Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
MR DAVE
WOOD
16 SEPTEMBER 2009
Q40 Mr Winnick: I am sure the Chairman
would agree that the Committee would like those figures as soon
as possible. You will write to us by the end of this week?
Mr Wood: Yes, I do not know whether
I can do it in those timescales because some of this will have
to be manually checked.
Q41 Mr Winnick: What timescale do
you require?
Mr Wood: Probably three to four
weeks, I would imagine. I think we would have to manually check.
Q42 Chairman: Would you write to
us in 28 days?
Mr Wood: And if we can do it earlier
we will.
Chairman: That would be very helpful
if you could. Maybe we could say 21 days.
Q43 Mr Winnick: If you have not got
the information now, would the letter also include the number
of those detained as to children where the families were not deported
and released back into the community?
Mr Wood: Yes, can I deal with
that point because I think people get a false image of that. When
we release children from detention back into the community it
does not mean they have then got leave to remain in the United
Kingdom. What tends to happen is that we detain families only
at the stage where appeal rights have expired in order to remove
them. Then there might be another judicial review or legal challenge
and then we reassess their case as to should detention continue
or not. In many cases it goes on to a longer legal process and
we release the family. When that legal process is over we then
re-detain and that is one of the problems of our statistics: we
show numbers detained but there are duplicates in the sense of
families detained twice. The fact that we release people from
detention does not mean that we perhaps should not have detained
them in the first place because a large number of those are ultimately
removed.
Q44 Mr Winnick: If we could have
as much of that information as possible in a letter. I wonder
if I could put this question to you, Mr Wood: fair-minded people
(and those who are not fair-minded would take a different view)
will agree that you in carrying out your responsibilities for
which you have been appointed and other colleagues in the Border
Agency do not rub your hands with glee and say, "Oh marvellous,
more children being detained." As I say, fair-minded people
are hardly likely to come to that conclusion. It is an unfortunate
step taken by the Border Agency. Do you recognise that there is
a good deal of sensitivity amongst many people, including those
who believe in the strictest form of immigration control, that
nevertheless children who are totally innocent themselves, as
we all agree, whatever their parent have done or not done, are
being held at a very young and tender age in detention and about
the possible psychological repercussions that could emerge in
later years?
Mr Wood: Let me deal with that.
First of all, I think fair-minded people would recognise that.
This is a very difficult area of our work and we acknowledge that
it is a controversial area of our policy. I have explained why
we feel we have to do it. What I would say about the detention—and
I would really encourage this group to visit Yarl's Wood—it
is a family-friendly environment. There are locked doors on the
outside, let us not escape that, so it is detention in that sense
but it does not feel like a prison or anything like that inside.
It is family-friendly in how the staff are dressed and how the
regime is run there. It is quite different from that but, yes,
it is a difficult, controversial area of our policy.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Ann Cryer?
Q45 Mrs Cryer: Mr Wood, I want to
ask you three questions about the children who are being detained
and the conditions that they are in and the care that they are
given, but before I do that can I just clarify that you never
take into the detention centres children who are picked up at
an airport travelling alone due to the fact that they do not have
adequate documentation?
Mr Wood: We do not take them to
our removal centres. The only time we will detain children in
the circumstances you have described is purely until social services
can come and take control of them. That would be normally for
a short time of hours. It could in exceptional circumstances be
overnight. That is for us to inform social services and social
workers to come to the place of detention, speak to the unaccompanied
minor, and then take responsibility for that individual.
Q46 Mrs Cryer: So the social services
who pick up those children are social services in the local authority
adjacent to that detention centre; is that right?
Mr Wood: It would normally be
the port rather than the detention centre.
Q47 Mrs Cryer: And can I also assume
that the families who are detained with children are families
who have been picked up at airports because they are travelling
without adequate documentation, or they are families who have
overstayed the limitations of their existing visa, or they are
families who have failed in an appeal to be accepted as asylum
seekers? Are those the three categories who are taken in, by and
large?
Mr Wood: Yes, but they would have
been caseworked first and we would be in a position to remove
those people as far as we are concerned.
Q48 Mrs Cryer: But they fit into
those three categories that I have just described?
Mr Wood: Yes.
Q49 Mrs Cryer: I have a list of three
questions that I want to ask about the care of the children who
are at the detention centres. The first is: are you addressing
the mental and child health needs which were identified as a weakness
in 2008? Has that been improved?
Mr Wood: Yes, it has been improved.
I can go into the improvements if it helps you, but certainly
we have mental health nurses there now 24 hours a day at Yarl's
Wood. We have a specialist paediatric nurse there. Some of these
things were in place before but we have reviewed and changed a
lot of things. We are now subject to the Healthcare Commission
and their regime, so there is a whole range of improvements we
have made to Yarl's Wood.
Q50 Mrs Cryer: And there are checks
in place?
Mr Wood: There are, absolutely.
