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Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for that extremely helpful reply. He has met the concerns that led me to table the amendment. I thank those who have participated in this short debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth that I was simply trying to plug a gap. My understanding before I tabled the amendment was that the concerns that they expressed about the conditions experienced by the residents would be met by other reports. It never occurred to me that they would not. That is why I welcomed the Government's amendments in Committee to Clauses 31 and 32. They provide a welcome monitoring of the conditions to be experienced by asylum seekers in accommodation centres.
I do not know whether I should remind the Minister of painful events for him yesterday, but I shall bludgeon on. The purpose of my Amendment No. 12 yesterday, which the House carried, was to concentrate on the needs of those who live in accommodation centres. Their needs are very much in my mindset.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Desai, for thinking that I might be subtle—well, one day, perhaps. I was just trying to be logical and plug that gap. The Minister has provided me with the ideal opportunity to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 34 [Education: general]:
Clause 35 [Education: special cases]:
Lord Filkin moved Amendment No. 36:
- After Clause 35, insert the following new clause—
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I have one question for the noble Lord about the amendment. Due to my own incompetence, I was not in the Chamber when this group of amendments was discussed. Does subsection (3)(a) of the amendment mean that the whole amendment applies to Scotland? I think it does, but I may be wrong. If it does, have the Government considered whether local authorities will be able to provide services across the border? I am sorry not to have warned the noble Lord that I was going to ask this, but it is quite important. The amendment and others in the group suggest that local authorities should be able to provide services widely over many areas and can co-operate. Could that be
Lord Filkin: My Lords, if we have not covered all the points we will write.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 55 [Detention by Secretary of State]:
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth moved Amendment No. 37:
The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, first I should like clarification that Amendments Nos. 34 and 35 are consequential on yesterday's debate and vote and that Clauses 34 and 35 are therefore omitted. I do not want to rub salt in the wound; I just want to learn the rules. I assume that that is the case.
Amendments Nos. 37, 39 and 40—but not Amendment No. 38—would remove all powers to detain children under 18 and would ensure that children were not detained as the consequence of an adult being detained. The amendments would also ensure that families were not split up by stipulating that no persons should be detained if the result of that detention is the detention of a minor.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby moved a similar amendment in Committee on 17th July, when a number of noble Lords expressed concern, including the noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Judd, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. I also recall a debate in this House two and a half years ago during which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, who is next to me now, spoke movingly about the children of asylum seekers.
The amendments have been altered since July to ensure that the detention of children in all circumstances is covered, whether by the Home Secretary or by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. I am concerned that the United Kingdom detains children and that the Government are now treating it as a positive and seemingly desirable policy. Children seeking asylum are particularly vulnerable and considerations of their best interests should always be our primary concern. They should not be placed in institutionalised settings that may hinder their development and cause them even more psychological harm. I should like to turn first to this question in principle and then to some of the related outworkings.
There is international consensus that children seeking asylum should not be detained. In its preamble, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' Guidelines on Refugee Children states:
Children who are placed in detention centres have broken no laws, whether criminal or civil, with the exception perhaps of immigration offences. Their only
In contrast, children seeking asylum are sometimes not even detained under immigration powers, in cases where no detention orders are served upon them. In other words, they are subject to constructive detention. The question of the detention of the parent is considered first without giving attention to the best interests of the children, and it is then presumed that it is in their best interests to remain with their parents. If the parents are consulted, they are told that the alternative would be the placement of the child in care while they remain in detention. There are no legal safeguards in place to prevent immigration officers acting in an arbitrary manner when making decisions on whether or not to detain families.
I regard that as not only wrong but misguided. The first consideration should be what is best for the child. Is it better that they live with their parents in the community, or better that they are accommodated in a detention centre? If this question were asked, in my view the answer every time would be that it is better for children to live in the community where they can enjoy school and all the rich experiences of childhood that are denied them in detention centres.
I should like now to turn to the Government's thinking, where it is noticeable that there has been a shift in the language they use on the detention of children. Over the past year, policy has moved away from the position in the 1999 asylum White Paper—that detention of families should be strictly limited and for the shortest possible time—to the policy in this year's White Paper, which endorsed the policy of detaining children in asylum-seeking families prior to removal and made a vague and open-ended statement about detention in other circumstances "where necessary".
The amount of accommodation for families within the detention estate is rapidly expanding, and the Government's approach has altered so much that they now do not distinguish between the detention of adults and the detention of families with children. The need for this policy change is unclear, and children's charities such as Save the Children and the NSPCC and refugee organisations also believe that it is unnecessary and undesirable.
Those who work with children in detention have documented the emotional and psychological effect of imprisonment on children. A number of us have had the chance to hear more of what the teachers had to say, at the meeting on Tuesday night, and what the students themselves had to say, at the meeting at lunchtime yesterday. Children report feelings of fear,
The organisation Bail for Immigration Detainees has put together case studies that demonstrate how children in detention suffer disruption to their social life and education with a negative effect on their physical and emotional health. Some of the families that BID spoke to had experienced attempts to remove them that had been stopped. In one case, the pilot refused to fly the family "home", or rather back to where they came from, because of their medical state. The children and parents were terrified both by the process of detention and the level of violence being used in attempts to remove them—violence witnessed by their children. That is one instance. There may be others, or there may be good practice elsewhere.
I should like to tell the House about a family that spent about 60 days in detention. The whole family—mother, father, daughter and son—were detained after more than one and a half years in the UK during which time they had remained in contact with the immigration authorities. Both children were in primary school before they were detained and are now missing school due to ongoing detention. Both parents are suffering from depression and stress. The detention of this family has put the daughter under considerable pressure as she has taken on the responsibility of communicating with third parties on behalf of her parents whenever an interpreter is not available. The family have reported that they experienced violence in the process of being detained and in the airport when unsuccessful attempts were made to remove them. The mother told BID,
"LOCAL AUTHORITY
(1) A local authority may in accordance with arrangements made by the Secretary of State—
(a) assist in arranging for the provision of an accommodation centre;
(b) make premises available for an accommodation centre;
(c) provide services in connection with an accommodation centre.
(2) In particular, a local authority may—
(a) incur reasonable expenditure;
(b) provide services outside its area;
(c) provide services jointly with another body;
(d) form a company;
(e) tender for or enter into a contract;
(f) do anything (including anything listed in paragraphs (a) to (e)) for a preparatory purpose.
(3) In this section "local authority" means—
(a) a local authority within the meaning of section 94 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (c. 33), and
(b) a Northern Ireland authority within the meaning of section 110 of that Act."
4.30 p.m.
Page 30, line 30, after "person" insert "over the age of eighteen"
"Refugee children are children first and foremost, and as children, they need special attention ... It is UNHCR's policy that refugee children should not be detained".
"My son he wakes up when the officer comes at night. They open the door with a key and they count us. My son wakes up and is afraid. Because on the [day] when the immigration come to our house, we were sleeping, and they come to my son's room very loudly. He thinks every time it's the police. My son ask me all these questions—'Why police put us here?' My son's school was not finished on that date [when they detained us] and he's very worried about that".
"My brother was in reception class. He always talks about his friends. He couldn't bring any of his toys from the house and he really misses his toys. And I'm really bored as well, because there's nothing for me to do. In the male section there's an activity room, and there's some computers. But I'm not allowed to go in there. I'm the oldest—there's nobody my age in the family part, and there's nothing for me to do. I was in year seven before ... I liked it".
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