Asylum and Immigration removals Beverley Hughes
Document Sample
Asylum and Immigration removals: Beverley Hughes
Tuesday 4th March 2003
__________
Members present:
Chris Mullin, in the Chair
Mr David Cameron
Mr James Clappison
Mrs Janet Dean
Bridget Prentice
Mr Gwyn Prosser
Bob Russell
Miss Ann Widdecombe
David Winnick
__________
Memorandum submitted by the Home Office
Examination of Witnesses
BEVERLEY HUGHES, a Member of the House, Minister of State for Citizenship,
Immigration and Community Cohesion; MR BILL JEFFREY, Director General of
the Immigration and Nationality Directorate; and MS ANGELA RAMLAGAN-
SINGH, Immigration Service, Home Office, examined.
Chairman
574. Ms Hughes, Ms Ramlagan-Singh and Mr Jeffrey, welcome. This is the final
session of our short inquiry into removals, though we will be looking later at other
aspects of asylum policy so we expect to see you again before too long.
(Beverley Hughes) It will be my pleasure, Chairman.
575. Would you like, first, to introduce your colleagues?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes. I have with me Mr Bill Jeffrey, the Director General,
and Angela Ramlagan-Singh, who is the head of the Removals Delivery Unit.
576. We met Ms Singh, I think, and Mr Jeffrey's name I recognise from
responses to lots of letters sent out by my constituency office. Mr Prosser is
going to start the ball rolling.
(Beverley Hughes) Could I make a few opening remarks, please, Chairman?
577. Yes, but I hope you are not going to read out a page of double-spaced
typing?
(Beverley Hughes) No, but I do want a couple of mi nutes, if I may, to put into
context the important subject you are talking about today, because removals are
important but I think it is important too, as we are increasingly trying to do in the
Home Office, to see removals as an integral part of the whole end-to-end asylum
process, and to put it in the context of our overall objective about managing
migration, welcoming people to this country, finding new ways for them to
contribute to our economy, but at the same time to bear down on those people
who do not have the right to be here, who do not qualify, and who are abusing
some of the processes including the asylum process.
578. We are all agreed about that but how much have you got there?
(Beverley Hughes) What I would simply like to say is we ha ve had a week in
which we have seen a record intake on asylum published last week for 2002,
although the indications in those figures are that, in the last two months of the
year, the measures that we have been instituting including the Royal Assent on
the Act together with the closure of Sangatte, the measures that the Home
Secretary instituted with the French government - measures that are, at the
moment, as we speak before the court on support - and introducing visas, all of
those together we think cautiously are having an impact on intake, and I think
that is one of the main points I would make. Removals are very important and as
you know remain a target for us, but equally if not more important is the focus at
the front end of the process in terms of reducing the numbers overall. As you
obviously want me to be very brief, I will stop there!
579. You have it. On the questions of the front end, which we all understand is
important, that is what we are going to address in our next inquiry but today we
are doing removals.
(Beverley Hughes) That is fine.
Mr Prosser
580. Good morning, Minister. I would like to start by asking you some questions
about the statistics and the targets. Can you tell us what estimates you make of
the number of failed asylum seekers who remain in the country each year?
(Beverley Hughes) I think the members of the Committee are already aware
that this is an extremely difficult figure to estimate, for all kinds of obvious
reasons. We do not have an embarkation check in this country any longer - that
was abandoned some ten years ago - although as the Home Secretary made
clear when he was here in January it is something we are prepared to examine.
People leave voluntarily and we do not have, therefore, a record of t hose. Some
people make multiple applications and we try to read those out of the system. We
do not count numbers not removed. We can do the arithmetic but reaching what
we could regard as a valid and reliable estimate of the number of failed asylum
seekers in the country at any one time is extremely difficult. Having said that, we
have got our statistical and research department looking now at a methodology
to see if they can come up with something that could come closer to a reliable
and accurate estimate, and that work is still continuing.
581. Another complication according to the Immigration Advisory Service is that
some people are counted twice because their marital status, for instance, might
have changed during their stay. Is that something else you look at?
