely vulnerable situation. I hope that the Government will take that point very seriously. Subsection (6) brings us to the much-debated pause of time for reflection and recovery. Various Ministers over the years have said that if we legislated for such a pause, it would be a major incentive to traffickers to bring in more people. That is simply an assertion; no evidence has ever been given to support that argument. Even if the Government will not accept provision for such a pause in the Bill, will they undertake to do it in practice informally, without statutory backing? Will they please consider the best practice in Europe, where several countries already allow such a pause? Will they bring our performance up to the level of the best European Union practice? I am glad to say that I have received a letter today from Mr Kevin Brennan, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, who said that the Government intend to produce, “revised statutory guidance concerning children missing from care”. Children who get into care and then go missing are a just a small subsection of the whole range of trafficked people, even of the variety of trafficked children, but they are the ones that we should be most concerned about because of the reasons why they go missing. It is widely thought and perhaps generally acknowledged that it happens because someone is waiting to take them away and abuse them, exploit them or put them into sexual slavery or some other fate of that kind. Statutory guidance alone is not enough; we need more positive action.
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The Earl of ListowelCrossbench- Quote
- During a meeting two weeks ago with the Director of Public Prosecutions about trafficking, an example was given by an NGO of a young woman who had been trafficked as a child, had escaped from her traffickers as an adult and had been found at Kings Cross station with inadequate papers. I cannot remember the details and do not have my notes with me, but she was given a prison sentence of some months because she did not have adequate papers. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will recall the case. I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me to reassure me that there are measures to ensure that mitigating circumstances are taken fully into account in proceedings against individuals with inadequate papers. Although that was only one case, there was general concern that the measures that have understandably been taken to toughen up the immigration system were not being balanced against the consideration of cases involving people with particular vulnerabilities. In our discussions on reporting restrictions for young people the Minister expressed his concern that young people are disappearing from care. That relates to the concern raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. Was the Minister thinking of distinguishing in the reporting restrictions between children held under Section 17 of the Children Act and those who have full-care status? I do not think that we explored that nuance and it would be interesting to have some information on it.
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- Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative
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- I shall also speak to Amendment No. 65, which is tabled in my name. Noble Lords have tended to concentrate on the problems for children who have been trafficked. I understand that, and it is right that both amendments have been framed to cover all those who are victims of trafficking, regardless of age. If the person is a child it is easier to define him as a victim of trafficking because he can be said not to have had an element of choice about travelling. I appreciate that the Government have difficulty when dealing with older victims of trafficking because some of them may be victims who had no choice, whereas others may have exercised a choice to come to this country illegally and it is difficult to make sure that the distinction between the two is retained if they are to be treated differently. There is also a third category, which I suspect arises frequently, comprising adults who choose to be trafficked to this country but whose initial choice soon disappears because they are then subjected to duress. Whenever we discuss matters such as this we have to have in mind that, unless one has full information, it is difficult to determine on a case-by-case basis who is a victim of trafficking and who may not be. It is therefore difficult to make provision in the Bill to protect victims of trafficking. However, just because something is difficult, that does not mean that it is not worth trying to get it. I have a lot of sympathy with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. It would be strange if I did not because it is very similar to an amendment moved in another place by my honourable friend Mr Anthony Steen. Although the Government have signed the Council of Europe convention, as other noble Lords said, which provides for renewable residency permits for the victims of trafficking, there is no structure in place within the UK for residency permits. As such, no alternative to temporary or permanent residency exists other than referring, for example, children through the asylum route. It is important here to look at the issue of children alone, an issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, refers. It is important to know from the Government what they intend to do to remedy that issue. What other route will be provided? Although it will be appropriate for some trafficked children to be returned to their family or guardians in their country of origin, many trafficked children, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, will be living in fear of violence, sexual abuse and retrafficking if they are forced to return to their own community. A couple of years ago I saw a very telling documentary screened at the UNICEF AGM of a young girl who had been trafficked and was in fear of being returned to her community but who had been resettled with the assistance of UNICEF and provided with a trade. It would have been extremely dangerous for her to return to her country. We have to bear such cases in mind. ECPAT says that it has regularly seen trafficked children’s appeals statements being rejected and claims refused in this country because of a basic lack of awareness and concern about human trafficking from both BIA—then IND—staff and immigration solicitors. What are the Government doing to address that? I turn specifically to my Amendment No. 65, which looks at trafficking within the remit of what the chief inspector should be doing in the clauses at the end of the Bill. Clauses 47 to 55 are welcome additions to the Bill made by the Government in Committee in another place. In particular, Clause 47 requires the Secretary of State to appoint a chief inspector of the Border and Immigration Agency. The chief inspector will monitor and report on the efficiency and effectiveness of the agency. My amendment seeks to draw attention to the evil of people trafficking and covers all persons, not just children. It emphasises the fact that the chief inspector should report on the agency’s treatment of those claimants and applicants who claim that they have been trafficked into the United Kingdom. I purposely shadowed the drafting used by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, because I think it important that we look at those who have made a claim that they are trafficked and not merely concentrate on those for whom it has been proved that they have been trafficked. At an earlier stage I expressed my concern about the way in which the provisions of Clause 16 may have an impact on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. My amendment goes wider. It asks the Government to put on the record what action they believe should be taken by the BIA to assist those who have been trafficked into this country, including those who claim that they have been trafficked, and including also those who try to give evidence against the traffickers and thereby risk their own lives for a second time in agreeing to give that evidence—the first time being when they are brought into the country, often by the most hazardous means. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has been assiduous over the past years in drawing to the attention of the House the importance of assisting those who give evidence in these cases. He has argued repeatedly that they should not be removed from the United Kingdom until the process of identifying the traffickers and prosecuting them has been completed. It would be useful for the Committee to hear today what the Government’s position is on that matter now. It is encompassed by my amendment, which would require the chief inspector to report on such matters. What assistance is given to all those who are prepared to give evidence? What improvements do the Government intend to introduce in the future, and when?
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I do not think that there is a great deal of difference between Members of the Committee on how we view this issue. In this year of all years it is very important that we try to make genuine progress to improve the work which we do within government on the issue of trafficking. Everyone accepts that trafficking is an evil and appalling crime that does terrible things to those caught up in its effect and its wake. No one really is at odds over the appalling nature of the crime. That makes my job the more difficult because I have to resist these amendments. On the plus side, it provides me with a helpful opportunity to set out the Government’s approach on the issue more generally. As well as using the Bill to strengthen existing trafficking offences, which has been acknowledged in Committee, the Government take very seriously their responsibilities towards victims of trafficking. The publication of the UK action plan and the signing of the European Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings by the Home Secretary on 23 March this year demonstrate our commitment to do more to help to identify the victims of this vile crime. It is another step towards our main aim of making the UK a hostile place for traffickers. The Home Office has developed an online checklist or toolkit—call it what you wish—aimed at practitioners to increase the awareness of trafficking. Training to identify and handle potential victims of trafficking has been provided throughout the regional enforcement offices. We have also provided staff with guidance on identifying victims of trafficking at the earliest stage. To support the identification of children in need, the Border and Immigration Agency has provided specialist training for about 600 operational members of staff nationwide. It is quite an extensive training programme. The message that children arriving in the United Kingdom may be here as a result of coercion or criminal activity, including trafficking, is central to the theme of the course. When deciding whether to pursue the repatriation of an individual, very careful consideration is given to our obligations under immigration law and the Human Rights Act, including any risk that that individual might face on return and other reasons why they should be allowed to remain in the United Kingdom. The Government recognise that some individuals who have suffered exploitation at the hands of their traffickers will need time to recover and reflect on their position. Where appropriate, permission to remain in the UK may be granted indefinitely or on a limited basis. Each case is rightly assessed on its individual merits, and repatriation will be considered only where it is considered to be safe and the right thing to do. On proposed new subsections (6) and (7) of Amendment No. 51, we have always said that we are wholly sympathetic to the objectives behind the Council of Europe convention. The convention will build on our strategy to combat human trafficking by providing minimum standards of protection and victim support. We have already done good work to develop an effective enforcement response to this horrendous crime by establishing the UK Human Trafficking Centre last year. That has been widely welcomed, including in the debate secured the other week by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. The centre will become a central point for the development of police expertise and, more importantly in many respects, operational co-operation. We also continue to support adult victims of human trafficking through an investment of £2.4 million in the Poppy Project, which provides shelter and support to victims who have been trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation. It will inevitably take some time before we move from signing the convention to it being ratified, and for good reasons. Amendments to primary and secondary legislation will be required, as will the development of guidance and the institution of new processes. It would be premature to accept Amendment No. 51 before we assess the best way of implementing all the requirements imposed on us by the convention. Amendment No. 65 would place a specific duty on the chief inspector to consider, and to make recommendations about, the treatment of those who claim to have been trafficked into the United Kingdom. Close attention to Clause 47(2) will pay dividends, because it is already drafted in such a way as to allow the chief inspector to give equal consideration to the treatment of claimants and applicants from all backgrounds. This includes those who may have been trafficked. The chief inspector will look at the processes by which decisions are made and how Border and Immigration Agency staff deal with people on a day-to-day basis. Where there is a specific area of concern, the Secretary of State will be able to ask the chief inspector to investigate and report on the matter.
