Month: May 2016

12 May 2016

The last Immigration Bill debate took place on 10 May 2016, during which Lord Ramsbotham, Baroness Hamwee and Baroness Lister made impassioned speeches in their attempts to safeguard rights and dignity of people trapped in immigration detention.

We created a small Storify that captures this debate and the previous night’s debate at the House of Commons, which you can see here.

Below, we reproduce Lord Ramsbotham’s speech.  You can read the transcript of the debate here.  After this speech, Lord Ramsbotham withdrew his Amendment 84, by saying ‘With a heavy heart, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.’.  

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‘My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the care with which he has set out the Government’s case. I have often thought that the worst experience in life is to be associated with something that you know to be fundamentally wrong, but feel unable to prevent. I am experiencing that today, because, to our collective shame, this House could be about to sanction something that, as a nation, we have roundly condemned, and indeed fought against, when practiced by others over the years—namely, the arbitrary detention of innocent people by administrative diktat, rather than the due process of the rule of law.

During the passage of this dreadful Bill, with more than 400 government amendments suggesting that it had not been thought through before it was introduced, the House has twice voted to uphold the recommendation of a committee of the All-Party Group on Refugees and Migration, of which I and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Lister of Burtersett, were privileged to be members. The committee recommended that administrative detention, ordered by Home Office civil servants, should be limited to 28 days, after which the Home Secretary should be required, by law, to seek the approval of the First-tier Tribunal for any extension. Last night the Minister in the other place spectacularly missed that point when alleging that to specify a maximum time for immigration detention would be arbitrary, would not take account of individual circumstances, and would have a negative effect on the Government’s ability to enforce immigration controls and maintain public safety by encouraging individuals to seek to frustrate the removals process until this time limit was reached.

During the past 19 years I have had frequent cause to express my concern about the appallingly low standard of casework and procedural oversight in our immigration system. This began when, as Chief Inspector of Prisons, I found over 20 people from Bradford, who had been in this country for over 20 years—many of them married and with businesses of their own—who had been arrested and transported to Birmingham prison where, not surprisingly because they had not been charged with any offence, they went on hunger strike against the wholly inappropriate prison regime. Their right to remain in this country had not been processed by the Home Office—which is true today of more than 631,000 others—whose officials saw them as easy pickings for meeting performance indicators. I immediately complained to the Minister responsible, and was asked to take on the inspection of all immigration detention centres for my pains. This included inspecting Campsfield House after a riot, where I found that immigration centre rules were also wholly inappropriate, being based on prison rather than detention rules. My inspectorate and I set about revising them, inviting Home Office officials to work with us, the outcome being the immigration detention rules often quoted in debate on this Bill.

Since retiring as chief inspector, I have been a member of the Independent Asylum Commission, chaired an inquiry into the unlawful killing of an Angolan by G4S guards during an enforced removal, delivered a dossier on deaths and injuries inflicted on others being returned, forwarded reports on the inefficiency of the complaints system to the Home Secretary and lost count of the number of critical reports by inspectors of immigration and prisons that I have read. In other words, my 19-year experience of the immigration system entirely endorses the view of its then titular head, the noble Lord, Lord Reid, who, when Home Secretary, described it as not fit for purpose. Indeed, these experiences have encouraged me to believe that only root-and-branch surgery will enable the system to have any hope of coping with today’s requirements, let alone tomorrow’s, which will be exacerbated not just by civil wars in the Middle East but by other population movements and the effects of climate change.

I must admit that I was somewhat surprised last week when my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and my noble friend Lord Pannick focused on the periphery of theoretical access to the bail system rather than the fundamental obscenity of administrative detention. Their intervention reminded me that, over the years, successive Ministers have preferred to listen to fudge presented to them by their officials rather than facts immediately apparent to anyone who, like me, has had cause to examine them in detail. As has been reported time and again, conditions in our immigration removal centres are not good for a whole variety of reasons, not least lack of Home Office oversight. Four months is far too long for anyone to be condemned to remain in such conditions, certainly when it seems to be primarily for the convenience of incompetent officials and is not sanctioned by a court of law.

I do not pretend that casework is easy—indeed, one former head of the UK Border Agency decreed that only graduates were to do it—but its present standard, judging by the number of successful appeals against it, is appalling. I am not surprised that first the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and then the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, should have announced new arrangements, although I must admit that, having heard similar promises many times in the past 19 years, I will only believe them when I see them.

I now feel squeezed. Not only is time running out before Parliament is prorogued but I fear that, on the evidence of the amendment not being pressed to a vote in the other place last night, should noble Lords support my appeal to put pride in the reputation of our great nation before party political considerations and vote for what in their hearts they know to be right—namely, that administrative detention of anyone, anywhere, is fundamentally wrong—it may not succeed. I am conscious that it is easy for an independent Cross-Bencher to speak like that, but I am conscious, too, of the constitutional position of this House, which I do not want to put at risk.