(Beverley Hughes) I do not think it is so much that people are counted twice,
although certainly if they try to use a number of routes that might be possible.
Certainly as far as asylum goes, we are aware that some people try and make
multiple applications under different identities, both coming into the country
having claimed elsewhere but also within country. We now have the ARC, the
fingerprinting identity card for asylum seekers, which we expect to have issued
not only now to all incomi ng applicants but also to have got through the existing
population of asylum seekers who are still in the process by March/April this
year, and that is proving very useful in tracking down those multiple applications.
We also have Eurodac on-line from the beginning of this year, the European wide
pooling of fingerprinting data of new asylum seekers, so we can cross-check
people who have claimed claiming not just in the United Kingdom but elsewhere
in Europe.
582. What about those asylum seekers who have failed in their claim and come
to the end of the legal process, but who are still not removed for various
reasons? Are you in a position to tell us by what proportion each section of those
are not removed? For instance, an obvious example would be those who have
not got proper documentation or who have no safe country to return to. Do you
have that to hand?
(Beverley Hughes) We do not have figures breaking down the groups in the
way that you have asked. One of the big problems that we are trying to address
is the way in which information has traditionally been collected in relation to
number of claims, number of refusals and, then, number of removals, and I think
the Committee itself may have come up against the problem that we have not yet
got, although we are now trying to put this in place, a method of relating those
populations in a statistical way. In other words, moving towards a cohort-based
mechanism of collating the statistics so that we can say for any one intake in any
one year, not just in that year how many people we happen to remove who might
have come in the year before or the year before that but of that cohort of people
who claimed asylum in that period of time how many have been refused and how
many have been removed. We have not yet got to a point where we can present
the figures on that cohort basis but it seems to me absolutely essential that we
do that, so our performance management unit is rapidly working to see if we can
do that. It is very complicated because obviously the phases in that process
involve appeals which is LCD and the Appellate Authority so bringing the
information together on a cohort basis is complicated, but as I say it seems to me
profoundly important that we can report on a cohort basis how many people have
given leave, been refused and removed.
(Mr Jeffrey) If I may add to that, part of this is about computerisation and after
the difficulties of a few years ago we have been building up a casework database
and are in the process of enhancing it now. With better computer support it ought
to be possible for us to derive the sort of information that the Minister is talking
about and to tag people more consistently from the beginning of the process
through to the end.
583. A lot of the arguments about the whole issue of immigration and asylum are
related to the numbers and figures, and you have told us there is a lot of work
going on in a number of areas to get more accurate and realistic figures. When
can we expect to see that work complete and figures published?
(Beverley Hughes) I think we have improved the reporting over the last period
of time. We now include dependants for instance. People get clear pictures, as
we saw last Friday, of the statistics as far as they have historically been collated,
but in terms of moving towards a cohort-based approach and having that as
supplementary information I am not sure but I would hope within the next six
months or so we will be in a position where we can start producing the figures.
584. You mentioned in earlier answers that the process of counting people in
and counting people out was abandoned some time ago. Is it not the case that
the only way we will get real answers to these number questions is to reinstate a
system of counting non EEA visitors in and out? Have you considered that and
looked at it?
(Beverley Hughes) It is under consideration at the moment. Some work has
been done on what it will cost to reinstate an embarkation check. There are
technical issues around that too: I have to stress tha t no decision has been taken
but as I said, following the Home Secretary's remarks at the Committee in
January when he was asked about that, he has gone on to ask for some work to
be done to scope what that would involve.
585. I am moving now to the question of targets. You remember the discussions
about targets of 30,000 removals a year which in the event turned out to be
something like a third of that and now we are talking about targets of 13,000 a
year, and very recently the Prime Minister has claimed a target of halving the
number of incoming asylum seekers. Can you enlarge on those targets and in
terms of the Prime Minister's pledge, when he said he expected the number of
incoming asylum applicants to halve, what was he talking about? Half of what?