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- The Earl of ListowelCrossbench
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- I apologise to the Minister for not having made myself clear. I did not really want the Minister to look at the particular case, rather the general principle of whether enforcement of statute is being sensitive enough about issues such as trafficking, which should be considered as mitigating circumstances in the application of those statutes.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- I think I know the case to which the noble Earl is referring. I believe that the person was charged with destruction of documents, which is a criminal offence that attracts a penalty of up to six months. It would be useful if the Government could declare that they do not wish people to be prosecuted for this offence when there is the slightest suspicion that they might have been victims of trafficking. It should be incorporated into instructions to the Crown Prosecution Service that, as a matter of public interest, which is one of the considerations that it has to take into account in deciding whether to prosecute, the question of whether a person may have been trafficked is a primary reason for not proceeding to prosecution.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I am not going to express a general view on this, because it would be unwise to do so. One has to look at these things on a case-by-case basis. Destruction of documents relating to someone’s immigration status is a very serious criminal offence. Sometimes, it can be indicative of a general desire on the part of an individual to escape the effects of our legislation. It makes it much more difficult for immigration law enforcement purposes. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to a debate that we had last week on reporting restrictions. We had a full-ish debate on that, and I am not going to go over the points that I rehearsed then. I made the point during that debate that there was a child protection benefit to the placing of reporting restrictions and there was a general encouragement to keep in contact with services as a product of that, which was accepted as being a beneficial move forward in some regard, even to critics of our approach. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, made some useful points about retrafficking in particular, which I will come to in a moment. She also raised the issue of giving assistance in the production of evidence. I have made a poor note there, but will try to find an answer to that—if not today, then certainly in correspondence. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked what efforts we were making to trace missing children. The Border and Immigration Agency is currently working to tighten up our policy and the process of reporting missing children. A working group has been set up, led by Kent Police, a procedure has been agreed to, and a pro forma has been developed to report potentially missing children. The noble Lord will have picked up on my concerns, and those of others, about children who go missing from care. I remain puzzled as to why and how that could happen. However, I know that it is difficult in those circumstances to provide absolutely as full a protection as the authorities charged with that responsibility would like. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, made reference to victims being retrafficked. We recognise and acknowledge, as do other European states, that it is impossible to guarantee absolutely the safety of individuals on their return, but we can take steps to minimise some of the risks which may be present. In every case where we are considering the possibility of returning an individual, we will very carefully take into account our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and a full consideration of the case will include an examination of the assessment for that country. We look at evidential matters. To achieve that, we must work closely with NGOs such as the International Organisation for Migration, which runs a voluntary returns programme to offer those who return voluntarily the support they need to be safely reintegrated. Of course the Government provide reintegration assistance to that end as well. In addition, individuals accepted on to the Poppy Project scheme will have the option of returning to their country of origin and are given information and support about organisations in their country of origin which can assist in that process. The noble Baroness also asked about how we identify victims of trafficking and how we can improve this. We have developed a best practice toolkit with NGOs which is now working to the benefit of immigration staff, police officers and other professionals who come into contact with victims. The important thing about that checklist/toolkit is that it aims to raise awareness of the difference between trafficking and smuggling. There is clearly a distinction there. I made reference earlier to training that was undertaken. That is clearly an important work in progress and something we need to do more of. I hope that I have answered most of the points. This has been a very useful discussion and debate, building on the debate that we handily had the other week, instigated by the noble Lord, Lord Sheik. I had hoped that I was going to be able to say to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that I had despatched the correspondence to which he referred. I thought that I had, but it is possible that I have not. I will go back and check my correspondence record again, redoubling my efforts. I know that there were a lot of issues which ran quite widely in that debate. I fully acknowledge that it is an important debate to fully respond to.
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- Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative
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- Before the noble Lord, Lord Judd, seeks to withdraw his amendment, perhaps I may first thank the Minister for the way in which he has dealt with my Amendment No. 65, and particularly for his offer to write to me on the assistance given to those who give evidence and how the Government seek to develop that in the future. That will be most useful. The Minister directed me on Amendment No. 65, as I rather expected he should, by saying, “Don’t worry—it’s all covered by Clause 47(2)”. Indeed, the general remit is given to the chief inspector. However, I was grateful for the way in which the Minister replied to the amendment. It is important to have on the record the fact that the Government see part of that remit as specifically the need to cover the way in which the BIA reacts to claims of trafficking and how those are processed. There remains a difficulty that I shall return to when we reach Amendment No. 67—that the Minister correctly said that the cases have to be viewed on a case-by-case basis. Under Clause 47, however, the chief inspector is not allowed to look at individual cases; he is looking at the general approach. I shall keep my powder dry for Amendment No. 67, because the issue goes rather wider than just this amendment.
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- The Earl of ListowelCrossbench
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- I was grateful for the Minister’s reply to my concerns and for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Perhaps the Minister will take the matter away and consider it. It might be helpful if a statement from him was put on the record to the effect that the Government recognise that some of those who experience trafficking are traumatised because it can be very distressing and troubling, and that the Government want the courts and the Director of Public Prosecutions to take full account of the Government’s concerns about trafficked people when they consider sentencing and processes. Something on the record could rebalance the matter slightly. I must find out more about that particular case and other similar cases, and I will contact the Minister in the Recess.
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- I thank the Minister for his very courteous and characteristically full reply to this interesting debate. I thank also all those who participated. I hope that the Committee and the Minister will be bear with me if I try to comment fully on some of his comments. I say at the outset that I appreciate the way in which the Minister has been with us for long hours over a number of sittings. He always listens very carefully and tries to respond thoroughly to the points made. There was a certain amount of controversy before we adopted a Grand Committee system. I did not share that feeling because, at its best, this system provides us with a good opportunity. If there is good will and genuineness on both sides, and before everyone gets into a too entrenched and overly defined position, the Minister is able to go away and genuinely think deeply about some of the arguments put forward. He can then come back with a considered and, we hope, constructive response at Report stage. In some ways, belatedly, this procedure covers what I would like to see far more of—pre-legislative scrutiny. I very much appreciate the points made by other Members of the Committee. The Minister talked about how the Government’s good will was well established by signing the convention and how ratification was another matter. Indeed, as I know Mr Vernon Coaker knows himself, the Government’s position is well expressed in the view that we feel that ratification is appropriate only when we are sure that everything is in place to make it a real measure. That is an important argument which I for one take seriously. We do not want gestures that are quickly shown to be no more than that. The process of getting things in place can, however, become terribly extended. I was a Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe when we originally discussed the convention, and the anxiety was building up. I was very much identified with those who were pushing for the convention. I was always totally convinced that the United Kingdom would be in the vanguard of support for this measure. Indeed, I am reassured by repeated government statements, the terms of which show that the Government regard as reprehensible the whole business of trafficking. However, it was difficult to explain to colleagues and others in the Council of Europe why it took so long for the UK Government to reach the point of signing. Now there is just bewilderment at how long they are taking to ratify.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- It was reinforced.
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- Indeed. I thank the noble Lord for making that point. The observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, are always pertinent and important and I found them very helpful. She knows how passionate I am about children’s issues. It is important to emphasise that children’s issues have special dimensions which we must always have very much at the forefront of our minds. On her general point about the Government’s dilemma, no one dismisses the fact that there may be a dilemma; I certainly do not. However, it is very complicated because often the original choice to come here illegally will have been part of the whole trafficking basis. Somebody will have put these people up to it knowing perfectly well that it will subsequently make them vulnerable with regard to what they want to do with them once they are here. Trafficking is a sinister business. We would be naïve not to recognise that very real possibility.
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- Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative
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- The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has come to the end of his peroration but he makes an extremely important point, which I tried to get across in my opening remarks. I have in mind particularly children who are sent here by families who believe that they are trafficking them to a better life here, but are in fact exposing them to torture, degradation and abuse. We have to consider all the various aspects of this evil trade. The noble Lord is right to refer to that.
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that intervention. Of course, this applies also to adults. Whatever their position, and even if originally they made this choice themselves, in the name of humanity we must recognise that they have often been through a searing and deeply disturbing psychological experience. Therefore, they ought to be given time to reflect on their situation before final decisions are made and implemented. We do not say in the Joint Committee’s report that there should not be deportations, but in the name of decency we are making a sensible suggestion and reinforcing what is in the conventions. That covers most of the points that were made, to which I wanted to respond. I conclude by saying again that it would be good from every standpoint if the Government would introduce the self-discipline of a target date for ratification. In the mean time, for the obvious procedural reasons to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has already referred, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 30 agreed to. Clause 31 [Automatic deportation]:
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- moved Amendment No. 52:
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- I support this amendment because I am concerned that Clause 31(1)(b) simply says, “who is convicted in the United Kingdom of an offence”. I suspect that that is going too wide. I am slightly surprised at the moderation of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in wanting to put in only two years; I think a case could be made out for putting in five years. I very recently came across a case of an asylum seeker who had made the mistake of taking a job in this country, no doubt completely out of ignorance. For that he was convicted and served a prison sentence—I am not sure how long—and was then detained presumably in preparation for deportation. The commission of technical offences should not be a kind of fast-track to deportation. I hope that the Government will have second thoughts about this.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, as this debate gives us a chance to focus a little attention on an important issue. The definition of a foreign criminal in Clause 31 of the Bill means that automatic deportation will apply to foreign nationals who have been sentenced to imprisonment for either a period of 12 months or more or any length of time for an offence listed on the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Specification of Particularly Serious Crimes) Order 2004. Amendment No. 52 would alter the first of those conditions, allowing for the automatic deportation of those sentenced to two years or more in prison—which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, described as a rather moderate attempt to amend our policy intent. Although I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for providing this opportunity to debate what the threshold for automatic deportation should be, I profoundly disagree with him. To look at this issue we need to begin by considering what we are trying to achieve and then consider how the criteria we have chosen are designed to meet these aims. The Government’s objectives in the automatic deportation provisions are primarily twofold: to protect the United Kingdom public from harm from foreign criminals and to send out a message that foreign criminals who abuse the United Kingdom’s hospitality are simply not welcome here. I accept that this is a delicate matter and that the Government have a broader responsibility underpinning these aims. We must ensure that the effect of the legislation is proportionate and that the application of the measures will be just. We must find a balance. The first step towards finding that balance is to accept that being deported has a substantial impact on a person’s life, and it would be wrong to apply the automatic deportation provisions to every foreign national convicted of a criminal offence. Such an approach would go far beyond protecting the British public from harm and would be disproportionate and unfair. However, the argument for proportionality is not an argument for leniency; the provisions must still achieve their objectives.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- The Minister said that the list of offences defined under Section 72(4)(a) is constantly changing, and I accept that. He will correct me if I am wrong to say that, at present, 320 such offences are listed and the clause provides that a person who is given a suspended sentence for any of them becomes liable to automatic deportation.