UK Borders Bill

New clause 1 is grouped with a large number of amendments, none of which I tabled, so I shall leave their explanation to others. New clause 1 sets out a simple proposition: when foreign nationals are deported because they have committed relevant crimes, their victims should be entitled to know about the deportation. In the Bill as amended in Committee, clause 31 provides for what the heading calls ““Automatic deportation””. At its most basic, my argument is that if the deportation is automatic, what is the problem in telling the victim that it has happened? The truth, however, is that not every foreign national convicted of an offence and sent to prison will be deported. For some offences, there will be a sentence of less than 12 months, which will not trigger the power. Clause 32 provides for a number of exceptions that will mean that others will not be deported. To my mind, the fact that, in some instances, uncertainty remains as to whether a deportation will take place strengthens the case for victims to know what has happened. I want to illustrate that argument with reference to the constituency case that first attracted my interest in the issue. In 2005, a young female adult was walking home from work on a Saturday night. She was followed by a man for two miles until she was in a road where no one else was about. There she was brutally raped. The offender was arrested. He was a foreign national. He was tried and convicted, and the judge, sentencing him to six years in prison, said that he had shown absolutely no remorse. It was at that point that I was asked by my constituent’s family to find out whether the offender would be deported from prison. The young female was understandably suffering not just physical but mental trauma because of her experiences. She wanted to know whether there was any risk at all that the offender might one day be back on the streets where she lives. For her that is an ever-present, uncomfortable thought. I was quite willing to help to try to put her mind at rest. I wrote to Home Office Ministers several times to find out about the fate of the foreign national in prison. To my surprise, they responded each time that they could not disclose any information to me. Here is a typical response, in a letter dated 22 August last year:"““As you will appreciate, Home Office records relating to individual overseas nationals are confidential and information from them can only be disclosed to the subject or his appointed representative. This is in accordance with the Home Office's legal obligations under common law, human rights, data protection and the Code of Practice on Access to Government information. Unfortunately, the Home Office has not received any written confirmation from””" the offender"““that””" the victim"““can be treated as such.””" For obvious reasons, I have omitted the names of the two people involved. My response to being told that the offender had the right to block the victim’s access to information that she wants only because of the offender’s wrongdoing was that it offended my sense of what was right. I double-checked the Home Office’s stance by tabling a parliamentary question, believing that an hon. Member asking a parliamentary question would be entitled to information about the deportation. Once again, however, my request was stonewalled, as can be seen at column 1044W of the 16 October edition of Hansard. Not wishing to give up, I spoke in the debate on the Queen’s Speech on 23 November 2006, again raising the specific case of my constituent and the point of principle about access to information for victims. That can be seen at column 780 of Hansard. The Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality, my hon. Friend the. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne), who is in the Chamber today, responded sympathetically, and I subsequently corresponded with him on the subject. However, his reply also relied on human rights and data protection as reasons for his inability to provide the information. After my contribution to the debate on the Queen’s Speech, I learned that I was not alone in experiencing this difficulty. Other Members, and indeed journalists, contacted me about many similar stories. Obviously my research has not been extensive or systematic, but it has left me with the impression that just beneath the surface the problem experienced by my constituent and by me is a common one. That, surely, is a very undesirable state of affairs. New clause 1 is an attempt to give the Home Office parliamentary authority to break through the obstacles and give victims information to which I believe they should be entitled. In recent years, we have legislated to give more entitlements to victims. The Domestic Violence, Crimes And Victims Act 2004 enables victims of some sexual offences, for instance, to obtain information from the probation service about licence and supervision conditions when an offender is released from prison. New clause 1 is an attempt to nudge the law slightly further in favour of relevant information for victims, in this case on whether a foreign national has been deported. In a written statement on 23 May 2006, the present Home Secretary said:"““My first priority has been to protect the public””.—[Official Report, 23 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 77WS.]" It is worth recalling that at that time the deportation of foreign nationals who had committed serious offences in the United Kingdom was a topic of intense public interest. In part at least, the furore arose because the record keeping of the Home Office and its agencies was not very good. Perhaps if there were more openness, and more access and exposure to public scrutiny of these matters, there would be fewer problems of this kind. I hope the Minister will tell us what arrangements he envisages in the context of the deportation power in clause 31, not just in respect of access to information about deportation for victims, but in respect of what information Parliament and individual Members should have. There are victims of serious crimes who have a legitimate interest in knowing whether a deportation, as directed by clause 31, has indeed taken place. For the sake of those victims and, indeed, for the sake of the public’s confidence in our laws, it is in the public interest for the information specified in new clause 1 to be given to those victims. In weighing the interests of the offender and the victim, surely we should give the victim’s rights the higher priority. For those reasons, I urge the Minister to respond positively to new clause 1.