My Lords, I will speak first to Amendment 139A, to which my right reverend friend the Bishop of London has added her name, and then I will turn to Amendment 139B in my name. I remind the Committee of my interests as laid out regarding RAMP and Reset.
As we have heard, Amendment 139A would prevent data about a victim of or a witness to a crime being automatically shared for the purpose of immigration enforcement. My right reverend friend the Bishop of London sponsored a similar amendment during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act, and this issue remains hugely important.
Imkaan reports that more than 90% of abused women with insecure immigration status had their abusers use the threat of their removal from the UK to dissuade them from reporting their abuse. It is deeply disturbing that any person would be deterred from reporting a crime that they have been subjected to or have witnessed because they believe that their data will be passed on to immigration officials for the purposes of immigration control. This is especially pertinent for a domestic abuse victim, a modern slavery victim, someone who has been trafficked or someone who has been subject to violence.
In the context of this Bill, a lack of safe reporting pathways would be a major hindrance to the Government’s intent to “go after” the people smugglers who blight communities and destroy lives. Without the assurance of secure reporting to allow victims to come forward and report crimes committed against them, how will the Government ensure that they go after the perpetrators?
As well as a need for prosecution, we have a responsibility to victims. The Istanbul convention, to which the UK is a signatory, states in Articles 5 and 59
that victims of violence must be protected irrespective of their immigration status. It is crucial that we take all possible steps to comply with this and ensure that the right of every person, especially women and girls, to live free from violence is protected.
Since the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act, there has been a call for the overhaul of laws and policies on police data sharing with the Home Office. The Government committed to reviewing this, but stopped short of committing to a firewall. Many dedicated groups have been campaigning on this issue for many years. The House of Commons Justice Committee, in its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft victims Bill, agreed with them:
“We call for an immediate end to the sharing of victims’ and witnesses’ data between the police and the Home Office for immigration enforcement purposes and the introduction of a complete firewall for those groups”.
What is set out in Amendment 139A would not prevent data sharing between services where it is required—for example, in healthcare—but would prevent data sharing for the purposes of Section 2(1) of this Bill, namely removal. At a time when trust in the police force is low, especially for minority groups, we must consider the impact of the Bill on the wider community and ensure that, when someone is subject to or a witness of a crime, they can report it without fear.
I turn to Amendment 139B in my name. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for their support. I argue that this amendment is a common-sense proposal that offers the Government a procedure to ensure that statutory oversight of detention facilities and standards is maintained, without altering the Secretary of State’s power to detain on, undeniably, an extensive scale. The Bill establishes a comprehensive detention regime that many of us expected to have been consigned to history. It moves the system away from an administrative process to facilitate someone’s removal to a wider system of incarceration intended to deter asylum seekers from travelling to the UK. Although this signals a major transition in government policy, there is very little detail on the standards, safeguards or protective obligations on the Home Office that there will be when providing detention accommodation. In fact, Clause 10 grants the Secretary of State the power to detain people “in any place” that she “considers appropriate”.
I am grateful to the Minister for explaining that the Detention Centre Rules 2001 will be updated in light of this Bill and that all immigration removal centres must operate in compliance with the rules, including any additional sites that are opened. But the Government will appreciate that these standards are not in the Bill and, given that there is very little oversight for the potential mass detention of people, it would be unfathomable to proceed with these provisions without a detention inspection regime on a statutory footing.
This is all the more important given the fact that this legislation overturns the long-held common-law principle that it is for the courts to decide whether the detention of a person is for a period that is reasonable or even justified in principle. The Secretary of State’s duty to detain does not discriminate and, in the absence of any return agreements, thousands of people—including children of all ages, pregnant women, victims of trafficking
and those who are disabled—may be detained at the discretion of the Home Secretary for an unrestricted duration. I am afraid that I am not reassured by Ministers saying that habeas corpus provides enough legal protection to challenge detention, as it concerns only whether there is a power to detain, not whether the power to detain was exercised lawfully or is reasonable. Am I not correct in this observation?
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Under Section 5A of the Prison Act 1952, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons has a statutory duty to inspect immigration detention facilities. The chief inspector regularly conducts unannounced visits to detention facilities, reporting candidly on the conditions, and makes clear recommendations to the Secretary of State. They are an important safeguard for people in immigration detention and should play a vital role in the external and independent scrutiny of any expansion of the detention estate.
The Government know too well that it is not simple conjecture that detention facilities may fail to meet safeguarding rules and accommodation standards, given the events at Manston in 2022. With a maximum capacity of 1,600, Manston became overcrowded, with the number of people detained there nearing 4,000 towards the end of 2022. There are concerns that the conditions there are likely to have amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment.
In November 2021, the chief inspector carried out an inspection of Tug Haven—I must not lapse into pronouncing it as if it were in Holland—which was predominantly used to accommodate migrants who had undertaken crossings from France. He described the conditions there as “unacceptably poor” and said:
“At Tug Haven, we saw several people who arrived with significant injuries and illnesses, but the site was ill-equipped to meet their needs. Migrants had little private space and were sometimes held overnight, sleeping on the ground, often in wet clothes”.
He found that only one of his 10 recommendations from the previous inspection in 2020 had been partially achieved, with the others not achieved at all. This report alone demonstrates why the chief inspector’s role in drawing attention to serious safeguarding problems in immigration detention facilities is necessary.
My Amendment 139B would give the Secretary of State a statutory duty to implement all
“recommendations of the Chief Inspector of Prisons in relation to immigration detention”
centres within six months, strengthening the independent external monitoring role of the chief inspector. This is not a needless prosaic suggestion but an essential safeguard in ensuring that humanitarian crises such as those described are not repeated, especially because, after the Bill comes into force, the Home Office will be responsible for some of the most vulnerable people, for whom we know detention poses a greater risk of harm and who will therefore require an expert level of trauma-informed care.
I take this opportunity also to ask the Minister this: will the standing commission, for the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration to carry out annual reviews of the Home Office’s practices and policies towards adults at risk in immigration detention, be reintroduced after being discontinued by the Home
Secretary in January? These inspections regularly found a gap between Home Office policy intentions and what happens on the ground. We simply cannot afford for this to be the case going forward as the consequences could be catastrophic, including—unjustifiably and regrettably—for children.
I quite appreciate that the Minister may not be able to provide a full response to this proposal now but I ask that he kindly write to me in advance of Report if this amendment is believed to be unworkable. It is of the utmost importance that we understand the inspection framework for detention sites and its legal underpinning. The expansive duties and powers provided to the Home Office by the Bill demand they be matched by statutory and mandatory accountability.