(Beverley Hughes) The benchmark for that is the monthly figure immediately
prior to the implementation date, the Royal Assent date, on the Nationality
Immigration and Asylum Act, so the benchmark is the figure for October 2002.
We have always said that should be benchmark because we do believe,
although the process of looking at what needs to be done further is continuing,
that the measures included in the Act and the other measures that have come
on-line since then including the work with France will have an impact, and
therefore we believe that the right benchmark is the period of time immediately
before Royal Assent of the Act, and the figures for that month on intake as you
know were 8,900 applications.
586. Finally, how confident are you that that target will be met?
(Beverley Hughes) As the Home Secretary said on Friday clearly you cannot
be one hundred per cent certain. These are aspects of human behaviour and
human decision-making that are influenced by those individuals but also by huge
global and international events and we just have to put that qualification, but in
terms of where we are and in terms of the measures that we have brought on-
line and the further thinking that is going on in case it is necessary to bring on
some additional measures, I am really confident that we can get to that figure.
There is a real drive to do so but, as I say, we are in an international context with
this issue and there may be unforeseen effects that we have then to take account
of.
587. Am I allowed to ask if your officials share that confidence?
(Beverley Hughes) Certainly!
(Mr Jeffrey) Yes. I think the Minister is exactly right - this is a very-difficult-to-
predict set of circumstances. It is affected by what happens elsewhere in the
world and the places to which that gives rise but if one takes something like a
steady state, we believe that the measures we have put in place and are putting
in place, particularly at the channel ports, have the capacity to reduce the intake
quite substantially.
David Winnick
588. Bearing in mind, Minister, what you have just said, that events abroad could
well change the situation, is it really sensible to set targets?
(Beverley Hughes) I think it is sensible to have aspirations that drive
performance and it is reasonable to have some quantification. I take the view that
targets themselves do provide a goal for people which helps to shape decision-
making and practice and performance as people try to meet that target. I think
when targets become ends in themselves then perhaps, if this is what you are
suggesting, they can be counter-productive and they also become something
that people beat you with, but even so - and I am not suggesting this is the case
in this particular instance - if you have an ambitious target and get most of the
way towards that, even if you do not meet it, you are probably doing a lot better
than if you did not have a target at all and your performance was not being driven
by trying really hard to reach a goal. So I think they serve a purpose: they are a
means to an end, but they are not ever a final end in themselves, are they?
589. Many of us would not question good intentions - there may be some on the
political scene for political reasons but I for one would not question good
intentions - but bearing in mind how the Home Office tripped itself up over the
original target to remove 30,000 failed asylum seekers a year, or 2,500 a month
which the Home Secretary said that was very overambitious, is there not a
lesson to be learned from raising expectations, Minister, when in fact in practice,
and for the reasons you have explained, there is a good likelihood that that target
will simply not be reached? Has the lesson been learnt from that one?
(Beverley Hughes) There is a lesson in there in that you need to try and apply
as much science and experience in terms of setting the target, but I do not think
that takes away from the usefulness of having targets themselves. I do believe
they play an important part in driving up performance. Yes, you need to make
them realistic but that is a fine balance, is it not? Anyone could set a target that is
easily achievable but what would you achieve by that? How much performance
would you improve? You have to try, and it is not an exact science, to pitch your
target in a way that does extend your performance and take you further towards
some important objectives but is not so unrealistic that you are bound not to meet
it.
590. So would we be right to come to the conclusion that the Prime Minister has
set a target which has already been mentioned - that numbers should be halved
by September of this year - and that the Prime Minister has instructed the Home
Office, that is the Home Secretary and yourself as the Minister directly
responsible, to meet that target?
(Beverley Hughes) No, that would not be right. There are continuing
discussions and meetings with the Prime Minister and myself and the Home
Secretary about --
591. But he has set the target, has he not?
(Beverley Hughes) What I am saying to you is that the impact of the
measures we are bringing on-line has been the subject of on-going and regular
discussion between us and that the kind of figures that the Prime Minister gave
out publicly had been discussed, so what you are saying, Mr Winnick, is not true.
