My Lords, I will move the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, because I feel so strongly about the subject. Who knows, the Government might have something new to say; I would not want the Minister to waste her speech. I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will be replying—she is nodding. I want to use this opportunity to thank the noble Lords on the Government Front Bench at the moment for their courtesy through a number of trying hours. There is a lot that I do not agree with—I have made no secret of the fact that I think this is an awful Bill—but we always appreciate how the noble Baroness approaches everything. She must be very tired but she does not show it. I just wanted to express my thanks; I have heard such comments outside the Chamber as well.
Last night, I discovered that the beautifully honed notes for my speech had disappeared. It was not so beautiful as to include “civis Britannicus”, though—if I have got that right. Perhaps I dreamed that I wrote it because this is not the first time that I have spoken on the importance of immigration detention not being indefinite, although it may be the shortest speech I
have made on the subject. Some of the amendments may be in the same form as ones I have spoken to in the past and divided on.
Detention centres are formally immigration removal centres because they are for the removal of people liable to be removed, not indefinite incarceration. In a lot of our debates over the years, the Government have said that people are not detained for that long. That is not point. Some are, of course—some are detained for a long time—but it is uncertainty and lack of hope that characterise indefinite detention. We have often heard from ex-detainees of the loss of hope and its impact on them.
I want to mention one other amendment in this group, on ending the use of privately run places of detention. It is not something we have previously debated, I think, but I recall having a conversation with Brandon Lewis when he was the Minister in the relevant department—at least I got his name right this time—following revelations about Brook House. I asked him why the Government did not just terminate the contract with the contractor. He said, “We’d end up with the same staff because they’d be transferred or they’d reapply for their jobs, and there are not many people who want to do the job”. I did not find that entirely convincing; rather, it was not a complete answer. I fear that the ship of having only state-run detention centres has sailed but, if the Minister has notes that refer to this, I think that the Committee—or, if not the Committee, the people who read Hansard—would be glad to hear them. I beg to move.