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I can confirm the noble Lord’s first observation about the number of offences covered by the section. He said 320, and we think that that is about right.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- The second question was whether a person who is given a suspended sentence of imprisonment for any of the 320 offences is covered by the automatic deportation provisions.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- Only if the sentence is activated; in other words, if a person is sent to prison by the court. The two conditions together meet their objectives. First, they will help to protect the British public, and secondly they will send out that important message. The provisions meet our underpinning duty to be proportionate and fair. They are aimed at, and will capture, serious offenders. While I respect the noble Lord’s intention in tabling his amendment, the amendment would create an unwelcome gap in the implementation of the Government’s policy and for that reason it is unacceptable. Examples of the sorts of offences that would not be subject to automatic deportation if we were to accept the noble Lord’s suggestion of two years’ imprisonment as a threshold are the very serious offences under the Fraud Act 2006 such as fraud, deception, forgery and counterfeiting. In cases involving such offences, a person is sentenced to at least 12 months’ imprisonment but less than two years. Those sorts of offences would fall through the net, which would begin to undermine the effectiveness of the cover that we are trying to provide.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- I am very surprised to hear the Minister say that fraud and counterfeiting cannot attract a sentence of as much as two years. I would have thought that the maximum sentence must be considerably more than that for either of those offences. Other offences for which the maximum is very much greater include theft, for which the maximum is 10 years. Theft can be a fairly minor offence, but the maximum sentence obviously covers a whole range of conduct, including acts that are perfectly trivial and others that are very serious. Fraud and counterfeiting are similar. I would be very surprised if the maximum sentence did not allow for a wide variation in the acts that were brought before the courts. Some acts would justify a sentence of imprisonment of at least two years. I am also very surprised that the Minister did not address my main argument that there are now three separate definitions under Section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I made a note to refer to that, which I did not do. I was interested in that line of argument, although I did not intend originally to address it. I assure the noble Lord that we will ensure that our terminology is properly aligned. I think that it probably is, but I will check before we reach Report. If the noble Lord will indulge me for a moment, I am also conscious that I did not respond to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, when he asked whether failed asylum seekers found to be working in breach of conditions would be detained for deportation as foreigner criminals. The answer is no. Even if it was decided to prosecute the individual, the maximum sentence would be only six months. It is therefore probable that the individual whom the noble Lord might have had in mind would be detained for administrative removal under the terms of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Unlike deportation, an individual subject to administrative removal is not prohibited from returning to the UK if the appropriate entry clearance is obtained. I hope that that answers the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- I am grateful to the Minister for that supplementary remark. He said in the first part of his remarks that the Government had clearly defined what they meant by serious criminality. I challenge that definition because the words “serious criminal” are used in only one place in the legislation; namely, in the heading of Section 72 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Curiously enough, the section does not go on to define a serious criminal but speaks about a person, “presumed to have been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly serious crime”. When I thought carefully about this section, I could not for the life of me see why it did not define a serious criminal as a person who came within the provisions of subsections (2) to (4). If it did, one would be able to refer to a serious criminal in subsequent legislation. In fact, we are not able to do so because one would not want to use the very convoluted expression defined in subsection (2). But we have two definitions of a foreign criminal; that is, the definition in this Bill and the one in the Bill that I mentioned which is coming down the track. I sought in my amendment to align the definition of a foreign criminal as regards the sentencing with what we have already decided.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I want us to move on. I do not want to detain the Committee but will happily write to the noble Lord on the interaction of terminology between Section 72, automatic deportation and the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, so that we can clear that up. I do not see this as a major issue for the Committee.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- The noble Lord may not think so but the courts which have to interpret these Acts may find difficulties in doing so unless the terminology is corrected. But that was not my substantive point. I was trying to explain to the noble Lord—and to answer a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton—that the suggested two-year period of imprisonment to be inserted in subsection (2) was not chosen arbitrarily. It was chosen to align it with the provisions of Section 72 of the NIA Act 2002. The noble Lord looks pained, but I do not agree that this is a trivial matter. It would be helpful to the courts and the individuals concerned if, as far as possible, we chose the same definition of a serious criminal in every Act which referred to them, even though the 2002 Act did not mention them by name. If the noble Lord does not think there is anything in that suggestion, I can only say that, in a couple of years’ time when there are problems in differentiating the different kinds of person who come before the courts or immigration authorities, I will remind him of this discussion. In the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- moved Amendment No. 53:
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Lord HenleyConservative- Quote
- As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, explained, Amendments Nos. 53 and 56 restore some of the discretion of the Secretary of State that the Bill aims to remove entirely. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on why the Government think it better for there to be no flexibility in this matter. The amendments also raise an interesting point about why Clause 31 is entitled “automatic deportation” when there are still hoops that must be jumped through—the Secretary of State must judge whether the person is able to claim protection under the convention and whether his or her life would be in danger if deportation goes ahead. There is also the possibility that the country of origin will not accept the person back. These points are not trivial and they pose serious problems for the effective implementation of this clause. What agreements have the Government managed to make with countries about the treatment of returned criminals? Have they moved any further on methods of establishing whether those agreements to protect the criminal from breaches of the convention are being kept? We cannot support Amendments Nos. 54 and 55. We believe that involving the courts in this process would further delay an already slow process and would not add anything to the limited judgment that the Secretary of State is left to exercise.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. Clause 31(5) places an obligation on the Secretary of State to make a deportation order for foreign criminals who meet the threshold for criminality, save where one of the exceptions in Clause 32 applies. Taken together, Amendments Nos. 53 and 56 essentially eliminate that obligation. Amendment No. 53 removes the assertion that the deportation of a foreign criminal is conducive to the public good, replacing it with a mere presumption that it is. The noble Lord drew attention to a particular case to make his argument, and it is a fair point. Amendment No. 56 creates a duty actively to consider whether a foreign criminal’s deportation is conducive to the public good. The presumption in favour of deportation and the discretion to consider a case on its merits already exist. Clauses 31 to 38 add to the existing legal framework by creating certainty that criminality of a certain level will result in deportation. The Government recognise that in some instances deportation may not conform to our international obligations, for example under the European Convention on Human Rights or the refugee convention. It would not be in the public interest to deport a foreign criminal if his offending was due to mental illness or if one of the other exceptions in Clause 32 applied. However the number of those cases will be limited. In cases where an exception does not apply, deportation must be certain and swift. The provisions in Clauses 31 to 38 achieve those objectives. From the day he is convicted to the day of his release the foreign criminal and his victim will know that, subject only to one of the five exceptions, he will be deported with no scope for discretion to be applied. The noble Lord’s amendments would hinder that. They would create an open-ended, ambiguously defined test which would ultimately be used by serious criminals as a means of frustrating deportation. Amendments Nos. 54 and 55 would remove the Secretary of State’s obligation to make a deportation order in respect of foreign criminals who meet the threshold set out in Clause 31. They add nothing to the existing deportation arrangements in Section 3(6) of the Immigration Act 1971. Sentencing judges already consider exercising their power to recommend deportation whenever they sentence a foreign national. Likewise, the Secretary of State already considers very seriously any recommendation put forward by a court. The amendments would do little more than create a statutory duty to perform a process which takes place now as a matter of course. The Government believe in the value of an objective threshold for serious offending, which is set out in the Bill. We will continue to listen to the views of sentencing courts to capture extenuating features of offending behaviour below that threshold. This approach in respect of serious offending will allow for greater certainty for both the offender and the victim and will send out the message that serious criminality will not be tolerated. If the amendments were accepted, there would be no certainty over deportation. It would also send out the wrong message—simply that offenders might face deportation. I do not believe that that would be satisfactory or desirable. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made a case based on the example he gave, that there would always be instances when a foreign criminal’s presence is conducive to the public good. We recognise that there may be such instances, and that when a person is exempt from an automatic deportation order, an exception can be made under clause 31, such as for Article 8 reasons. There is not an assumption that their deportation is conducive to the public good in those cases. It may be that a person has lived here for a long time and has family ties in the United Kingdom. However, those considerations will have to be balanced against the level of criminality. That consideration is very important and we have attempted to reflect that in our approach.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- I do not think that it was claimed in the case of the young man in the Shetlands that Article 8 did come into play. The argument for his presence being conducive to the public good was that he had been living in the Shetlands for 14 years, that in all respects he was a valuable citizen to this country, that he had achieved important distinctions in his activities on behalf of the Shetlands and that a large number of people asked for him to remain. In the end their arguments prevailed. If the same circumstances arose under this Bill it would have been impossible for the Secretary of State to exercise his discretion in the young man’s favour. In the future it will not even be necessary for someone to have been sentenced to imprisonment. As the Minister can confirm, if someone receives a suspended sentence—presumably for a fairly minor offence, because the courts do not give out suspended sentences for the sorts of offences, such as drug dealing, that the noble Lord described a few minutes ago—and he breaches the terms of the licence for some reason, that will immediately call into play the automatic deportation provisions of the clause. The absence of any discretion on the part of the Secretary of State to refrain from exercising deportation in any circumstances not covered by the exceptions is too restrictive and should be altered. I can see that we will get nowhere in the debate on this clause and that we will have to return to the point on Report. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 54 to 56 not moved.] Clause 31 agreed to. [Amendment No. 57 not moved.] Clause 32 [Exceptions]:
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 58:
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. In deciding whether to apply exception 2, the date of the offence and not the date of the conviction should be relevant. If the person was a child at the time of the offence he should have the benefit of the exception, notwithstanding the fact that he became an adult some time between the date of the offence and the date of the conviction. The objection to this provision—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Judd—by the Minister, Mr Liam Byrne, when it was discussed on Report in another place, was that it is often very difficult to pin down the exact date of an offence, particularly in cases of drug dealing and sexual abuse, where the offences may be spread out over a considerable period of time. If that is the sole argument against allowing somebody who committed an offence as a child to benefit from the exception, why not provide that where the exact date of the offence is not known, it should be taken as the latest date on which the offence could have been committed? If the charge was that on a date between X and Y the defendant committed the offence, then Y would be taken as the actual date for the purpose of this clause. If the spirit of this amendment is acceptable to Ministers, it should not be impossible for the parliamentary draftsmen to produce a form of words that would deal with the matter in that way. Otherwise, Parliament would deprive children of the right that is supposedly conferred by the exception solely because of the length of time that the offence takes to be dealt with by the police, the CPS and the courts. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, mentioned other statutory provisions that refer to the date of the offence, particularly Section 229 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, where the court is required to assess the dangerousness of an offender according to whether he was over or under the age of 18 at the time when he committed the offence. It would be useful if the Minister could tell us how the courts have dealt with that problem, on which there is no guidance in the National Probation Service’s circular 18/2006 on the pre-sentence report framework that is to be adopted on the 2003 Act. No doubt the Minister will enlighten us when he comes to reply.
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- This is an important amendment, because the Bill does not take account of the delays that can occur between the commission of an offence and conviction for it. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Avebury. It brings me back to thinking about technical offences, which I mentioned on an earlier amendment. I remind the Committee that the UN Convention on Refugees clearly states that technical offences, such as travelling on false or forged documents, should not prevent consideration of a person’s asylum claim. I hope that technical offences will not lead to automatic deportation. Can the Government put their hands on their hearts and say that none of the 320 offences listed somewhere are technical offences?