You might like to believe that and contribute to the attempts of others to say there
is a wedge there but there is not. We are all working in the same direction.
592. I think the Prime Minister is looking o ver your shoulders, is he not?
(Beverley Hughes) No. He is working alongside the Home Secretary in the
way he has done with other Cabinet secretaries because this is a very important
issue and we recognise it is very important to the people of this country for all
kinds of reasons - not least community relations in this country - and therefore he
is bringing his interest alongside the drive of the Home Secretaries to work
together. It is corporate government.
Mr Clappison
593. Can I apologise to the Minister and to the Committee for my late arrival,
and do stop me if I am asking you for a figure which you have already given but I
have been told you have not given this yet. Before we come on to the new
targets on reducing applications can I come back to the old targets on removals,
and the number of people who are staying in this country as failed asylum
seekers? I think you said in your evidence that it is difficult for you to know how
many people have left voluntarily but, putting that to one side, have you a figure
for the number of people in this country whose applications have been
determined in the last five years and whose applications have failed and who
have exhausted their appeals process who are simply remaining in the country
unless they have voluntarily departed? Presumably you must have a figure for
that.
(Beverley Hughes) We probably could work a figure out for that particular
statistic but I have not got that with me today for the last five years. We will
certainly provide the Committee with that before you conclude.
594. If I were to say to you that my guess would be that it would run into several
hundred thousands, would you agree with that?
(Beverley Hughes) I do not think that would be right. There have been
various estimates over different periods of time. In fact, we discussed with Mr
Cameron when we were last here a figure which I think we thought probably was
of, as far as we can say, a reasonable order. There have been other figures
produced by Migration Watch UK and others which we would wholly dispute but I
must insist that I do not think anybody has come up with a figure of several
hundreds of thousands.
Mr Clappison: If you would like to give us another figure I would be pleased to
receive it. If I can tell you precisely what I am asking for, it is the number of
people whose cases have been dealt with in the last five years which have been
determined who have failed in their initial determination, whose appeals have
failed, and who have no reason to stay in the country, and are presumed to be
here unless they have voluntarily left.
Chairman: Why only the last five years?
Mr Clappison
595. Well, it is the last five years the Minister and the Government have had
responsibility for. If she wants to take it back any further she can do but I am
interested in the last five years because this is the length of time that the
Government has been responsible for its present policies.
(Beverley Hughes) I have certainly got figures here for the number of people
who applied in any one year and the number of decisions and the number of
refusals, so if you will let us add them up for the last five years, I will get my
officials to do that.
(Mr Jeffrey) Adding to that, we can certainly derive a figure for the numbers
refused, taking account of the success rate on appeal as well. The difficulty is
that, for the reasons the Minister was giving earlier in the session, it would not
then necessarily give you an estimate of the removable pool because there are
other factors including the fact that some people do just leave.
596. Yes. It is taking that into account although some people would say that is
fairly unlikely but it is a possibility, given that people have gone to such lengths to
come here. If we could have that figure that would be very useful.
(Beverley Hughes) Yes. Perhaps we can provide that to you afterwards?
Mr Clappison: Yes.
Mr Cameron
597. Just on one point that came out of Mr Winnick's questions to you, did you
know in advance that the Prime Minister was going to make that promise about
halving the number of asylum seekers by September?
(Beverley Hughes) We knew the Prime Minister was doing two important
interviews in that day --
598. We all knew that but did you know he was going to make a promise?
(Beverley Hughes) It was no surprise because those were the figures we had
discussed. The Prime Minister was doing two interviews which involved
questions and answers from members of the public as well as Jeremy Paxman.
We knew it would cover a wide range of issues. We did not know necessarily
asylum would come up but it was pretty predictable, and what the Prime Minister
said at that interview on that particular issue was no surprise because it simply
rehearsed discussions we had had with the Prime Minister and are continuing to
have on a regular basis.
599. But this is what defies all belief: had you fixed this baseline of October
before he gave that interview?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes. We have always said --
600. In which case, if you knew the baseline, you knew he was going to say "I
am going to cut the asylum seekers in half", otherwise why would you set a
baseline?
