UK Borders Bill

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.