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- Lord Roberts of LlandudnoLiberal Democrat
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- I support this amendment. During the previous day in Committee, we discussed how we establish the age of a youngster who can be assumed to be 18 years old. How certain is that assumption? People often come from places without birth certificates or documentation, and we could be committing a massive injustice if we assume the worst as far as age goes. We must always presume that a youngster was not of a certain age when an offence was committed. We discussed the difficulty of ascertaining a person’s age. Even now, in the UK, people are asked to show ID because they may not look their age: they might look much younger or much older. We are uncertain about age. When I was a boy, the film categories were A, U and X. In order to get into an A film, you tried to look as old as you could, and you never got into an X film because you could never look quite that age. There was always uncertainty about age. In parts of Asia and Africa, malnutrition and the ageing effect of poverty can often make age open to dispute. We know that half of applicants’ assumed ages were disputed in the UK. There are also cultural differences. The age of responsibility, of decision-making or of moral awareness might be more important that the physical age. In a place such as Zimbabwe, life expectancy is 34 years, whereas in Iran it is 71, and here it is about 77 or 78. Ages change in different places. I wish something other than the assumed anno domini age could be taken as the level with which we deal with these particular problems. I suggest that whenever we are imprecise or uncertain, we should take the kindly, compassionate way out and always presume in favour of the person who is supposed to have committed an offence, and never take the harsher way, which can result in tremendous injustice, as I said earlier.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I am grateful to my noble friend for raising the issue. I think that I will disappoint him, but I doubt whether he would ever be surprised at that. I am unable to accept the amendment for the same reasons that my honourable friend in another place, Liam Byrne, gave during the Public Bill Committee on a very similar amendment. The Government are clear that there must be certainty in the process, which is crucial to the effective administration of the provisions. I have heard what noble Lords have said, and I respect their views. But focusing on a foreign criminal’s age at the time that they offended, rather than at the date of conviction, would reduce that certainty, because it is sometimes difficult to pin down exactly when a crime has taken place. It may have occurred over an extended period, which is particularly likely for some drug offences and perhaps for sex crimes. Or the victim may be unable to provide a precise date, as in some cases of child abuse. Accepting the amendment about when the offence took place and delays in decisions on whether automatic deportation should apply would not, I believe, be in the interests of justice. For those reasons, we cannot accept it. Some questions and points were raised, to which I should try to respond. My noble friend Lord Judd asked whether illegal entry would attract automatic deportation. That is not the case. The maximum penalty for illegal entry is six months, and that offence is not on the Section 72 list. My noble friend also said that if the Government are deporting children, we must be satisfied that there are proper arrangements in place for their destination countries. I agree; the Government are at one with him. We would not seek to deport a person aged under 18 unless there were more than adequate reception arrangements awaiting their return. That would be our policy approach. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked whether any of the offences in the Section 72 order were technical immigration offences. The only immigration offences under that order are serious offences, attracting a maximum penalty of 14 years, such as facilitation and trafficking. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, as ever, was concerned about the relationship of this clause with age and age determination. The court will have been able to use the statutory procedure set out in Section 99(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. If necessary, the court will also have been able to consider both domestic and foreign documentation. The noble Lord almost made a case for us having proper procedures, or procedures that were as rigorous as possible, in coming to a view about a person’s age. We had that important debate last week. Anything that we can do to sharpen that up—this goes back to the debate that we have had on a couple of occasions about using medical records, dental records, and so on—we should do, to get a proper or as accurate an age determination as we can. That probably covers all the points made. It is perhaps worth saying that when a person who is apparently under 18 is before the court, the court can make due inquiry as to their age and must take into account all evidence available to it. That is an important consideration. I hope that, having heard what I have to say, my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment, although he may be disappointed.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- Before the noble Lord, Lord Judd, replies, I point out that the Minister has not dealt with an extremely important point that I made. He mentioned certainty twice. If the charge against a person is that on a date between X and Y he did such and such, the court has to be satisfied that the offence was committed between those two dates. That is the burden of proof of the prosecution. If the charge is that on a date between 1 January 2005 and 1 January 2006 someone committed a particular offence, the court not only has to be satisfied that the offence was committed, but that it was committed between those two dates. I was suggesting that, for the purposes of the amendment, you could have certainty if you took the latest of the dates as the date on which the offence was committed. The person—who may not come before the courts until 2008 and may become an adult in the meanwhile, but who was definitely a child on 1 January 2006—using the second of the dates in the bracket that the court had to consider, would then be covered by exception 2. I suggested that as a way around the uncertainty that was created for a particular class of offences as set out by the Minister in repeating more or less word for word what was said by his honourable friend Liam Byrne in another place. There is a solution to this, and I would be grateful if the Minister would consider it.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I will consider it, but whether I will agree is another issue. I will give it some thought.
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- That last intervention by the Minister is at least a marginal encouragement. My noble friend sometimes puts his friends in difficulty. He said that he suspected that I would not be surprised by his response. I am not sure what I am supposed to say to that. If I say that I am not surprised, that seems to me to be a rather sad reflection on the Government. The arguments that have been put forward are extremely cogent and telling, and if I therefore say that I am surprised, it is because I believe that the Government are open to reason; we are in a sorry plight if they are not. I really believe that the reason stands up. My noble friend referred to views. The noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Hylton, others and I have reached conclusions on what we think should happen, but we are not dealing here with a view or a moral judgment; we are dealing with the reality of a contradiction within the process. My noble friend referred, as I did, to what the Minister said in the other place; that is the kind of argument that makes me cross. I could use stronger words. Even if my noble friend discounts the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for taking the later date—which is a very convincing argument indeed—he says that, because this might occur in some circumstances, even those for whom it is clearly not the case are lumped together with the exceptions, and so you justify the whole thing by one partial argument. That is not good enough when we are dealing with the rights and the position of children; it is just not good enough. Therefore, I say to my noble friend with all the feeling, passion and reason that I can muster that this is an injustice. If we are trying to win young people in this country to a respect for British justice and its consistency, this is the kind of obvious contradiction that could so easily be put right. Obstinacy is only going to play into the hands of those who want to generate cynicism about the processes of the law. For the reasons that we keep repeating, I have no alternative but to withdraw the amendment at this stage. However, I plead with my noble friend not just to say, “That is it, we got through that”, but, with his colleagues, to think about what has been said and the importance of meeting the amendment before Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. On Question, Whether Clause 32 shall stand part of the Bill?
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- This enables me to raise a small point in Clause 32(7), which says that an exception, “does not prevent the making of a deportation order”. I wonder what the point is of having the exceptions; in particular exceptions about mental health. Is it proposed that this country should deport people suffering mental illness to other countries with little or no mental health care provision?
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- The exception is there to protect those who may have been suffering from some mental ill health at the time when the offence was alleged to have been committed.
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- Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative
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- I am a bit concerned. I do not entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, on this, but I see what he is trying to get at. He is saying, as is the Minister, that the exception is there to protect people, but under subsection (7) the Government can deport even when someone is protected by an exception. I think that is what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was saying. I dread extending proceedings on this, because I know that a snail is a Ferrari compared to us, but I feel this point is important. Might it possibly be that someone who has some form of mental illness but who is not subject to a restraining order wishes to be deported? Even though they might be subject to an exception or protection, they may not wish to have that protection. More widely, might it be that someone who could be protected by an exception does not want to be and wants to go?
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- The particular wording applies to all of the exceptions in Clause 32(7), and is intended to ensure that while the person may not automatically be deported, the Secretary of State still has discretion to consider if deportation is appropriate. I think that answers the point that the noble Baroness made. I hope that helps. Clause 32 agreed to. Clause 33 [Timing]:
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 59:
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- The amendment requires the notice of intention to deport to be made within three months of the end of a person’s sentence. If he has exhausted his rights of appeal against conviction and sentence, there is no reason why the notice should not have been issued immediately before the end of the sentence so that persons remaining in custody beyond the end of a sentence, as so often happens at present—as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has said—is avoided. However, in the cases, which I hope are rare, where the appeal against conviction or sentence is still to be heard when the sentence expires, it would be inappropriate for the deportation order to be made until the appeal has been heard. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, mentioned the reports of the Chief Inspector of Prisons. I remind the Minister of what she says in her most recent thematic report on foreign national prisoners of July 2006. She criticises, “the failure to arrange speedy deportation or removal for the many foreign nationals who want and need to return home as soon as their sentences end”. I reinforce that with a quotation from Bail for Immigration Detainees, which says that it is, “contacted by many people from prisons and Immigration Removal Centres who do not have legal representatives and are detained for months, or even years, following the end of their criminal sentence”. We therefore strongly support the spirit of the amendment. We would like to know why, considering the overcrowding crisis in prisons, the Government do not keep records of the number being detained beyond the end of their sentences, and for how long they are held.
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- I support the amendment. Earlier in Committee, I expressed the hope—which has not so far been satisfied—that there would be some greater clarification of what the Home Office intends to do to ensure that people are not still confined after the end of their sentences when deportation is quite clear and may, indeed, be a recommendation of the court that imposed the sentence in the first place.
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- Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative
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- I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I support the amendment, but perhaps for completely different reasons from those of the noble Lord, Lord Judd. His amendment points to the hypocrisy of what the Government are calling “automatic deportation”. There is nothing automatic about the provisions here. Of course, the Government know that deportations cannot be automatic, because they know that the procedures must be subject to our various conventions and to rules on human rights. We understand that. It is absolutely right that the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Hylton, should draw attention to the fact that deportation orders should be made as soon as is reasonably practicable and that they should not be subject to inefficiency in any government department. Where legal remedies have been sought and appeals processes have been exhausted, surely we should simply get on with it and resolve the matter, not only for the well-being of the person who is to be deported, as other noble Lords have argued, but for the well-being of people in this country who want to see them go.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I am entirely at one with the intention behind the amendment. Indeed, one could argue that it would be in the Government’s interest if the amendment were accepted on Report because it would enable us to make a significant dent in the prison population. In a sense, I end up arguing against myself because I cannot accept the amendment for other reasons. In fact, the Border and Immigration Agency already often acts faster than the maximum three months after release that would be allowed under the amendment. At present, the Criminal Casework Directorate considers most new deportation cases eight months before the earliest date of release. That is the practice. It aims, wherever possible, to make the deportation order before the end of the sentence to ensure that the foreign national can be deported at the point at which the sentence ends. Under the Bill, the Secretary of State will, in most cases, make a deportation order within three months of the end of a foreign criminal’s sentence. The caveat is that this will not always be straightforward. Although the automatic deportation provisions will make deportation simpler and quicker, there is no guarantee that all the factors of individual cases will lend themselves to a timely resolution. If, for example, a foreign criminal has an outstanding asylum claim, we would wait for the case to be resolved before deciding whether to make a deportation order. This is because, if the claim were successful, he would be exempted from the automatic deportation provisions under the first exception. Although we hope that the case would normally be resolved within three months, there can be no guarantees, as case consideration, appeals and judicial review processes can take time. Due process must be seen through to give proper effect to people’s rights to challenge. Preventing a deportation order being made in such circumstances could lead to serious foreign criminals being allowed to remain in the UK. The amendment would risk creating a loophole, thereby letting foreign criminals who frustrate the system for long enough stay in the UK. For those reasons, we cannot accept the amendment, and I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw it.
