UK Borders Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is to be warmly congratulated on the many times that he has raised the issue of torture victims on the Floor of the House and in Grand Committee, particularly on the occasion he mentioned, on 17 May, when there was a useful exchange at Question Time. I asked the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, about the three successive reports of the chief inspector, Anne Owers, on Dungavel, Campsfield House and Harmondsworth, in which she found that healthcare staff were not trained in dealing with victims of torture. Although pro forma letters were being sent to the headquarters of the BIA in accordance with Rule 35 notifying the allegations of torture made by detainees, there was hardly any feedback, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has mentioned. The Minister claimed that the case management process had been changed to enhance the opportunity of identifying cases where individuals may need additional support, though we were not talking about support but the recognition of torture victims and their appropriate treatment, as I wrote to the Minister afterwards. In her reply to the supplementary question of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, the Minister referred to detainees who are ““fast-tracked through NSA procedures””. Such claimants are dealt with under the fast-track procedure rules—SI 2005 No. 560—which provide that where a claimant alleges that she has been tortured and the allegation is not manifestly frivolous or ill founded, it would be expected that under Rule 30(1)(b) the claimant would be transferred out of the fast-track system with a view to obtaining expert medical evidence. We have no idea whether that happens, because the asylum statistics do not go into that level of detail. Although I raised the matter in my letter to the Minister of 21 May, she did not refer to that letter—nor has she replied to it—in the letter that she wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, of 13 June. NSA cases are an entirely different matter and not to be confused with the fast track. NSA claimants are removed to their country of origin without any hearing, so the question of an in-country appeal by an NSA applicant on the basis of a torture claim must be almost unheard of. I asked the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, whether there were any cases in 2006 where an NSA applicant had exceptionally been given an in-country right of appeal because of a credible prima facie allegation of torture but, again, she has not replied. Most NSAs are held at Oakington, and I asked for details of the 72 persons out of a total of 2,893 who had been released for Medical Foundation appointments pre-decision but who all failed to substantiate their claims, according to the noble and learned Baroness. I asked her to let me know how many of the 72 claims of torture were found to be ill founded by the Medical Foundation, and how many had had their asylum claims rejected in spite of medical reports by the Medical Foundation or other independent medical experts confirming that there was evidence of torture. I also referred the Minister to significant anecdotal evidence of people being detained with no prior medical examination or only a perfunctory one, though the chief inspector reports a large number of pro forma Rule 35 letters which could not be reconciled with the statistics that she gave. I asked her to give me the number of Rule 35 letters that were issued at each of the IRCs in 2006, and the number at each referred to the Medical Foundation or to another doctor with experience of torture victims. I wanted to know why the action was not taken on the chief inspector’s repeated complaint that Rule 35 letters were not followed up. I asked for an assurance that they were now being properly scrutinised by the case holders under the new asylum model, with prompt action taken where this revealed that there were grounds for believing that the person may have been tortured, followed by feedback from the case holders to the IRC concerned. Having unsuccessfully looked for BIA responses to the three reports by the chief inspector that I have mentioned, I asked the Minister what was the practice on publication of responses and, if they were not in the public domain, whether that did not mean that Ministers and officials were able to ignore the findings with impunity, as they appear to have done on the Rule 35 letters. I would like an answer to that question. Where can one see the responses by the Secretary of State to the successive reports that have been made by the chief inspector in which she has made allegations about the failure to follow up Rule 35 letters? If the Minister and his colleagues do not reply to these allegations—or do not reply for many months afterwards—we have no check on whether these recommendations are being followed up. The Minister made clear in her letter to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, dealing with a sample of 21 cases in which it was alleged that procedures for torture cases were not properly followed, that in the majority of these cases—17 out of the 21—the torture allegation had been considered at the asylum decision stage or at appeal, or both. In other words, there was no separate consideration of the decision to detain, as we say that there should be in compliance with Chapter 38.3, paragraph 5 of the Operational Enforcement Manual, which says that in considering whether to detain, account must be taken of any history of torture. In other words, if there is an allegation of torture form—the Rule 35 letter—and the statements made in it are not manifestly ill founded, there has to be consideration of the decision to detain, quite separate from the determination of the asylum claim. The Minister’s letter acknowledged that in the 17 cases cited, that did not happen. It seems to us that Mr Hyde, the senior police officer who was brought in to audit the cases, wrongly advised the Minister that, as she said, "““procedures relating to the new form for recording torture were being correctly applied””." Since the Minister decided on reflection, as she told me, that Mr Hyde’s report was not to be published, we shall never know how he managed to reconcile his conclusion with the language of the Operational Enforcement Manual. Again, I should like an answer from the Minister on that question. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to two further cases submitted by Bail for Immigration Detainees, in which it alleges that the Home Office is in breach of its own guidelines. We are also owed a reply from the Minister to that letter, which was sent on 20 June. I assume that the department would have taken particular steps to see that it was replied to before the matter came before the Grand Committee. If the letter has not yet been answered, will he put a bomb under the officials in the Home Office who have to deal with these matters? It really is insufferable that when we are discussing matters in Grand Committee we do not have the answers to very important questions raised by agencies such as BID. In response to the JCHR’s concerns expressed in paragraph 236 of its report on the treatment of asylum seekers, the Home Office says that where independent evidence is produced that supports a claim to have been tortured, detention would not normally be appropriate. However, the fact is that BID’s cases and others show there is still a gap between what Marsham Street says is supposed to happen, and what is actually going on in the IRCs. The amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, suggests that a claim to have been tortured should automatically lead to the person’s release from detention or prevent him being detained if he is at liberty. Perhaps he might agree that this should be so only when the claim is not manifestly ill founded, or his amendment could lead to a spate of spurious claims. But he is surely right to say that a person whose claim seems to be plausible should have the benefit of the doubt and should not be detained, unless and until he has been examined by a doctor with experience of torture, and that doctor has certified that there is no medical evidence to support the claim. The person could still adduce non-medical evidence of torture in support of his asylum claim, and this would still have to be considered separately. But at least when there were sequelae following torture including rape, that could be uncovered by a medical examination and detention could be ruled out immediately.