Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
TUESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2005
MS MARY
COUSSEY, MS
FIONA LINDSLEY
AND DR
ANN BARKER
Q40 Mr Malik: Mary, you will be well
aware that the Government is increasingly tempted to exercise
immigration control outside of the UK, ie, before people reach
ports of entry.
Ms Coussey: Yes.
Q41 Mr Malik: Has this kind of governmental
trend of `exporting the border' made race-monitoring more difficult?
Ms Coussey: Initially, I was told
that my remit did not cover juxtaposed controls, but in fact in
clarifying that, yes, it does. Yes, it makes it more difficult
because the decision-making is more dispersed. I have visited
some of the main ports, I have visited Gard du Nord twice and
I have visited Coquelles and looked at the operations there. I
think the same kinds of decisions are being made, but again I
would say that early indications are that there are higher refusal
rates at those places. I have speculated as to why this is. I
do not know for certain because there has not been enough monitoring
of individual port decision rates, but it looks to me as though
it is easier to refuse somebody if you are in Belgium or France
because it is not your problem, if you like, they are not in the
UK, so you do not have to get involved in arranging for them to
return, so that may account for it. Also, the other factor is
just the sheer physical conditions under which people are operating
at those ports where they have very cramped, tiny accommodation.
At Paris Gard du Nord it is just a little box at the side of the
station and there just is not physically the room to make the
sorts of enquiries that would be made in this country, so I think
again, and this is speculation, but this may mean that the likelihood
of being refused is greater because you cannot go into the case
to the same extent.
Q42 Mr Malik: So the quality of decision-making
is poorer?
Ms Coussey: Well, I think there
is a possibility. As I say, I have not been able to monitor it
for long enough to say that, but some of the cases that I looked
at that most worried me were those where the decision was made
in Paris or Coquelles.
Q43 Mr Malik: You have already in
part really answered the question I was going to ask when you
responded to James Clappison which was really about the differential
refusal rates between ports and you talked about the least busy
airports detaining people for the highest proportion of time.
Is this a serious problem and, if it is, how do we deal with it?
Ms Coussey: I have to say that
the data only covers a year. The other thing I want to see from
that data is whether there is any indication of refusal rates
increasing for the nationalities on the authorisation because
that would be another way of checking whether it is becoming self-fulfilling.
As to what to do about it, if there are tougher decisions being
made, I think this has to be fed back to the officials who work
in those ports. What happens is there is quality control within
the port, but, as far as I am aware, there is no quality control
between ports and there would not be any system for picking up
whether, let's say, Brazilians are treated more harshly at City
Airport than at Terminal 4. That does not happen. It happens within
the specific port. Therefore, I think there needs to be that kind
of review as well, with the information fed back and then somebody
at a more senior level has to be taking a view on whether it is
fair, whether it is fair that people should be refused in one
place and not in another and that is then fed back into training,
briefings and so on for officials, for immigration officers.
Q44 Chairman: Can I take it from
what you said earlier that you are happy that the research that
is now being commissioned by the Home Office is going to provide
you with the information you need to assess the impact of policy
on race and immigration?
Ms Coussey: The research has been
done at Heathrow and Gatwick. I am happy with the research methodology
and the design, but I have not seen any results as yet.
Q45 Chairman: But, in principle,
you think it is the right questions and the right type of approach?
Ms Coussey: In principle, yes.
Q46 Chairman: To what extent, if
there is race discrimination within the system, does that stem
from attitudes deeply engrained amongst officials who are administering
the system?
Ms Coussey: I cannot say whether
they are deeply engrained attitudes. What I can say is that I
think that in any system, any casework system, and I think the
police have the same problem, you tend to build up this kind of
picture of almost a stereotype of somebody who merits a refusal.
I mentioned similar stories. If you come from South Africa, saying
you had won a hotel room in a competition, you will not be believed,
that kind of thing. There is a build-up of cynicism from dealing
with similar circumstances. I think people become cynical and
whether it is deep-rooted attitudes, I cannot say.
Q47 Chairman: The reason for asking
the question is that what follows from that is: how do you challenge
those attitudes? Are those ones that can be challenged effectively
by good staff training? The police obviously now have a very extensive
system of pre-recruitment testing to establish, for example, quite
deep-seated racist, homophobic or other attitudes where they try
and filter people out before they ever get into the police force,
whereas five years ago they would have tried to sort those attitudes
out once people had got inside. Are the issues that we are dealing
with in the Immigration Service ones that can be dealt with by
good training inhouse or is it going to take a more fundamental
approach as to how to recruit the staff in this section of government?
Ms Coussey: Well, I think there
are similar issues, as there are with the police, that yes, recruitment
is important and something I have not looked at is how immigration
officers are recruited, though I have looked at some of the training.
However, I think it is the other problem, which is that once you
get into the culture, you start to adopt the norms, the attitudes
and the behaviours of the culture and it is a very strong culture,
so that is why I think using evidence from monitoring to feed
back and reinforcing training at regular intervals is going to
help. The more transparent it is and the more decision-making
is reviewed, examined, discussed, looked at and opened up, the
more it will help. I think the other point I would make is that,
although I have not spent a lot of time looking at training, I
have attended parts of the immigration officers' initial training
and a lot of it is concerned with process because process is quite
important of course. To my mind, there needs to be much more on
understanding evidence and information, bias and so on as well,
and the actual decision-making, to my mind, does not receive enough
time in training, and that is also true, I would say, for asylum
caseworkers too.
