Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-15
Topic: Mixed Topics
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support Amendments 84 and 85 as a member of the all-party inquiry, which I came away from convinced of the case for a time limit, based on the experience of other countries and on the evidence that we have received from professionals and those with experience of detention about the impact of indefinite detention in particular on mental health. I am going to apply a self-imposed time limit on my own comments, and I am going to scrap what I was going to say about that. However, given the very broad all-party support, which we have heard about already, whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular amendment, when Liberty tells us that this is one of the greatest stains on this country’s human rights record in recent decades, surely we should do something to remove that stain I move to Amendment 85 and government Amendment 86. While I welcome the decision to publish statutory guidance on the new adults-at-risk decision-making procedures, I have some concerns, particularly with regard to pregnant women. Although it is welcome that they will automatically be treated at the highest level of risk, it is still not clear why the Government have refused Shaw’s recommendation of an absolute exclusion from detention. I note that the Home Affairs Select Committee has asked for an explanation of this in its recent report, and I would appreciate one, too Women for Refugee Women has raised a number of concerns with me and, if it is easier, I shall be quite happy for the Minister to respond to these in writing later. First, can he give some indication of how the new gate- keeper team will operate and explain why it was decided not to include an independent element in decision-making, as suggested by Shaw in recommendation 61? Secondly, it is worried as to how "imminence of removal" will be interpreted under the new adults-at-risk approach, given that this is the wording already used in the current policy. Under this policy, it says that nearly one-third of the 99 pregnant women detained in 2014 were held for between one and three months and four for between three and six months, which suggests a rather loose interpretation of imminence in the context of pregnancy. It is also worried about what is meant when the draft implementation approach states that the level of risk/vulnerability for which someone has been assessed will depend on the type and quality of the evidence available. In the experience of Women for Refugee Women and of Helen Bamber, what is understood as constituting independent or good evidence is often a real problem for survivors of sexual violence. Under rule 35, for instance, evidence such as a doctor’s report on mental symptoms has been dismissed because there is no physical evidence. Will self-disclosure be accepted as evidence, as it is by many other agencies I was pleased to read of there being new guidance on care and management of women in detention. That sounds like a positive step. Would the Minister undertake for the Home Office to consult organisations such as Women for Refugee Women, on its contents It appears that the Government have also rejected Shaw’s recommendation that the words, "which cannot be satisfactorily managed in detention", should be removed from references to individuals suffering from serious mental illness. Shaw states that, "it is perfectly clear … that people with serious mental illness continue to be held in detention and that their treatment and care does not and cannot equate to good psychiatric practice (whether or not it is ‘satisfactorily managed’)" He concludes: "Such a situation is an affront to civilised values" Can the Minister say whether the recommendation has been rejected; and, if so, why? Finally, can he explain why the statutory instrument giving effect to the statutory guidance will be subject to the negative resolution procedure rather than the affirmative, given the importance of these details? Will he commit to independent monitoring of the new regime, with regular reports to both Houses? In this way, we can assess whether the new adults-at-risk policy proves to be the generally transformative approach that has been promised.