Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-01
Topic: Immigration
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, during the excellent remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in introducing his amendments and talking about these clauses, he referred to Stephen Shaw’s report and I want to ask the Minister some questions about that. He will know that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration produced a pretty damning report on immigration detention, which led to the former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, being asked to investigate the treatment of vulnerable persons in detention. His report was published on Thursday 14 January, so another place had no opportunity to discuss that when it was considering the Bill, but we have a chance now to ask the Minister some questions about it in the context of these clauses Has the Minister had a chance to read the report in detail? It criticises the conduct of searches in immigration detention centres and it gives cause for further scrutiny of these provisions. The Minister himself, in his remarks on the previous set of amendments, said that things such as strip-searching would not be permitted, but I was concerned to read a number of accounts in Stephen Shaw’s report that involved male detention staff in searches of women, although not with the removal of clothes, and of women’s rooms in Yarl’s Wood. I am particularly interested in the situation there, as, thanks to the Minister, my noble friend Lord Hylton and I have been able to arrange a visit to Yarl’s Wood on Wednesday morning. I am glad that we will have the opportunity to put some of these questions directly to the staff who run that facility Mr Shaw says in his remarks: "It is of the greatest importance that the proportion of female staff at Yarl’s Wood is increased … In the meantime, Serco should only conduct searches of women and of women’s rooms in the presence of men in the most extreme and pressing circumstances, and there should be monitoring and reporting (to Home Office Detention Operations) of these cases" In recommendation 35 of the report, he states: "I recommend that the service provider at Yarl’s Wood should only conduct searches of women and of women’s rooms in the presence of men in the most extreme and pressing circumstances, and that there should be monitoring and reporting of these cases" During that review, Stephen Shaw identified evidence that the Home Office policy of not searching detainees, especially women, in the view of other people, is not always followed. I was struck by some examples that he gave. He said that: "As far as the practices at Heathrow, Lunar house and Eaton House are concerned, the evidence of this review is that the Home Office’s policy that detainees (especially women) should not be searched in view of other people is not always followed" For instance, talking about Heathrow Terminal 3, Mr Shaw says, at paragraph 3.175: "A female detainee was searched in front of several people" At paragraph 3.227, talking about Lunar House, he says: "Detainees were searched in an area where they could be seen by others in the main holding room" At Eaton House, at paragraph 3.240, he says: "A female detainee was searched in the holding room by the Tascor escort who had arrived to take her to Colnbrook. This was in front of a male detainee and a male member of staff" Clearly, given the vulnerable position of detainees, particularly women, who are held as immigration detainees, and the lack of compliance by detention custody staff with existing policies on searching detainees, it would be highly inappropriate to extend those powers of search to include searches for the purpose of identifying nationality documents, particularly where they are so broadly defined in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has already described to the Committee. When he comes to reply, I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us how the Government intend to respond to Stephen Shaw’s observations and recommendations.