Q48 Mr Winnick: If immigration officers
are accused of prejudice in certain posts where over a period
of time they have become rather cynical about claims to come to
this country for visits and so on from central/west Africa, Nigeria,
Ghana, and if it was put to those ECOs that they are racially
prejudiced, is it not possible that they would say, "It's
nothing to do with colour. If I was dealing with Americans who
happen to be black, my attitude would certainly not be based on
any form of prejudice", and they would deny there is prejudice,
"but my assessment", the entry clearance officer would
say, "is nothing to do with colour, it is nationality and
the experience this post has had over many years", and what
would be your reply to that?
Ms Coussey: Well, that is exactly
what they do say. I can only talk for immigration officers and
that is exactly what they do say and that is one of the reasons
I asked for the research to be done, so that there would be a
more rigorous basis for testing that. I cannot obviously say that
they are acting because they are racially prejudiced because that
has not been revealed to me, although I have overheard comments
made which have suggested that there are certainly stereotypes
of people and that is a form of prejudice.
Q49 Mr Winnick: But that would apply,
would it not, to various European places, eastern Europe, where
the refusal rate is pretty high—
Ms Coussey: Yes.
Q50 Mr Winnick:—Poland, Czechoslovakia
before admission to the EU and Turkey who, as far as I understand
these colour classifications, although I am not an expert any
more than you are, are presumed to be white as we are presumed
to be white? What would you say to that, where the refusal rate
is pretty high and the people concerned are certainly in those
circumstances not black or Asian?
Ms Coussey: I think it is an indication
of, as I said, the cynicism that can build up and how it can become
self-fulfilling. It is certainly true that in 2003, before accession,
the highest refusals were of Poles, and there was the same attitude
building up—an attitude of suspicion or a lack of an inclination
to give the benefit of the doubt to young Poles, particularly
young men.
Q51 Mr Winnick: But that is clearly
based on nationality, absolutely nothing to do with colour prejudice.
Ms Coussey: From the evidence
I have seen, from the way this works, it is in relation to nationality
as much as any other factor. I cannot say from what I have seen
that colour is a determining factor, but that is not to say that
it is not.
Mr Winnick: I take the point
Q52 Mrs Cryer: Mary, you have made
a number of recommendations to government and I wonder if you
could give us some examples of those recommendations that have
been accepted and some of those recommendations that have been
ignored.
Ms Coussey: I suppose the most
obvious one that has been accepted is where I asked for more rigorous
information—the question that David Winnick has just been
asking me—is there any evidence that people of colour are
more likely to be stopped and questioned? And that is the basis
of the research that has been going on, the results of which I
have not yet seen. So that was accepted and the requests I made
for more detailed monitoring of Ports have been accepted, I have
been told, subject to resources—they are not certain whether
that can always be done. I have made various suggestions about
improving the content of training, as I just said, in relation
to having much more on how you make decisions, using evidence
of what people have said and how you make decisions, and I have
been told that the training is being revamped but I have not yet
seen the outcome. On the asylum side—and I understand you
are not focusing on asylum today—I think there are more
questions there about whether my recommendations have been accepted.
Q53 Mrs Cryer: So they may have been
ignored?
Ms Coussey: They have been challenged
to a greater degree as well, yes.
Q54 Mrs Cryer: Could you look at
how immigration policies fit in with wider government policies
so far as race equality, which you have already mentioned, community
cohesion, social inclusion and so on? Apparently in your first
report you did emphasise the importance of integrating immigrants
into the community, but not in later reports and I wondered why
that was?
Ms Coussey: I guess it is really
a bit wider than my remit to go into integration in this report
because I am just looking at how the authorisations operate, but
of course there are implications for good community relations.
If people from some communities find consistently that their family
members, visitors or whatever are refused entry of course that
has implications because people feel resentment, people feel that
they do not belong here, they are getting different treatment,
et cetera. I think the other side of it, which worries me a lot,
is how the climate about immigration impacts on decision-making,
and I am quite sure that if you come to work and you see a tabloid
anti-asylum campaign bus outside the office and journalists trying
to get in to interview asylum seekers, that kind of negative publicity
screaming out at you every day I am quite sure that affects how
you make decisions. You cannot be isolated and immune from that,
and people have said that to me, as well, "Yes, and of course
we are aware of it." And I have seen things pinned up in
offices, anti-immigration articles pinned up in offices and obviously
immigration people are influenced by the negative climate.
Q55 Chairman: Is that pinned up on
your staff notice boards?
Ms Coussey: In the areas around
the desks.
Q56 Chairman: Signs on filing cabinets,
or whatever.
Ms Coussey: Yes, that kind of
thing.
Q57 Chairman: So indicating that
people working there share the views.
Ms Coussey: They are certainly
noting those sorts of comments, yes—aware of them.
Q58 Mr Clappison: The general point
was put to you, but on the first point you were making there,
particularly about the family visas—and I have a lot of
constituents who come to me with these issues—is there any
research done or any way of seeing how many people actually abuse
the family visa system by overstaying on that permission? If there
was little evidence of that happening that might win more confidence
for people being given the right to visit family members in this
country?
Ms Coussey: Fiona is visas.
Q59 Mr Clappison: Can I deal with
that now? I think the point is that nobody wants to stop family
members meeting each other and if there is a way of giving confidence
that that system is being used properly then that is something
which should be stepped forward.
Ms Lindsley: I think one of the
problems is that there are no departure controls so the short
answer is that nobody knows who leaves. There are statistics obviously
about people who are picked up, having broken controls. This is
not my remit either but if you raid Indian restaurants you find
Indian over-stayers and Indian illegal entrants and so the statistics
on who breaches controls are not necessarily even. If you go to
the bars where the Australians work you might find Australians.
So it depends what sort of controls you do after entry. If you
have no universal control, which gives you the data—I think
there is some consideration as to whether with new technology
it would be possible to have departure controls but obviously
the main reason why we do not have departure controls is the whole
of Heathrow and other airports would jam up if we did at the moment.
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