(Beverley Hughes) We are playing with words here.
601. I am not.
(Beverley Hughes) We had set ourselves, in discussions about how we
internally would monitor the impact of the measures in the Bill and the other
measures that we have brought on-line since, what we would regard as an
indication of success and what we would be looking for. Those discussions had
taken place.
602. So why did the Prime Minister not talk about an October baseline? If you
say you are going to cut something in half by a date, September, is it not most
likely you are either talking abo ut cutting it in half compared with the time you
make the promise, or compared with the previous September? Why did the
Prime Minister not mention October?
(Beverley Hughes) He was not asked. If you saw that interview, it was a
wide-ranging one; Jeremy Paxman at that point was asking the questions; it
simply did not come up but we have always said that the benchmark will be the
time immediately before we have got the powers through Royal Assent to bring in
the measures we have legislated for.
603. Is it then just coincidence that October happens to be by quite a long way
the highest month of asylum applications in 2002? 8,900 compared with a
thousand fewer the month before?
(Beverley Hughes) No. It could have worked either way. The principle was
that we had legislated because although the figures came down slightly in 2001
we are looking very closely, monitoring, and using our intelligence systems all the
time to look at trends and we knew the trends were going to go up. That is why
we took what some people regard as very tough measures in that legislation and
fought very hard for them, and therefore -
604. But nevertheless, if you had to pick one month in 2002 that would be the
easiest to halve, it would be October.
(Beverley Hughes) -- And therefore it seems right and reasonable that the
immediate benchmark, however that had panned out, was the period of time
immediately before we had the power to implement the measures that we had
provided for in legislation. That was the principle a nd there was no deviation from
that.
605. But would you confirm that even if you cut in half by September that would
still be 4,500 a month, and if you analyse that that would be well over 50,000 a
year which is about 10,000 more than five years ago?
(Beverley Hughes) As the Prime Minister went on to say before he concluded
that piece of the interview, we go on from there. That is not an end target - it is a
position in time we want to get to - and we will go on from there.
606. It is a strange way of setting targets, but thank you.
(Beverley Hughes) Not at all.
Miss Widdecombe
607. Minister, you say that the beginning of this period of measurement is last
October and the end of it is September, therefore we are halfway through. What
is the progress?
(Beverley Hughes) I cannot give you figures for January and February
because they have to be confirmed statistically and they will be produced, as you
know, for January, February and March at the end of May. What I can say is that,
apart from an increase immediately prior to the implementation of the Section 55
provisions where we saw in that first week in January an increase, for November
and December as revealed by the Q4 figures on Friday the trend downwards has
continued.
608. I would find it very surprising if, as a Minister with a target to be reached in
a few months time and half the year already elapsed, even if you have not got
publishable figures, you were not getting monthly information. What is that
information showing you?
(Beverley Hughes) I am getting weekly information.
609. What is that showing you?
(Beverley Hughes) It is showing me that the trend for November and
December of a downward pressure on the numbers of people claiming asylum is
continuing, and I cannot give the Committee any firmer figures than that because
of the way we publish those figures and give them to Parliament after they have
been statistically verified.
610. So what you are telling the Committee is that currently there is a downward
trend, although you cannot give us the detail?
(Beverley Hughes) I have the figures: I am not able to give them to the
Committee because of the way in which we publish the figures to Parliament.
611. I appreciate the fact you cannot give the figures to the Committee. What I
am trying to get you to tell me, or you can tell me the opposite if you want to, is
whether there is in your view a quite clear downward trend that gives you
confidence?
(Beverley Hughes) The downward trend for November and December has
continued into January and February.
612. You mean it has gone on going down?
(Beverley Hughes) It has gone on going down and, as I said earlier, this is a
phenomenon that is acutely sensitive to changes that are external to us. We can
pull all the levers that we are able to internally and domestically and that is what
we are doing, but the figures can change quite quickly in relation to events
outside so I am only cautiously encouraged. In a steady state position, without
any dramatic events or other factors that we cannot control impinging on the flow,
then the evidence so far suggests that what we have done so far is having a
significant impact and I would expect that, all other things being equal, to
continue.
