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Mr. Corbyn: When the Minister opened the debate, she said that one reason for having detention centres--Oakington came to mind--was the great financial burden imposed on local authorities and the demands on their social services departments. What worries me about that is that, if we are to say that it is too expensive for local authorities to undertake the work necessary to support asylum-seeking families--particularly families--and they are put in the equivalent of a detention centre, either the cost will be transferred to a detention centre, if it is properly run, or the asylum-seeking families will be offered much less in the way of local authority and social services support than they would get if they were placed in the community. I find both those suggestions unacceptable.
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My borough, like many inner-London boroughs, contains a large number of asylum seekers. The local authority staff work extremely hard in supporting them in the best way that they can, but the introduction of the voucher system for food and the like has done enormous damage to relationships in the area. Large numbers of asylum seekers scout round the place looking for the appropriate supermarket in which to spend the vouchers. They cannot cash them on the market or anywhere else, so they spend more to get less although they have an inadequate income. They also have the inadequate diet that goes with it. We should be realistic: we are saying that asylum seekers apparently deserve less than 75 per
cent. of what the poorest in this country receive in income support. That is no way to treat people who have come here, within the terms of the 1951 Geneva convention, seeking a place of safety.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will explain what exactly is happening with the development of detention centres and the powers of detention that go with that. I am disturbed by all that has been said about Oakington being set up. Indeed, under the previous Government I initiated Adjournment debates on Campsfield detention centre, its administration and all the problems that have gone with it. If Oakington is to be anything like Campsfield, it will have high security, massive gates and lots of guards. Basically, a prison will be established there. Unless she can assure me that Oakington will be very different--more like the supportive centres that some European countries have--I shall have to conclude that it is part of a process of assigning asylum seekers to particular detention centres around the country from which their applications will be fast-tracked. I suggest that the very fact that applications will be fast-tracked and applicants sent to such places will be prejudicial to a fair hearing of their cases.
We have to realise that the cause of people seeking asylum is events in other countries, some of which are of our own making. It is all very well for us to complain about the number of asylum seekers coming from Turkey, but at the same time we are selling arms to the Turkish Government, who are doing so much damage to so many Kurdish people in that part of the world. There is a foreign policy connection.
My hon. Friend the Minister ought to be ensuring that the local authorities, which are doing their best, are given sufficient support and money and are, above all, reimbursed quickly when they undertake such expenditure. There should be no further development of any detention centres without specific proposals coming before the House following proper consultation. Such centres should not be introduced as holding centres when, in reality, they are detention centres that are, as I understand it, very much like Campsfield, Haslar and the others, which have a poor reputation.
Mr. Allan:
I shall summarise our views on our amendment, but first I should dispose of the Oakington issue. We did not intend to have the major debate on it, but our discussion has been useful. Although occasionally robust, in many ways the debate has shown why the guillotine motion was flawed: I do not feel that any time has been wasted, but we are discussing only the second group of amendments and there is plenty more to be said on other issues. However, I am speaking with a heavy heart because I am taking up time that I would like to use to debate other issues. I hope that the Minister will take on board comments made from both sides of the House about the need for a further statement on Oakington and more time to discuss the issue. There is agreement on that and I hope that she does not feel unable to make such a concession.
On our amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 1, I shall be fairly blunt: I believe that this is knee-jerk legislation which has been introduced purely as a result of the disturbances in Kent over the summer and the coincidence that they took place when the Bill could still be amended. Someone said, "Cor lumme, guvnor, we've got a problem down in Kent. We've got to do something
about it. Let's get some legislation on the statute book." In many ways, the Bill follows the dangerous dogs principle: something high profile has happened and it has made the newspapers, so we have to pass legislation. That exercises me and my hon. Friends because it is a key issue: in a free Parliament, people who want to live in a liberal society should spend as much time defending the citizen from the state as giving the state new powers to impose on the citizen.
In this case, the citizens are those who do not have British citizenship as yet, although some will eventually achieve it. We do not seek to make a distinction between those who have come from abroad and those who happen to be British citizens in terms of the civil right to be free from detention and from having one's liberty restricted. The proposed provision represents a fairly unfettered power to restrict the right to free movement and access.
The Minister has talked about the proposed power as a possible form of curfew, yet if we do not amend the Bill, the law will prohibit freedom of movement subject to any conditions imposed in the relevant regulations. The Bill does not stipulate day or night, or specify anything more than giving the Secretary of State a power to impose restrictions on people's movements.
To put it bluntly, the provisions effectively surrender to the British National party and those who have taken to the streets and sought to attack asylum seekers. Blame does not always lie 100 per cent. in one direction, although that seems the clear implication of the proposed legislation. It is saying that there will be trouble if a certain group of asylum seekers in a particular district go out at night, so, without confronting the cause of that trouble, a power will be introduced to keep such people inside. That is a very dangerous route to go down.
There are already proportionate provisions under the Immigration Act 1971 for detention where there is a problem. The Minister said that the Government's legal advice is that the powers are supposed to be used only in response to absconding. That is right; the state should not take to itself powers to detain, imprison or hold people under house arrest unless to do so is a proportionate response to some offence or mischief.
If applicants are criminal, it is right under certain circumstances to lock them up. It may be right to detain people who abscond from the immigration service, so long as they have the right to challenge the decision and prove why they would not abscond. However, it cannot be correct to provide an arbitrary power under which the Secretary of State can decide to keep people under house arrest because he judges that, otherwise, public order offences may be committed and that those people should be protected from themselves. He is giving in to those who might be seeking to cause harm and contribute to the public order offence.
So many questions are left open. How will the power be enforced? What will be the penalties for breaching it? What if someone is in genuine fear of torture or death in their home country and does not conform to the Secretary of State's curfew? Would the Secretary of State ship such people home to face torture and death? How will legitimate legal challenges be dealt with?
The powers for dealing with somebody in a family are not clear either. Lord Williams expressed some very different views in another place. In one instance, he described how the new powers could be used to develop
reception facilities in which people would reside. Therefore, the powers are about putting families and individuals into a new form of detention centre. So, we have the proper detention centre, the strange hybrid beast of the Oakington detention centre and the new-power detention centres. We are adding again and again to the powers of the Secretary of State to deprive people of their liberty, applying different conditions and tests to each.
What power will an individual have to challenge such decisions? The Government are giving with one hand and taking back with the other. To the Government's credit, on detention powers under the 1971 Act they have given us a presumption in favour of bail, with standardised hearings after seven days, for which we have called. However, they have introduced another power under which the maximum time limit is not specified and there is no ability for individuals to challenge the restriction of liberty. Such knee-jerk provision takes us two steps back, just when we thought that it was one of the few elements on which we on the Liberal Democrat Benches thought we had taken one step forward.
Mr. Clappison:
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that all that we have heard makes nonsense and a mockery of the Home Secretary's proud boast about the Special Standing Committee procedure? Such matters should definitely have been considered at its sittings.
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