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- I am very grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Hylton, for their interventions on this matter. It is worrying when we put ourselves in jeopardy of undermining both the spirit and the letter of the European convention of which we in this country were pioneers. Our total credibility as a nation is connected with our giving a lead on these matters and how we perform subsequently—the legal and humanitarian arguments and everything else that we put into our case. I also totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that, even if this did not exist, it is simply wrong; it is nonsense. Quite apart from anything else, it is a considerable expense to the taxpayer, which is not logical. There really is a need to expedite matters on this front. I listened to what my noble friend said. He is a good personal friend, so I cannot help observing to him that it is difficult not to feel a great deal of sympathy with him because he keeps telling us that he agrees entirely with the intention of what is being put forward and then goes through what must be a great deal of mental or moral anguish in telling us why nothing can be done about it. I have used this argument before, but I am serious about it. I sometimes find it sad that, when there is agreement about an intention, all the resources and expertise that are at the disposal of the Government—which are considerable—are not used to the effect that, if the wording or the specific proposal is not right, we find a way to fulfil the intention that we say we totally agree with. I am disappointed that we do not get that. I am disappointed, but I have no alternative: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 59A and 59B had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.] Clause 33 agreed to. Clause 34 agreed to. Clause 35 [Detention]: On Question, Whether Clause 35 shall stand part of the Bill?
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- We have just been talking about how the Secretary of State can continue to detain a person after the expiry of a prison sentence while he considers whether automatic deportation under Clause 31 applies and in between deciding that it does apply and finally making the order. The first conundrum is why it is not possible in every case to make the order at the same time as the decision that Clause 31 applies, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has just been saying. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain in what circumstances there can be a gap between those two events. If condition 1 of Clause 31 applies, there cannot possibly be a problem; if the person was sentenced to 12 months or more in prison, the Secretary of State would have had plenty of time to consider whether any of the exceptions in Clause 32 were applicable. If the offence is one of the 320 specified in the NIA Act, which we were talking about earlier, we have to consider several possibilities. If the sentence is less than 12 months, what will happen to the person after the custody plus offence is introduced? That offence comprises a custodial period of no more than 13 weeks, followed by at least six months on licence. If a person is to be deported, what purpose is served by setting conditions on the last few months he spends in Britain that were designed in the Act that created this class of punishment to break the cycle of reoffending in this country? Would the Secretary of State use these powers to detain the offender when otherwise he would be out on licence, or would the court be able to impose a condition under custody plus that the offender would voluntarily leave the United Kingdom for the licence period? Another possibility is that the offender was convicted of one of the 320 offences and was given a suspended sentence which, as the noble Lord said on an earlier amendment, would not make him liable to automatic deportation, but would do so if he breached any of the terms and conditions of the licence. Has that eventuality prompted the drafting of Clause 35(1)(a)? Is it that the Secretary of State needs a breathing space in which to consider whether any of the exceptions apply before he can use Clause 35(1)(b)? ILPA suggests that the offender already could be detained under Schedule 3 to the 1971 Act, but that seems to apply to a person whose deportation has been recommended by a court. In the case of offences specified under Section 72(4)(a) of the NIA Act 2002, the courts presumably would not bother to make a recommendation, knowing that automatic deportation would follow under Clause 31. In deciding whether to impose a suspended sentence for a Section 72 offence, as the court might do routinely if it knew that deportation would follow a breach of the licence and it would be pointless to clog up the prisons with people who would spend the rest of their lives in another part of the world, the court would have to consider whether any of the exceptions in Clause 32 applied. Would they be able to ask the Probation Service to provide a report on the application of the exceptions before passing sentence? Some of the Section 72 offences would be relatively trivial and the persons concerned would pose no serious threat to the public. Clause 35 envisages that there may be cases where the Secretary of State does not exercise the power to detain. Would she be able to impose residence conditions where for any reason she cannot make a deportation order immediately? If she decides not to detain, am I right in thinking that she would be unable to apply electronic monitoring to the person, considering that under Section 36 of the treatment of claimants Act 2004, tagging can be applied only to those who are liable to be detained under the 1971 Act? If I am right on that, would it not have been wise to insert the powers in Clause 35 into Schedule 2 to the 1971 Act, rather than making them stand alone in this Bill? The criteria for placing someone on a tagging restriction include, “currently not removable by virtue of country of origin”, and, “no travel document currently available”, either of which could apply to many people convicted of minor Section 72 offences and given suspended sentences. The intention is surely not to keep people in those categories in detention indefinitely. It would make sense at least to have the option of tagging them.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising those issues. Clause 35 gives the Secretary of State the power to detain a foreign criminal at the end of his custodial sentence while she considers whether he is subject to automatic deportation—I am sure that that much is common understanding. If the foreign criminal is subject to automatic deportation, Clause 35 allows for continued detention pending the making of the deportation order. This clause also provides that the Secretary of State must detain a foreign criminal against whom an automatic deportation order is in force pending his removal from the United Kingdom unless, in the circumstances, she thinks it inappropriate. Deportation action will, whenever possible, be commenced while the criminal sentence is still being served. However, there will be cases where this is not possible; for example, where a person may meet the criteria for automatic deportation, but is eligible for immediate release by the sentencing court because he has already served the sentence while on remand. In such cases, it is vital to have a power to detain while the Secretary of State considers whether Clause 31(5) applies. This will help to remove the risk of the offender absconding and protect the public from potential harm. Detention will be strictly limited to the period needed for the Secretary of State to consider whether the individual concerned meets the criteria for automatic deportation. Once a deportation order has been made, the individual will be detained under existing powers in Schedule 3 to the Immigration Act 1971, unless the Secretary of State considers this to be inappropriate. Clause 35 also applies to automatic deportation cases and covers the existing provisions on bail, arrest and restriction orders.
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- I may have misheard the Minister, but I thought he said that something in this clause obliged the Secretary of State to take a certain course of action. I do not know quite how that could have come about, if it did, because the very first line of the clause includes “may”. However, I wanted to mention something rather more important at this point. I understand that current deportation practice, combined with the current acute shortage of prison places and overcrowding in prisons, is leading to serious practical problems in the detention centres. In some of them, apparently, some 50 per cent or more of the people there are criminals, some of them serious and violent. That is causing problems, because the detention centres were not designed to hold people of that character, and it is having unfortunate repercussions on the other people there who may be totally innocent of any crime. I must ask whether Clause 35 will actually improve the current situation, and secondly whether things could be arranged so that deportation would follow semi-automatically where a court has recommended that that should happen.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- On the noble Lord’s first point, Clause 35(2) requires the Secretary of State to detain a person once a deportation order is made under Clause 31 unless he thinks that detention would be inappropriate. There is always that overriding consideration. The noble Lord describes conditions in detention centres, as he understands them. I am reluctant to comment at length on the noble Lord’s observation. From time to time difficulties and problems arise, of which we are well aware. I shall reflect on the issue that the noble Lord raised and provide him with the rather more considered response that his serious question requires. I am sorry if he is not satisfied with that response; he raised important issues.
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Baroness Carnegy of LourConservative- Quote
- Is the Minister able to confirm or deny the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, that some 50 per cent of the people in some centres are criminals? If that is anything like approaching the case, it is rather horrifying.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I am advised that the noble Lord’s statistics are not far off; they are about right.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- I am grateful to the noble Lord for the explanations that he has given, but will he look again at his assertion that the detentions provided for under Clause 35 are invariably covered by Schedule 3 of the Immigration Act 1971? He is perfectly correct in relation to Clause 35(2), which indeed states that, “the Secretary of State shall exercise the power … under paragraph 2(3) of Schedule 3”, but I am talking about detentions provided for under Clause 35(1), which states, “while the Secretary of State considers whether section 31(5) applies, and … pending the making of the deportation order”. My assertion is that that detention is not covered by Schedule 3 to the 1971 Act. I seriously suggest that the Minister takes advice on that point from the lawyers in the department. If I am right, certain other things follow from that conclusion. For example, the Secretary of State has no power to tag anybody who may be released during that period, because tagging applies only where a person is dealt with under Section 36 of the Act, which applies only to those who are liable to be detained under the 1971 Act. If I am right that a person who is dealt with under Clause 35(1) is not covered by the relevant clause, the noble Lord would have no power to apply electronic tagging to them. I shall not ask the noble Lord to give me a reply this afternoon, because I can see that it requires further advice. However, since it has fairly important consequences, I hope that we can get it right. Clause 35 agreed to.
