My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendments 17 and 19 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts. I agree with every word that my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries said. Following my inspection of Campsfield after a riot there, I raised for the first time my concern about one group of people who were being held in prisons: they were to be deported at the end of their sentence.
We have been talking about enforced removals and people sentenced to be deported are in forced removals, and it seems to be absolute nonsense not to process that deportation while those people are serving their prison sentences, so that at the end of their sentence they go straight to the airport and out. Instead, what happens at the moment is that they go from prison into a detention centre and then the deportation process starts. That is causing an intense clogging in the detention centres. Having disaffected prisoners awaiting deportation in a detention centre also causes unrest in the centre, which was the case at Campsfield.
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I absolutely agree with my noble and right reverend friend that there must be a time limit, not least in order to give a deadline by which time officials must complete the case. We talked earlier today about case owners and the need to have direction for them. What further direction could they need other than a time by which they have to complete the case? With nothing there, it is small wonder that on 11 September 2013, in addition to the 220 people that my noble and right reverend friend mentioned who had been there for six months or more, 27 had been there for 18 to 24 months, 11 for 24 to 36 months and one from 36 to 48 months. For heaven’s sake, four years without anything happening is totally unacceptable anywhere, let alone in this country. We really should be ashamed of those figures.
Taking from Amendment 16 the new clause on the presumption of liberty, I recommend that there is a great deal that could be done to tighten up the way in which this is legislated and conducted. These two amendments, designed to put time limits on procedures that must be carried through, would play a great part in achieving that.