My Lords, I wish to say a word or two in support of the amendment. Currently, the use of force by an immigration officer is licensed under the Immigration Act 1971 and the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 amends this to license the use of force under eight other Acts passed since 1971, and any future legislation that may be included in the definition of “the Immigration Acts”. The Explanatory Notes wrongly claim that this “clarifies” that the power is not limited to the exercise of powers under the 1971 and 1999 Acts, which would
mean that the power already exists. In fact, the use of force under any of the eight Acts not already covered would be unlawful until the Bill is passed, as I hope my noble friend will concede.
No justification is given for this extension of the power to use force. On the contrary, there have been huge concerns about the use of existing powers, as in the case of Jimmy Mubenga, and in the report of the chief inspector on the use of force to remove a pregnant woman and her child via Cedars. The former Immigration Minister gave an assurance that the power to use force was confined to immigration officers as distinct from workers employed by private contractors on detention and removal activities. However, private contractors do use force, as has been mentioned and as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, found in her report of March 2010.
In the chief inspector’s report on an unannounced inspection of Harmondsworth in August last year, it was found that a wheelchair-bound, low-risk detainee who had suffered a stroke was handcuffed on a hospital visit, and other cases were noted in which the use of handcuffs was “grossly excessive”, including one case in which the individual was sedated and undergoing angioplasty, and another in which an 84 year-old man suffering from dementia died while still in handcuffs. It is clear that some immigration officers have no idea whatever about proportionality in the use of force—a matter that was referred to by the noble Lord Ramsbotham—and each and every extension of this power should be separately justified.
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