Q51 Mrs Cryer: And you rarely, if
ever, detain families for more than six weeks? I think that is
what you said, and sometimes much less than that?
Mr Wood: Yes, the average detention
is, as I say, just under 16 days for families, but 50% of our
family cases are removed within a week and 70% within two weeks,
so the vast majority go within that period of time.
Q52 Mrs Cryer: My second question
more or less relates to what you have already said and that is
improving the emotional and psychological care of the child whilst
in detention. You just said that you have mental health nurses
there.
Mr Wood: And we have counsellors
there too. We have counselling services and counsellors as well
as the mental health nurse.
Q53 Mrs Cryer: The other question
is on transport facilities to and from detention centres. I am
assuming that this is about taking children to and from school?
Do the children go out to school?
Mr Wood: No, they do not. For
those who require education there are education facilities there.
Q54 Mrs Cryer: So the movement of
children from the detention centre to elsewhere I assume must
be then taking them to perhaps a court or a tribunal?
Mr Wood: No, it would probably
be to the airport, I would imagine. It could well be.
Mrs Cryer: Thank you.
Q55 Mrs Dean: Mr Wood, how many violations
of the UKBA guidelines, particularly with regards to the use of
force on child detainees, have been reported since the implementation
of the new guidelines? Do you have that information?
Mr Wood: I am unaware of any reported
cases. I would need to go back and check that is absolutely right.
I am aware of what 11 Million's Report said, but it was
what the children said and we did not have the opportunity to
check those particular details. I am unaware of any reported violations.
If there were—and I can find out easily enough and check
for you—they would be investigated by our processes obviously.
Q56 Mrs Dean: Will you check that
and let us know?
Mr Wood: I will check that.
Q57 Gwyn Prosser: Mr Wood, a number
of the issues raised by my colleague Ann Cryer were part of the
list of criticisms which the HMIC Inspectorate made of Yarl's
Wood when they looked at Yarl's Wood last year. I think they were
quite scathing they used the expression that Yarl's Wood itself
was "hamstrung" by the Border Agency's view that because
children were only held for a short, limited time then it was
not really worth having educational or recreational facilities
or making life a little bit more acceptable. You have told us
to visit Yarl's Wood and I think the Chairman is looking into
that matter. I have visited quite a number of these detention
centres over the years and I have never found them at all welcoming
or pleasant places to be and I am always very pleased to get out
again, to be quite frank, and in my discussions with individual
families it is very clear that the ones I have met were in great
distress, and I do not think it was because they were meeting
the Committee; I think it was because of their surroundings. Is
that still the Border Agency's view that there is no need to provide
any extra facilities for these children because on average they
are only going to be here for a short time?
Mr Wood: No, that is not our view.
In fact, we have opened a new school at Yarl's Wood which we have
just built and I think we opened it this week with much better,
improved facilities for the schooling of children. Clearly, as
I have made clear in the evidence to this Committee, when we detain
the children it is going to be for a short period of time but
some end up staying there longer so we have to have those facilities.
We have opened a new school and new facilities. I should have
also made clear perhaps in response to the opening question that
I was asked that we are actively pursuing alternatives to detention.
This is not something that we enjoy and want to do. We have got
the Scottish pilot running now and we have an early legal advice
pilot starting soon in the West Midlands, so we are actively pursuing
alternatives all the time. With all these alternatives, unless
people voluntarily go we are left with what we do with the individuals.
I think that is the problem which no-one really faces apart from
we have to face. I am pleased to hear that you have visited some
of our centres, not pleased to hear that you found them intimidating,
but you would find Yarl's Wood quite different. I have visited
every one of our centres, obviously, and you would find Yarl's
Wood quite different from the others absolutely because it is
there for detained families. Our family wing in Yarl's Wood is
a family-friendly unit.
Q58 Gwyn Prosser: And what about
the other criticisms of the Inspectorate about no facilities or
special help for disabled children?
Mr Wood: Again we have made improvements
to that and we do a full welfare assessment. We do a welfare check
and assessment before they come to Yarl's Wood so that if there
are children with those sorts of problems we can make arrangements
to make sure we have the proper facilities, and we do welfare
assessments when they arrive.
Q59 Gwyn Prosser: Finally from me:
why is it that other European countries which have in some cases
stricter immigration and asylum attitudes than us detain far fewer
children and some never detain children? Why do we have to do
it?
Mr Wood: I think if you go across
Europe you will find have far more austere surroundings where
they detain children and have a much worse record than us (if
"worse" is the right word) and you get a mixed picture
across Europe. The reality of it is that America, Canada and the
major parts of Europe do detain children. Some of them detain
children alone, which we do not do. We only ever detain children
in family units. I think what we do compares favourably with Europe.
I am not saying there is not a country in Europe that does things
differently and we have heard a vote from one particular country
this morning, but generally I think we compare quite favourably
in our treatment of families and children compared to our European
counterparts.
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