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 60:
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- I reiterate my thanks to the Minister for his helpful letter of 19 July in which he goes into a certain amount of detail, particularly on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It should be extremely helpful to the Committee and to the House when we consider on Report what to do about the amendments that have been moved in this Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, dealt with particular aspects of the treatment of children and, in Amendment No. 60, their detention under Schedule 2 to the 1971 Act and parts of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. If the noble Lord’s amendment were accepted, it would not be possible to detain a child at the port of entry pending his transfer to the care of the local authority or for the brief period that may be necessary immediately prior to his removal either as a UASC or in the company of his family. Although I agreed that children should be detained for the shortest possible time, to prohibit detention entirely would make immigration control impossible and, in the case of arrivals, in many cases it would be manifestly contrary to the interests of the child for us not to have any power of detention because there would be no protection for the child who is sent on his way from Heathrow because the arrangements with the receiving authority had not been completed. There might even be a trafficker waiting for him on the other side of the customs hall. We need to retain a vestigial power of detention to safeguard the interests of the child, although I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that it should be for the shortest possible length of time. Amendment No. 61 deals with the detention of children in families who require a welfare assessment to be made by a social services department prior to detention, which must not last for more than seven days. Last Tuesday, I attended a packed meeting of women’s organisations in Committee Room 12 to discuss the detention of women and children, particularly in Yarl’s Wood. I wish that the Minister had been there to hear what was said by outside experts such as Professor Leslie Page, a professor of midwifery, Louise Cooper of Garden Court Chambers, Patti Rundall of Baby Milk Action, and Cristell Amiss of Black Women’s Rape Action Project, as well as former detainees, including Janipher Maseko, whose story I mentioned recently. I wish that the Minister could have heard what was said, or better still that he would visit Yarl’s Wood and listen to what the detainees have to say. In July 2006, the chief inspector, Anne Owers, commented adversely on the centre’s failure to develop systems and procedures to meet the needs of women and to train staff accordingly. At the time of her visit, 19 children had been in Yarl’s Wood for more than six months, and, as the centre was not their first place of detention, she emphasised that actual times were even longer. The Minister said in his letter following the first day of Grand Committee that the Government, “endeavoured to keep the length of time families are detained to a minimum”. But perhaps I may say that they are conspicuously unsuccessful and are apparently incapable even of keeping records that would enable Parliament to evaluate their performance. On 12 July, we discussed the time that the Government are taking to reply to Anne Owers’ reports on the IRCs, and the Minister told the Committee that the reply on Dungavel had been published, although there is no link to it on the chief inspector’s website—a lacuna that ought to be remedied. He said that the replies on Campsfield House and Harmondsworth had been deferred indefinitely, pending the report on the disturbances at the two centres. He did not refer at all to Yarl’s Wood, which caused the Committee the greatest concern. Quite a few staff left after Serco took over the management of the centre on 1 April. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell the Committee in his next letter the numbers on 30 March, what they are now, and whether Serco intends to lose any more people through redundancies or natural wastage. Is the Minister satisfied that Serco can run the centre effectively and humanely with the present numbers? I can tell him that not all the workers employed there are confident that they can manage to do the job properly at these levels. Certainly, none of the detainees would think that it was possible to do so.
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- The Earl of ListowelCrossbench
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- Amendments Nos. 63 and 64 in this group are in my name. Amendment No. 63 deals with record keeping. The noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Avebury, have made clear why it is essential to keep being better informed about how many families are in these settings and about how long children are being held. I will not repeat what I said at Second Reading about speaking with those families. I spoke to a 16-year-old woman who had been in detention for five months and to another mother whose children were there for a second term. Amendment No. 63 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to report regularly to Parliament on the lengths of stay of children in detention centres and to provide other related information on children in the immigration and asylum system. It is a probing amendment to discover how far Her Majesty’s Government have improved their statistics since the report of Sub-Committee F of the House of Lords European Union Select Committee—HL Paper 166—on returns of asylum seekers last year. The report expressed concern about the quality of information kept on detained families. It records the evidence from the Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Children's Commissioner and their common concern about the quality of monitoring of the stays of these families. The Children’s Commissioner, for example, could not determine how many children were held at Yarl’s Wood over Christmas. Members of the sub-committee were surprised that a system for logging stays, which is normal in many hotels and is employed throughout the prison system, was not applied in these circumstances. It is recognised that a small number of families have been permitted to stay for an unnecessarily long time in detention. Clearly both Parliament and the Government need the right information to avoid repetition of this. For example, Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, said that the problem is that statistics are, “a snapshot of the number of people detained at one moment in time”. She continued: “What we do not get are regular reports on population … how many people over a year, how many children over a year, were detained in total, and for what lengths of time they were detained”. Professor Aynsley-Green has talked about the same matter. He says: “We need much more information generally about the whole journeys of children through the system. At the moment there are no child-centred statistics or facts, and as was said just now, they are often invisible—they are seen as appendages to families and not as people in their own right. So we would ask for much greater clarity: how many children and young people; the breakdown by ages, country of origin, family structure; how long they have been there, where they have been detained and their experience of detention”. I shall make one aside as we discuss this matter of information. Families are troubled about the information with which they are provided about the progress of their case. The remarks in the report are what I have heard from families in this setting. It is also what the managers in these settings say. They would welcome the opportunity for families to have better access to information. I join the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in encouraging the Minister to visit Yarl’s Wood if he has not yet had the opportunity to do so. He would find it very helpful. Amendment No. 64 would give statutory force to Guideline 11 of the Council of Europe guidelines on forced returns of children and families. For example, Guideline 11.1 states that, “children shall only be detained as a measure of last resort and for the shortest period of time”. Guideline 11.5 states that the, “best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration in the context of the detention of children pending removal”. This is a probing amendment, the purpose of which is to learn why Her Majesty’s Government have placed a reservation on this particular section of the guidelines. The Council of Europe document has no statutory force, and this particular section appears to be very much in line with the Government’s own wishes. Surely the Minister can now agree to withdraw the Government’s reservation. The House of Lords European Union Select Committee raised this matter in correspondence with the Minister’s department, and it was a recommendation of its report. The guidelines are an annexe to HL Paper 166, if your Lordships wish to see it. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I reiterate that we need the best information possible on these families in these settings. Otherwise we cannot be reasonably certain that they are being cared for properly. It is costly to hold families in these settings. The Government recognise that there are difficult issues around documentation. I hope that the Minister will find this helpful in achieving his own aims of saving money and safeguarding children.
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- I support everything that has been said so far on this group. I particularly pick out Amendment No. 64, which states what we all clearly want to happen. It underlines the best interests of the child as the primary consideration. That clearly indicates to me that there should be no separation of small children—or, I hope, teenagers—from their next of kin. The Government might be tempted to separate families as a substitute for detaining them. I urge them not to fall into that temptation. My noble friend Lord Listowel rightly asked for clearer and better information, but we need not so much statistics as far better practice in the field. For that reason, I urge the Minister to take away this whole group of amendments, consult his ministerial colleagues in more than just one department and come back with a government amendment at the next stage to improve these children’s situations.
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- Baroness Carnegy of LourConservative
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- These are clearly crucial matters. A report on what is happening is a good way of following the facts of what goes on. We know that there are huge problems, but it simply is not right that children should be held in this way. I could not hear all that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said at the beginning, because the sound was not quite working, but suddenly I was able to hear clearly and I agreed wholeheartedly with what he said. Amendment No. 64 clearly says, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, precisely what should happen. It seems a pity if the Government are not going to include provision to ensure that the guidelines are clear on what should happen with children. The Dungavel centre in Scotland has been mentioned. There was huge concern in Scotland about children being in Dungavel at all. It garnered enormous press, as the Minister doubtless knows. It would be helpful if he could update us on that, if he has any facts. If not, I would be grateful for a letter about it. It is a matter of great concern.
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- Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative
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- I support Amendment No. 63 to which I have added my name. I thank both UNICEF UK and ECPAT UK for their thorough briefing on trafficking to which I have had recourse throughout our debates on the Bill, and with regard to child welfare generally. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is right to ask the Government to put on record how they are improving the way in which they gather information on the detention of children in the UK. My noble friend Lady Carnegy is right to reinforce the point that we need clarity of information. It is only on that that one can base proper developments and policy. I hope that when the Minister replies on Amendment No. 63, in particular, he will not simply go down the usual route of saying that the amendment, if put in the Bill, would lead to a lot of bureaucracy. As the noble Earl pointed out, the purpose of the amendment is to probe. It is important to know what mechanisms the Government have already put in place to gather such information and how reliable it is. From the contributions of noble Lords so far, one assumes that it cannot be very reliable at all. We have heard many stories over the past year of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate losing files, misfiling them and failing to asses them accurately. We need to know how and why matters will improve with the change of the old IND into the new BIA. I have read the safeguarding framework which the BIA has circulated in draft form. It states that the agency will, “be alert to child safeguarding issues (including child-specific persecution and child trafficking) as a result of information collected or known about the child and his circumstances”, and, “endeavour to establish a child’s identity (including age) and nationality”. That information would be reported under the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. How will the agency ensure that it is properly reported in a timely manner? Timeliness is vital if a child’s safety is to be secured, particularly if the agency is to achieve another of the objectives in its draft list, which is to refer information relating to child safeguarding issues quickly, carefully and lawfully to appropriate parties and those organisations with a statutory duty to safeguard children. Therefore, I am very pleased that the noble Earl tabled this amendment. I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on Amendment No. 60. There are indeed occasions on which one needs to use detention for the welfare of the person involved. He made a sensitive contribution on that point. All Members of the Committee want the detention of children to be as brief as possible, but we must recognise that there are circumstances in which it must be right for the individual and the security of the country. At first reading I have a lot of sympathy with Amendment No. 64; the difficulty, as ever, is in the detail. It tries to ensure that the best interests of a child are pursued. I certainly realise the difficulties that the Government would have in accepting that amendment, particularly with regard to subsection (1)(c) of its proposed new clause, which might override the interests of national security considerations. Members of the Committee referred to the importance of sorting out the child welfare problem that runs throughout this Bill. We had a very full debate on the first or second day in Committee, which seems a long while ago, when we properly drew attention to the importance of ensuring that there is a duty on the agency to protect children and to promote their welfare. These amendments could have been debated then because they have the same objective at heart. When we first debated my amendment on child welfare, the Minister made it clear that he was very open to negotiations and discussions during the summer so that we might achieve a common result and something could be included in the Bill to serve that purpose. There is a long way to go before we find commonality on that. With other noble Lords, I shall meet representatives of the Refugee Children’s Consortium tomorrow morning to discuss the next step. I assure the Minister that they and we will report back separately to the Government. We are keen to negotiate to solve the problem that all of us want to solve, although getting there will be a problem.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I pay tribute, as ever, to my noble friend Lord Judd for his diligence and passion on these issues. He has been consistent throughout our debate on the Bill, for which I applaud him. I have a fair measure of sympathy, if not to say empathy, with the position from which he is coming. I well appreciate the way in which the Committee dealt with these amendments. I was taken by what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said about detention, the necessity for it and the fact that in some instances it is probably in the welfare interests of young people and children that they are held in a form of detention when they are first caught up in the asylum and immigration processes. That was a mature reflection of his, and I expected nothing less. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said that we needed fewer statistics but a greater adoption of good practices. I entirely agree with him on that. As ever, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her observations on this issue. She is right that we need to ensure that we have the right package of measures in place so that child welfare issues are, and can be seen to be, dealt with properly in a decent and civilised society such as ours. Having said all those things, which I hope Members of the Committee will view positively, I am sure that they will not be surprised when I say that I must resist the amendments. However, I want to explain our policy on the immigration detention of children and some of the rationale behind it. I accept that the detention of children is an emotive issue and not one that should be approached lightly. Regrettably, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, it is necessary in certain circumstances. There are two limited circumstances in which children may be detained under immigration powers. The first, and most usual, circumstance is as part of a family group whose detention is considered necessary, most often as a precursor to removal. The second, and wholly exceptional, circumstance is where it is necessary to detain a child while alternative care arrangements are made, and then normally only overnight. I have made that point many times before, not only in this Committee but at Question Time and in some of our debates in the past few years. Our normal policy on unaccompanied minors is that they should not be detained. The one very limited exception is where children are encountered at, for example, ports of entry late at night, and there are no responsible adults in whose care they might immediately be placed. Such a child would be detained very briefly, usually for a few hours or no more than just overnight, until alternative care arrangements can be made with relatives or through local social services. The Government have been clear for many years that we cannot accept a fixed upper time limit to immigration detention, whether for families or for single adults. Our position has not changed. The current position is in line with the ECHR and associated jurisprudence, which require that detention should be for no more than a reasonable period and should not be prolonged unduly. What is reasonable will vary from case to case, and the actions of parents may of course prolong their detention. In practice, the vast majority of families are detained for periods of seven days or fewer, most often just before their planned removal from the UK. A fixed upper limit, as proposed in my noble friend’s Amendment No. 61, would serve to encourage individuals to frustrate lawful removal attempts in order to reach the point at which they would be released from detention. That is simply unacceptable. However, I reassure noble Lords that we are not complacent about the concerns about the detention of children. Children detained with their families are given a health-led initial assessment on arrival in detention and their welfare is monitored routinely thereafter. Detention is kept under rigorous and frequent review to ensure that any welfare concerns can be taken into account in deciding whether it should continue.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- The rigorous and frequent review includes reference to the Minister at certain points, does it not? There comes a point at which it is gradually escalated through the hierarchy of the BIA. Will the Minister please remind the Committee at which point it comes before the Minister? Will he also say in how many cases, when a reference has been made to the Minister, the Minister has decided that the detention should not continue?
