UK Borders Bill

The Minister will not mind me regarding him as a veteran of this kind of legislation. He will remember that my noble friend and I raised these questions back in the previous millennium. I am sorry that we still have to go on doing that. I hope that the Minister recalls when I raised the question of detailed reasons for detention. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said in 1999, during the passage of the Immigration and Asylum Bill, that, "““that detailed check-list will be tailored to individual circumstances””.—[Official Report, 18/10/99; col. 897.]" He was not enthusiastic about giving detailed reasons, but he took seriously the question of torture and gave undertakings that any history of torture would at least be recorded. The Government have frequently given assurances, which were then spelt out in the White Paper in paragraph 12.4 on page 53. It stated: "““The Government also recognises the need to exercise particular care in the consideration of physical and mental health when deciding to detain. Evidence of a history of torture should weigh strongly in favour of temporary admission or temporary release whilst an individual’s asylum claim is being considered””." Since then, we have had evidence, not least from the Chief Inspector of Prisons, as has been mentioned, and from my three noble friends today, that torture is still being missed at various stages of asylum procedure, even now calling into question, as my noble friend mentioned, the training of case officers under the new asylum model—the people who have to make those important initial decisions. The chief inspector’s annual report of 2005-06 has been mentioned. It says: "““A particular problem highlighted in inspection reports, and confirmed in the inquiry into the healthcare provision at Yarl’s Wood, was the inadequate use of procedures to alert the authorities to the fact that detention may be injurious to a detainee’s health, under Rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules. Healthcare staff lacked specific training to recognise and understand signs of trauma or previous torture. Even when such information was provided, we could find no evidence in any IRC that this had been systematically filed, monitored, responded to or followed up by IND””." I support any efforts to raise this issue. The Minister may think that this is a sledgehammer but it is a very large nut to crack.