The immigration system in this country is so dysfunctional that even the Home Office’s favourite reporter, Stephen Shaw, has criticised it in detail. As an optimist, I hope that the Home Secretary will read what he said, and has been said during our debates in this House, before she wilfully damages our global reputation for being a civilised nation by going ahead with her alternative to limiting detention to 28 days. It is with a heavy heart that I beg to move.’

 

12 May 2016

The Immigration Act, scheduled to receive Royal Assent in the coming days, will introduce automatic judicial oversight on the UK’s use of immigration detention for the first time and a 72-hour time limit on the detention of pregnant women.  

During the passage of the Immigration Bill which began in October last year, the Government listened to growing disquiet over immigration detention, raised by Parliamentarians and the general public. 

Two detention-related amendments (judicial oversight and the detention of pregnant women) became the focus of the ping-pong in the very final stage of the Bill, which concluded on 10th May 2016 at the House of Lords.  In the end, the Government’s amendments were passed.  You can read the transcript here. 

These two detention policy changes are designed to offer increased safeguards against the impact of indefinite detention, although their mechanisms and effectiveness are unknown at the moment.

The judicial oversight amendment (Motion 84C of this document) creates a new legal obligation for the Home Office to initiate bail hearings for individuals who have been detained longer than four months and who have not applied for bail during that period.

In tabling this amendment, the Government made it clear that they recognise the need for increased judicial oversight.  In the face of strong support for Lord Ramsbotham’s Amendment 84, the Government also offered a limited concession by reducing the length of period before automatic bail hearings take place from six months of detention to four months of detention.

While the Act will introduce automatic judicial oversight of immigration detention for the first time in the UK, it does not sufficiently address the growing cross-party concern at the overuse of detention. The Parliamentary Inquiry of the APPGs on Refugees and Migration and the Shaw Review both called for a strengthening of legal safeguards against excessive lengths of detention.  Yet the safeguards offered are limited: migrants will still be detained for up to four months without any judicial oversight, and some groups are excluded altogether from automatic judicial oversight.  Particularly disturbing is an exclusion of ex-offenders who, after having finished their criminal sentences, find themselves incarcerated, with no time limit, under immigration detention powers.

The detention of pregnant women amendment will set a time limit of 72 hours over the length of the time pregnant women can be detained, extendable up to a week.  The Government recognises the detrimental impact detention has on pregnant women and appears to send a signal that indefinite detention is not a necessary part of immigration control.

On the surface, this new policy for pregnant women is an extension of a safeguarding time limit currently available for families with children who are facing return to their country of origin.  However, it is unclear how this is going to be achieved without a mechanism equivalent to the Independent Family Returns Panel which has been playing a vital part in restricting the number of families with children who are detained at Cedar Pre Departure Accommodation.

Eiri Ohtani of the Detention Forum cautiously welcomed these policy shifts;

“We appreciate the Government’s willingness to engage with the detention reform agenda we and others have been advocating for many years.  They have given careful considerations to our proposals, agreed to take small steps towards change and promised to have their progress reviewed by Stephen Shaw at the end of 2017.  We are particularly humbled by the commitment and passion shown by sympathetic MPs and peers, who fought tooth and nail to secure as much protection as possible for people in detention in this otherwise devastatingly hostile Bill. We now need to examine the possible impact of these changes and offer our analysis to the Government. Without a clear time limit on detention, however, a radical reform of immigration detention remains elusive. These changes are just the beginning and certainly not the end.”

Ali McGinley of the Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees (AVID) said;

“That detention became so central to the immigration bill, and that we now have these two detention amendments, is no small feat. We are grateful to the MPs and Peers who supported our calls for detention reform, and in particular acknowledge the importance of the first automatic judicial oversight mechanism in providing scrutiny that did not exist before. However there is still a long way to go if we are to see the substantive overhaul that is so desperately needed, and which was recommended by the parliamentary inquiry last year. While these policy changes give us a glimmer of hope, there is still much to do. What has become clear during the debates on this bill, however, is that the energy and commitment towards further reform is not waning.”

Abdal, Freed Voices said; 

“It’s great that the Government has recognised that the indefinite detention of pregnant women is both damaging and unecessary. But this same logic applies to everyone in detention. I was detained for over five years. Was it damaging? I lost my career, my kids, my mental health, everything. Was it necessary? I’m here, in the community, giving this quote, so no, I can’t see how you could argue that it was. It doesn’t matter who you are – man, woman; mother, father; black, white; young, old – indefinite detention is always damaging and always unecessary.” 

John, Freed Voices said; 

“Automatic bail hearings after four months are like admitting you have a serious problem but saying you’re not really going to tackle it. We need judicial oversight from Day One, not Day 120.” 

4th May 2016

UPDATE 10 May 2016

The parliamentary “ping-pong” process is in full swing and the Immigration Bill returns to the Lords today at 3pm, after it was debated in the Commons last night.  You can read the transcript from the 9th May Immigration Bill debate at the Commons here.  (Strangely) There was no vote on the Ramsbotham amendment, and the result of the vote on the pregnancy amendment was 296 – 258.  Both detention amendments, as explained below, are back at the Lords.  Please keep the pressure up for the Ramsbotham amendment.  