(Mr Jeffrey) Adding to that, the one exception is the point the Minister
referred to which is that in the early days of January, before we introduced the
provisions denying asylum support to those who did not claim as early as they
could, there was quite an i ncrease in the number of applications. For several
days before these provisions came in on 8 January, but apart from that the
position is as the Minister claims.
613. Can I ask you some further questions about this target? I imagine that one
of the factors that will have been taken into account in setting it is what happened
after the introduction of the 1996 Act when we also denied assistance to those
who applied in-country rather than at port, and there was an extremely dramatic
drop of about 40 per cent, which was then reversed not only by the incoming
government but as a result of a court ruling. You have recently had an adverse
court ruling. Have you made any assessment of the impact that that will have on
this target which you have set?
(Beverley Hughes) Well, it will have an impact. If the Court of Appeal in its
decision confirms the initial decision in the High Court then clearly it will have an
impact and it depends how we respond to that. We will have to wait and see the
outcome of the Court of Appeal process but certainly we are considering the
position as to what we might do if the Court of Appeal does confirm. I have to say
that I am not convinced at this stage that the Court of Appeal will confirm the
High Court's decision at all, but this is their second day of deliberation and we
have to wait at this point and see what the decision is.
(Mr Jeffrey) The other point to make is this is not a strategy with a single
measure; there is more to it than the restriction on asylum support. In terms of
the impact on the intake of asylum seekers, we are probably looking for more of
an impact from the steps that have been taken at channel ports to improve our
performance in detecting people before they were sent off to each country.
614. If I could just go to your 30,000 removals, your other target, and just probe
a little how on earth that target was arrived at, if you are going to set a target for
removals - and I take the point about it being necessary to be ambitious and to
have a target that stretched people even if you know you might not quite get
there, that is fine - but if you are setting a target as considerable as 30,000
removals from the base that you were coming from, you would know at the time
that you set and published that target and said to the British public, "This is a
serious government target", that there were all sorts of factors including
adequacy of detention space, for example, that would determine the success or
the failure of that target. What I would like to know is this: I assume the 30,000
was a reasonably scientific target and not just plucked out of the air so on what
did you base it? How did you arrive at the figure of 30,000? So far I have asked
this question in a different number of ways and a large number of times, and
nobody has been able to tell me where this 30,000 came from.
(Beverley Hughes) I am not sure, Chair, whether I can be of any more help
than others have been so far.
615. You surprise me, Minister!
(Beverley Hughes) Unfortunately neither the Director General nor I were
party to that decision and I can only say, insofar as I am able to look back, that I
think ministers at the time genuinely felt on the basis of where they were then
that the key - and it is the key but I think we now feel it is not the only key - was
to remove more people, and that all the effort and energy resources needed to
be applied to that, and having looked at the figures removed previously they
wanted to see a real step change in the number of people demonstrably being
removed, and set a target that was two or three times more than what had been
achieved hitherto in an attempt to get that step change, to get that drive - and it
was not achievable, as the Home Secretary said when he last appeared here in
January.
616. I do not want to delay the Committee much longer on this but I do have to
probe you just a little. You said that you were not a party to the original decision
and nor is your current Director General. That is fine but it was your
administration therefore you have full access to all the records; there is also
presumably some corporate memory within the immigration service who will have
been advising your predecessors when they were setting that target; there will
have been I assume - perhaps falsely - a fully worked out rationale in some
submission that resulted in that target, and all I want to know is, apart from telling
me that somebody sat there and said, "Let us multiply the present achievement
by four quite regardless of whether or not we have the space and the officials
and the capacity and the ability", how you got to that target? I suspect I shall not
get much further enlightenment but I do not buy the argument that because you
did not set it you do not know how it was set when it was done by your
administration?