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- That is a reasonable question. Cases of families with children in detention are referred to the Minister for the authority to maintain continued detention when those families are approaching 28 days in detention, and weekly thereafter.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- How many times has the Minister not agreed to continued detention?
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- The noble Lord is testing the edge of my knowledge of detention periods. My understanding is that that information is not centrally collated. I will make further inquiries because I appreciate that the information is sensitive. As a snapshot, I can say that, on 31 March, some 50 children were in detention solely under Immigration Act powers. Of those, 40 children had been in detention for less than a month, 10 for between one and two months and the remainder for between three and four months. The noble Lord will have to accept that there may be some slight inaccuracy in that data, but it is a pretty good snapshot indicator. The vast majority are detained for less than a month.
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- The Earl of ListowelCrossbench
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- Does the Minister know how many of those children had previously been detained? Can he indicate whether some children will have been in and out a number of times?
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I would like to be able to give the noble Earl an answer because he is trying to make a fair point. However, I do not have that information, and I do not think it is collected in that format. It is not frequently the case that people come in and out of detention. It may well happen from time to time, but I do not have data on it. I will see what further information we can provide. We want to ensure that children are detained only where absolutely necessary. I think it is accepted that that is the case. The code of practice on how the Border and Immigration Agency will help to keep children safe from harm will include specific reference to the arrangements for taking decisions to detain, and to the assessment of children’s welfare while they are in detention—the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, were getting to. The agency has developed arrangements with Migrant Helpline to provide an alternative to detention for children. The scheme will be run in conjunction with NGOs, which will work with families to help them plan for their return home without needing formally to detain the family in an immigration removal centre. We are grateful to that organisation for its assistance. The key benefits of the scheme will be to reduce the number of children needing to go into an immigration removal centre, coupled with an increase in the number of families choosing to return home voluntarily. I described the system of ministerial authorisation for the detention of children beyond 28 days, announced in December 2003 to ensure more rigorous oversight of the detention of children. Robust processes are in place to identify and manage families with children entering immigration detention. Removal centres are required to play a positive and active role in this respect and are required to provide information about such detention to the central Management of Detained Cases Unit that oversees the detention of families with children. In the rare event that detention is protracted, the outcome of a thorough process of assessment and consideration is reflected in the advice that the Minister of State receives. He decides on that basis whether detention should continue. Amendment No. 63 imposes a requirement on the agency to report to the Secretary of State and Parliament on children in detention. The report would cover all children detained as a result of the activities of the agency, together with the numbers of children who the agency has attempted to deport and of those remaining in the United Kingdom. This would be an extremely resource-intensive exercise and would serve no practical purpose given the short period of detention of the vast majority of children and the safeguards already in place. Since relatively few children are detained for longer periods, it would be difficult to make public a meaningful report of the type suggested. The agency is currently considering ways to improve the statistical information available on detention of children. On Amendment No. 64, I have already set out the systems in place to protect children in detention and the reasons why detention is necessary. I am concerned that the terms of this amendment would invite unwelcome and perhaps spurious legal challenges motivated solely for the purpose of delaying removal. That would not be in the best interests of children. For this same reason, we are maintaining our reservation to Guideline 11 of the Council of Europe’s Guidelines on Forced Returns. We entered our reservation on the basis that, even as a non-mandatory, non-binding guideline, we were concerned that, if accepted without reservation, its various elements would still be advanced as a basis for legal challenge designed solely to prevent and frustrate removal. It would regrettably become a means of fruitless and expensive challenges in the courts which would have very little, if anything, to do with genuine concerns for a child’s welfare. For those reasons I hope that noble Lords, having heard my rather lengthy commentary, will feel able to withdraw their amendments. I ought perhaps to add a comment or two on some of the questions asked or points made. The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, and others were extremely concerned about some of the reports made and heard about Dungavel House. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons said: “We found centre staff to be extremely supportive of the families and children held at Dungavel. Living accommodation was good, and the crèche was well-run … Overall, Dungavel is the best-run IRC we have inspected. Within the limits of their responsibility, managers and staff have gone a long way to try to create a generally supportive and decent environment for some extremely vulnerable people; and they are greatly to be commended for this”. I have similar sorts of comments on exactly the same—
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- Having visited Dungavel myself, I endorse the chief inspector’s comments, but that was not the establishment of main concern to your Lordships on the previous occasion. All the comments centred on Yarl’s Wood, and I hope that the Minister will address that and explain why no reply has been published to the chief inspector’s report of last July.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I do not have a response to that point, except to say that the inspector made some positive comments even about Yarl’s Wood. She observed that a child protection committee had been established and met regularly twice a month; that the terms of reference were clear and appropriate; that the committee operated as a strategic planning and policy-making group; and that the work plan produced to develop child protection policy and practice was impressive. Those are positive observations. She also observed that progress had been made on detainee welfare, with the appointment of a welfare officer, and that there was sound management of diversity, healthcare and education issues. There are positives there. I accept that in any of these centres there can from time to time be difficulties. We know that Yarl’s Wood has had its fair share. I will try to respond outside the parameters of today’s Committee to other questions raised about Yarl’s Wood if I can. I have pointed up some of those alternatives to detention that have been under discussion with the Migrant Helpline and the arrangements being developed there. That is a useful initiative we should be pleased to see in development. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, raised a question about record keeping. He was concerned that poor record keeping meant families and children were kept in detention for longer. I am not sure I can accept that. The noble Earl has an absolute assurance from me that the centres holding families with children keep cumulative totals of time spent in detention, not just the time spent at a particular centre. It is obviously difficult in some of these situations to be absolutely precise, but we have an obligation to keep timely records, and we try to keep rigorously to that. A number of noble Lords suggested that I might like to visit Yarl’s Wood or other detention centres. I am considering that. I have to make a couple of other visits relating to this Bill and may well build that into the programme over the summer. It helps me to understand better the issues raised and, in general, is a positive thing that should be done. To return to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about our response, I understand that the Yarl’s Wood action plan has been developed in response to the report by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons. If the noble Lord has not seen the action plan, I am happy for a copy of it to be made available to him and to other noble Lords who have contributed to our Committee deliberations on this. I thank noble Lords who have played a part in this debate, which has been constructive. I made a commitment earlier that we will continue to have discussions on how we can improve the quality of care and raise standards of practice in detention centres and how we reflect that, not necessarily in the Bill but perhaps in some of the guidance that is issued. That offer of further discussions outside Committee is very much meant, and I hope that we can have some of those discussions in the next couple of months.
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- The Earl of ListowelCrossbench
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- I thank the Minister for that lengthy and helpful response. On the keeping of records, to which the Minister particularly referred, it appears from the chief inspector’s evidence that the problem is not that the management at the centre keeps the information on cumulative numbers but that the information is not made widely available. We do not get regular reports on population. The chief inspector regrets that the Immigration and Nationality Directorate website gives only a snapshot of the number of people detained at a particular moment. It was good to hear the Minister say that these statistics are being looked at. Again, things may have changed since the chief inspector gave her evidence at the beginning of last year. I also thank the Minister for his response to Amendment No. 64, which was helpful. I noted what he said about the comment made by my noble friend Lord Hylton, and I have some sympathy for what he said. Clearly, good practice is the most important thing, but statistics are also important. I am not surprised that he supported what my noble friend said because that supported his case and let him slightly off the hook, but I agree that it is a balance and that one needs both those things. The Minister knows very well my concern about the supervision of officers working with vulnerable individuals, particularly vulnerable families, so if he has an opportunity to visit Yarl’s Wood, perhaps he could look at how often staff receive individual or group supervision from a line manager of good quality. I am not aware of that being in place at Yarl’s Wood. Having said that, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for adding his name to my amendment and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her support. I may return to the matter of statistics at the next stage.
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- Lord JuddLabour
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- First, I am very grateful to all those who have participated in the debate. The more I have sat on the Committee, the more I feel that the Government have been extremely fortunate that the result of so much hard work and detailed thought has been brought to our deliberations. I have been impressed by the detail of so much of the analysis offered by the Committee. The Government must take all that very seriously. There is a great deal that I would like to say in response to the Minister’s characteristically—I repeat, characteristically—full, detailed and considerate reply, although this is probably not the time to say it. I shall merely emphasise a couple of points. First, I believe that members of all parties in Parliament and this country have to decide whether to put children first. If we do, that has to be at the centre of all relevant legislation. It is not good enough to indulge in a genuine sentimental commitment from which we retreat when the going gets hard.