Please also see the list of motions here.  

UPDATE 6 May 2016 

A big thank you to everyone who has been lobbying MPs to support the Lord Ramsbotham amendment – we are now seeing its impact.  The Government is feeling the pressure of the enormous disquiet from MPs, the House of Lords and the campaigners and has now published a ‘compromise’ amendment to the controversial judicial oversight clause that can leaves people in administrative incarceration for six months with not judicial oversight at all. 

The new amendment, published late last night, reduces the length of time before automatic bail hearings of people in detention take place from six months of detention to four months of detention. 

However, this ‘compromise’ amendment does nothing to address the serious misgivings highlighted in our briefing paper, in particular, the key thrust of both the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention and the Shaw Review that the UK detains far too many people far too long and that the UK must immediately stop the practice of using detention as a norm rather than as an exception.

So please continue to lobby your MPs not to accept this ‘compromise’ amendment and instead to support the Ramsbotham amendment, as explained below.  This is not the same as a time limit on detention we would like to see as a first step in meaningful detention reform project, but we need to get all we can get from this Immigration Bill.  Thank you.  

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This is a quick summary of where things stand with the Immigration Bill in relation to immigration detention, as it returns to the Commons on Monday 9 May 2016.  Here’s a document which shows which amendments the Lords are sending back to the Commons and why.  

With David Cameron’s announcement today that the Government will not oppose what has come to be known as the Dubs amendment (Lords amendment 87: Unaccompanied refugee children: relocation and support), only two issues of contention remain to be resolved next week, which will require the votes of MPs.  They are the detention of pregnant women and judicial oversight.   

The fact that so much of the Immigration Bill has been about immigration detention shows how far we have come, in terms of communicating, campaigning, advocacy and lobbying.  Our work is far from over, and when this “ping-pong” stage comes to an end, we will need to take stock of what we have achieved but also how we will continue to work towards our goal.  

For the 9th May, the Detention Forum is focussing on judicial oversight amendment.  It is important that MPs are informed and encouraged to support Lord Ramsbotham’s amendment (Amendment 84), which provides far greater scrutiny over the Home Office’s power to detain than the Government has been willing to agree to so far. 

After the Government has had to back down on the Dubs amendment, they are unlikely to want to face another defeat.   Therefore, it is crucial that we apply as much pressure as possible on the Government to hammer in the message that we need a radical reform of detention, not a meaningless gesture just to appease us.  

The Government has already tried to water down the Ramsbotham amendment, by offering their own amendment, which would implement automatic bail hearings for those who have not applied for bail for six months.  The Lords voted down the Government amendment and sent back the Ramsbotham amendment to the Commons, reasoning that this is unsatisfactory. 

The Detention Forum’s briefing here explains why we support the Ramsbotham amendment.  Even thought this falls short of a time limit of 28 days that we are advocating for, we welcome an attempt to instil a new practice within the Home Office where any detention beyond 28 days must be authorised by the First-Tier Tribunal. This creates a new norm that detention beyond 28 days must be exceptional and requires a judicial oversight; and this introduction of judicial oversight is, in itself, quite significant in the UK context.  

The Ramsbotham amendment reflects a cross-party concern at the over-use of detention expressed both by the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention and the Shaw Review.  Given that the vast majority of individuals held in immigration detention do make bail applications within six months of being detained, the Government amendment would only benefit a small number of individuals.  Those who might benefit are likely to be the ones who are extremely vulnerable.  While the Government might insist that their new ‘adults at risk’ policy would prevent detention of such individuals, given the Government’s poor record of preventing detention of vulnerable pepole, we believe it is highly inappropriate for the Government to suggest that such people can be left in detention for six months without judicial oversight.  Therefore, we urge MPs to support the Ramsbotham amendment.  The Government amendment will do very little to change the UK culture of detention.  

You might like to consider emailing or tweeting your MPs to let your view known.  When the Commons defeated the Ramsbotham amendment, it was defeated by 36 votes.  The Government might offer some sort of compromise before 9th May, in order to avoid another vote.  We expect the Government’s new amendment to be made public late tomorrow (Thursday 5 May).  

There might a feeling among supporters that, after the Dubs amendment concession, there is nothing left to do with the Immigration Bill.  That is far from the truth and we would be grateful if you can continue to encourage your supporters and others to lobby their MPs.  

You can read other organisations’ blogs as well, which provide more background information.  

Right to Remain – Let the light in: ask your MP to back judicial oversight of immigration detention

Detention Action – Lords defeat the Government again over detention

(Note on the detention of pregnant women.  In response to the Lords’ demand that there be an absolute ban on the detention of pregnant women, the Government offered a compromise through its amendment, introducing a time limit of 72 hours for this category of individuals, extendable up to seven days.  A similar 72 hour detention time limit rule is currently applicable to families with children who are facing return from the UK to their country of origin, via the mechanism of the Independent Family Returns Panel.  When the Bill returns to the Commons, the discussion is likely to focus on to what extent and how it is ensured that pregnant women will be detained only under very exceptional circumstances. )