(Beverley Hughes) The fact is that the current Home Secretary, as soon as
he became Home Secretary, looked again at that target and made it clear I think
in June 2001 shortly after he had been appointed that in his view this target was
not achievable and needed to be re-examined, which is what he did. We have
moved on from there. That was getting on for two years ago and I do not feel it is
productive to delve into this issue any further or, in fact, for me to wade through
submissions that must have been put up to previous ministers from three or four
years ago to understand how they got to a figure which the current Home
Secretary, openly and honestly, said to Parliament almost two years ago was not
achievable. So Miss Widdecombe is right - I cannot give her the information
because I have not gone back myself to find that submission, whatever it was,
from three or four years ago to understand the mathematics or the assessments
that produced 3,000.
Chairman: I think Miss Widdecombe's question is whose idea was this target
and where did it come from?
Miss Widdecombe: My question is how on earth this target was arrived at.
Somebody must know that.
Chairman
617. Rather than get bogged down with this, can I suggest you send us a note
on this subject?
(Beverley Hughes) We will.
Mr Clappison
618. Can I take issue with you when you say that you are not responsible for
what previous ministers have said --
(Beverley Hughes) I did not say that, and I would not say that.
Chairman: I did not hear Ms Hughes say that.
Mr Clappison
619. Can I remind you of the words of the then Home Secretary to the special
Select Committee on the previous Asylum Act when he said that he had no more
important responsibility for getting the asylum system right in 1999, and he was
not saying that future ministers would not be judged on what was achieved in the
interim; he was saying there was no more important responsibility. So you do
accept responsibility for everything that has happened over the last five years?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes, and nothing I said contradicted that, and I do very
much take issue in fact with the way you contorted my words. I simply said that
neither the Director General nor myself, and I was appointed last year and the
Director General more recently, were there at the time when the considerations
about arriving at that figure took place, and we have not spent our time in the last
few months since our appointment delving back into that kind of detail which now
is somewhat out of date. That is not the same as saying that I do not take
responsibility for what my administration ministers have done.
Mr Clappison: And there are lessons to be learned.
Miss Widdecombe
620. But government is accountable, you would agree?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes.
Miss Widdecombe: And therefore, if you are asked how and why you arrived
at something, you as a government are accountable, but thank you.
Chairman: I think we have done that subject to death, so let us move on. Mrs
Dean?
Mrs Dean
621. Can I return to the issue of withdrawal of support for in-country asylum
applicants. What is your response to claims that this is resulting in destitution?
(Beverley Hughes) The intention behind that measure is not to cause
destitution but it is trying to change people's behaviour. Our monitoring for some
time has suggested, if you look at the way in which people claim asylum, where
they claim asylum I think well over 60 per cent of claims are not at port, they are
in-country, and it is certainly the view from many of our caseworkers and people
making the decisions, on the basis of their interviews, that many people claiming
asylum have been in-country for some time and are therefore supporting
themselves or being supported, and we believe that it is right to expect people, if
they are fleeing persecution, to want to claim asylum at the earliest opportunity
and that largely will be the port when you enter a country that you regard as safe
which is going hopefully to provide you with some refuge. So whilst I accept that
this is a tough measure I do not accept that its intention is to make people
destitute, or necessarily whether it will make people destitute, but it is about
changing behaviour and making sure that people understand that the asylum
system is for people fleeing persecution and not for people seeking support to
stay here for some other reason.
622. I can well understand that if people have been here several weeks or
months they have obviously been able to support themselves in that time. What I
am concerned about is those who apply a day or two after having arrived here.
Are you prepared to reconsider how we deal with those?
(Beverley Hughes) If somebody applies a day or two after and can give the
caseworker information that supports a credible reason as to why that happened,
preferably but not necessarily with some verifiable information as to how and
when they came into the country to confirm the day or zone, then they will be
given support and that is within the guidance to the caseworkers, but if people
cannot give that credible story, and the caseworkers believe on the basis of the
screening that their story is not credible, not true, and they probably are someone
who has been here longer than that, then they will be denied support.
