My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, with whom I had the honour to sit on the House of Lords European Union Sub-Committee F, when we looked particularly at issues around immigration. He may have been with us when as a committee we visited Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre to take evidence. I am interested in the answers to what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked when referring to encouraging voluntary return and in having some detail about what incentives are being offered on that. I share his concern about gaining some reassurance about the independence of the Independent Family Returns Panel, and I am also interested in what he said about the need for figures on the detention of unaccompanied children in the past.
My chief wish at this point—using this as the right place this time—is to pay tribute to the coalition Government for this huge change in the safeguarding of children. It was harrowing to visit the Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre both as a member of the House of Lords European Union Sub-Committee and on two previous occasions early in the centre’s existence. Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, which took these families, was based very much on a category C prison, so it was very familiar to me, having visited Feltham young offender institution. One would see a mother, with her young child, coming through the admission room—just like Feltham, with the barred gate—and what would a child be thinking, having that experience, walking through this prison?
I pay tribute to the first Children’s Commissioner, who produced a number of important reports, which highlighted, for instance, how in going from admissions to the family wing there might be seven or eight separate doors that had to be opened with keys by the warder. There were important improvements to the
regime under the Labour Government. However, towards the very end, as I said, I met a 16 year-old girl. Can your Lordships imagine what any girl or young woman would feel who was detained for 10 months, through no fault of her own or any action that she did wrong, separated from the pleasure of being with her peers? What can that be like? Of course, one understands why she was so angry with me and with us for allowing this to happen to her and her family.
I express my heartfelt thanks to the coalition Government for improving this situation so greatly, and I welcome these amendments.