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- Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative
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- moved Amendment No. 67:
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- The noble Baroness wants the chief inspector to have the power to investigate individual cases, but I confess that I am doubtful about that. The powers of the Chief Inspector of Prisons, who also inspects the IRCs, are determined by Section 5A of the Prison Act 1952, as inserted by Section 57 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, which does not include any power to examine individual complaints. Other mechanisms exist for the purpose. First and foremost, there are the independent monitoring boards made up of unpaid outside lay persons, of which there is one to every prison or IRC. Society should be immensely grateful to the volunteers who give something like three days a month—sometimes even more—to this demanding and extremely responsible work. Any prisoner or detainee who is unable to resolve a problem through the normal channels has the right to a confidential meeting with a member of the IMB. The next line of defence in prisons is the Prisons and Probations Ombudsman who takes on individual complaints, but who has only looked at certain major problems in the detention estate, such as the alleged racism in Yarl’s Wood some time ago when GSL was in charge. It is certainly a matter for consideration whether the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman’s remit should be extended to cover the IRCs. If there is a consensus about the necessity for a formal complaints mechanism, I suggest that that would be a better way to proceed than loading it on to the new inspector. Will the Minister confirm that Anne Owers will not continue to inspect the IRCs but that the inspector mentioned in the Bill will be a new person, still to be appointed to look at the IRCs where no doubt the majority of complaints will arise? If there is to be a formal complaints system of any kind, as opposed to conferring on the chief inspector the right to consider individual cases in the context of a general issue, which she may already do under Clause 47(4), it might lead to the presumption that the removal of a complainant would be stayed until the complaint was dealt with. That would give detainees an incentive to complain at the last minute. If the BIA is successful in reducing the time in detention prior to removal to a matter of a few days, as we hope, very few of the complaints would be resolved by the time that the individual was supposed to depart, which is a fundamental flaw in giving the chief inspector this responsibility. That does not mean to say that there are not a great many complaints about the treatment of detainees in IRCs, and making recommendations on the handling of complaints is one of the responsibilities of the chief inspector under this clause, as it is for the present chief inspector under the present regime. She has a great deal to say in every one of her reports; for example, the most recent one on Campsfield House following a visit at the beginning of November last year. We are now told that the Government’s response to those recommendations has been postponed until after the report by Mr Robert Whalley CB on the disturbances on 14 March. That has been the procedure whenever there is a disturbance at any of the IRCs, which occur with alarming frequency. Surely the Secretary of State ought to be obliged to respond to recommendations by the chief inspector within three months of any report and, where she is not ready with a substantive reply at the end of that period, she ought to be obliged to give reasons for the delay. There is all the more reason why the Government should deal with the chief inspector’s recommendations promptly, when it is quite probable that she had covered the very faults that had given rise to a disturbance. At this stage, I was going to raise with the Minister a letter that I wrote to him this morning, of which I had given prior notice. In view of the lateness of the hour, I think it is best not to burden the Committee with the details of the complaint. Suffice it to say that it was an extremely serious matter of an alleged criminal offence committed in Yarl’s Wood by a person masquerading as a recognised immigration practitioner, who gained entry on two occasions before he was detected on the third occasion. I felt that there was a certain lack of urgency in the investigation of the matter and in the bringing of this individual to justice. I am sure that the Minister will agree that it is an extraordinarily serious offence for anybody to go into an immigration removal centre pretending to be a recognised immigration practitioner and, so it is claimed, to extract sums amounting to hundreds of pounds from vulnerable asylum seekers for services that he is not authorised to provide. He was committing a criminal offence under Section 91 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. I hope that by making his own inquiries, the Minister will ensure that those concerned get their act together. The police, the OISC and the authorities at Yarl’s Wood must get together to decide how this matter is to be handled, so that within a short period of time the Crown Prosecution Service is able to decide whether to issue proceedings against that individual. I now turn to Amendment No. 68. I do not think that the noble Baroness can give the Information Commissioner a role in deciding whether to omit material from the chief inspector’s report for reasons of national security when Section 24 of the Freedom of Information Act confers on the Secretary of State an unqualified right to withhold information from the public on those grounds. If we were to consider giving the Information Commissioner a power to second guess the Secretary of State’s decisions on what information should be withheld from the public on grounds of national security, why should it be confined to this report? The matter should be discussed in the context of legislation amending the Freedom of Information Act, and after seven years’ experience of how it works, there are good arguments to be made for a review. I doubt whether the Information Commissioner has the expertise or competence to decide whether material should be protected from disclosure on grounds of national security. To enable him to form a judgment on those matters would require him to consider all the arguments available to the Secretary of State, which would be a very considerable extra burden.
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- I suspect that this will be the last group of amendments we discuss this evening. I express my gratitude to Members of the Committee who have taken part and to the officials who have kept me well supplied with additional information and further points of elucidation. It has been a long and testing session. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her amendment, which in customary style she flagged up earlier when we discussed complaints processes. She usefully prefigured it in those comments. In essence, it would allow the chief inspector to set out to investigate any type of individual cases. When I prepared for this debate, I told officials that I thought I recognised this amendment. I realised that I did, but because I have done so many Home Office and other Bills I have completely forgotten when it was tabled. However, I know that I have made similar points to those I shall make this evening. We believe that the amendment would potentially overload the chief inspector with casework—I agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in that regard—and therefore reduce his effectiveness in assessing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the agency. There are sufficient existing remedies for individuals seeking redress, for example through an appeal to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal. Complaints about individual cases are handled within the organisation. Those who remain dissatisfied can seek recourse through their Member of Parliament or the Office of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. I hope that it will reassure the noble Baroness if I emphasise that, under the Bill, the chief inspector will be able to consider and draw conclusions from individual cases for the purpose of, or in the context of, considering a general issue. For example, where a case adds to the consideration of systemic failures, it will be useful to look at a particular case or cases if they throw up wider issues. But, as a matter of course, the chief inspector will not set out to investigate individual cases beyond that. Amendment No. 68 would mean that material could be omitted from the published version of the chief inspector’s report only if both the Secretary of State and the Information Commissioner believed that the publication of the material would be undesirable for reasons of national security or because it might jeopardise the safety of an individual. The approach that we have taken reflects existing provision in respect of reports from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. I do not believe that the amendment is the right way to proceed. Reports from the chief inspector will be laid by the Secretary of State before Parliament; taking account of any omissions that the Secretary of State believes are necessary. It is open to an individual to make a request to the Secretary of State for disclosure of other information, and the Secretary of State is under a statutory duty to respond either by providing the information requested or by citing the reasons for not disclosing it. If an individual remains dissatisfied, the proper course is to apply to the Information Commissioner for consideration of the issue. I do not see what would be gained by requiring the Information Commissioner to consider this in advance of the Secretary of State’s decision on whether the publication of any material is undesirable for reasons of national security or because it might jeopardise an individual’s safety. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked about the continued role of the Chief Inspector of Prisons. It is our intention to continue to look at the detention estate. We do not want to lose that expertise, and a number of noble Lords have drawn attention to the detail of the inspector’s reports in Yarl’s Wood, Dungavel, and so on. We want to continue with that expertise. Of course the Prisons and Probations Ombudsman will look at individual cases. The Complaints Audit Committee annual report 2005-06 referred to the number of complaints that are made annually about immigration cases, and I think that for that year there were upwards of 26,000 complaints. It appears as a sample that some 90 per cent of complaints arose from delays in decision-making, which is why the Government have properly invested in trying to ensure that we hit our target times and improve the speed of processing cases. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for his letter today regarding a bogus immigration adviser. I entirely understand what he said in his letter; it has been useful because I have now been able to raise this issue with the officials concerned. I am not in a position to comment on the specific case—it would be wrong if I did—but I offer the noble Lord the assurance that I give to the Committee that this matter is receiving attention, and we take such matters very seriously. I remember moving an amendment in 1999 which strengthened the provisions with regard to bogus immigration advisers who, as described by the noble Lord, try to profit from other people’s positions, and sometimes their considerable misery. We are well aware of these issues, and have been for some time. We are grateful when our attention is drawn to particular cases. Having said that, and having understood the nature of the noble Baroness’s argument, I cannot accept the amendment. Both amendments are unacceptable to the Government.
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- Lord AveburyLiberal Democrat
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- Before the Minister sits down, I wish to clarify that when he says that he does not wish to lose the expertise that is available from Anne Owers in her inspections of the IRCs, does he mean that Ms Owers will continue to inspect the IRCs after the Bill comes into force, and that some other inspector will do the rest of the BIA? Or will Anne Owers cover the whole of the functions of the inspector who is to be appointed under the Bill?
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- The intention is that she will continue to inspect the detention estate.
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- Baroness Anelay of St JohnsConservative
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- That was a very helpful final question from the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. As ever, I shall read with care what the Minister said in Hansard. It is racing up to 7.30, so I shall be even briefer than usual. I will consider what the Minister said on Amendment No. 68 about whether it should be the Information Commissioner or somebody else to whom that duty might fall. I seek to include an independent referee. The Minister is absolutely right to say that he has heard these kind of amendments before, not only outside this Bill—he is bang to rights on that—but he has heard them in another place when they were debated by my honourable friends. I should claim for myself that I am consistent in my principles and consistent with my honourable friends, unlike the Liberal Democrats, I am very sad to say. When this matter was debated in another place, the Liberal Democrats did not take part in the debate, but I was delighted to see that they gave their support when we called a Division on Amendment No. 68 and voted with us, at col. 477 on 20 March. But there we are—I am broken-hearted today to have lost that support. I hope it is nothing that I have said or done. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 47 agreed to. Clause 48 agreed to. Clause 49 [Reports]: [Amendment No. 68 not moved.] Clause 49 agreed to.
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon)Labour- Quote
- The Question is that Clauses 50 to 55 be agreed to.
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- I question—
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- Lord HyltonCrossbench
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- There are two minutes to go. I question whether Clause 50 is necessary and whether it ties the hands of the chief inspector too tightly. Can the Government confirm whether subsection (7) allows for unannounced, surprise visits by the chief inspector?
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- The noble Lord is testing me; I do not have an answer to his question. I think that he will have to await a reply. I will try to get it to him before we consider matters further on Wednesday. The purpose of my standing was simply to suggest that the Grand Committee stand adjourned until Wednesday, 25 July at 3.45 pm. Clause 50 agreed to. Clauses 51 to 55 agreed to.
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- The Deputy Chairman of CommitteesLabour
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- The Committee stands adjourned until Wednesday. The Committee adjourned at 7.27 pm.
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