(Mr Jeffrey) To an extent this is a matter which is coming full course because
the provision in Section 55 does have an exception where the result of
withdrawing support would be inconsistent with that of the European Convention,
and the High Court has in the judgment that is currently being contested in the
Court of Appeal interpreted that quite widely. I would, however, confirm what the
Minister says about the impression which our staff who are administering this in
the few weeks since it has been introduced have which is that it would not be fair
to say that the consequence is widespread destitution.
Chairman
623. Before you move off that, I do not know if it is widespread but there is no
doubt that some have been rendered destitute by this. Is that not true?
(Mr Jeffrey) I do not think we could confirm that but I could certainly say that
the staff I have spoken to who are conducting the interviews in private, for
example, do not have the impression that this is a widespread issue.
624. Discard the word "widespread" - no one is alleging that - and address the
point I am making which is that some people have been rendered destitute by
this, have they not? We have all heard interviews of people appearing to be
destitute on the radio.
(Mr Jeffrey) As I say, I do not know if one can confirm that for sure. I was
simply confirming what the Minister said which is that the impression of our staff
is that this is not a widespread issue.
(Beverley Hughes) We have heard those interviews but what we do not
know, Chair, is how true those claims are. Certainly as Bill Jeffrey has said, from
the caseworkers themselves and from the police with whom we consulted before
the introduction of the measure and an established means of communication
whereby we can get early notification if there are significant problems from
people arising from being on the streets, from both of those sources the picture is
that this has not led certainly to a problem of any significance. If you are saying
to me that there might be one person who was made destitute I cannot say that
that is not true, but what I can say is that there is a view amongst the
caseworkers, and I cannot go too far along this line because some of these
cases are before the courts at the moment, which is different, though, in terms of
the stories those people came forward with, and the length of time they were in
the country and therefore there was an impact on the decision to refuse; the
caseworkers' view was different from that which was being put by the people
themselves.
625. But I just want to check that there is sufficient discretion built into the rules
for when one of these cases does arise for benefit to be granted?
(Beverley Hughes) The law is clear in that Home Secretary support will not
be given unless somebody has claimed as reasonably as practically possible, but
then it is the decision of the caseworker based on the screening interview and
based on the credibility and the verifiability of the person's account as to whether
that test is met. So in that sense it is discretion in the sense that there is a
professional judgment there and this is how the system operates on the part of
the caseworker, assessing the story and the account that the immigrant, the
claimant, gives us.
626. But if you find someone who has slipped through the system for whatever
reason, is the system sufficiently flexible for a decision against a warning benefit
to be reversed, or is it set in stone from the moment it is made?
(Beverley Hughes) Certain categories of people are provided for and will get
support - families with children under 18, people with special needs through the
local authorities. In relation to other people, if a decision is made to deny them
support there is no appeal on this process provided for, and therefore I have to
say probably in answer to your question --
627. So the answer is no?
(Beverley Hughes) There might be a mechanism for somebody to come back
through the system but there is not an automatic route for that to happen.
(Mr Jeffrey) The answer is if circumstances have changed then it is open to
us to take a different view but against the criterion in the legislation, and unless
someone has already observed the legislation it does not leave the Secretary of
State a great deal of discretion.
Mrs Dean
628. Can I turn to country information? The information collated by the Home
Office on the state of countries from which asylum seekers have come feeds into
the decision-making process. How confident are you in the accuracy of that
information?
(Beverley Hughes) We do get very positive affirmation of the quality of that
information from a number of commentators. As you know, I get many letters
from MPs about particular cases - often asking me not to remove people, as it
happens - and in some of those instances where I read the case and I have
concerns I have asked to see the country information for a number of countries,
and when I first saw it I will say to you I was very impressed. I admit that in a
sense I come to this area as a lay person, but I had a volume of material that was
very detailed and that was drawn from a wide array of i nternational sources. It
was not opinion given to me by the officials: it was a collation of independent and
international-sourced information. So when I first saw such a pack of information
on one particular country, I was personally impressed by its thoroughness and its
detail. Based on my own personal experience and the feedback I get, therefore, I
do accept that our system of collating that information is a good one, and it is
information that I am told other countries abroad draw on because of its
comprehensiveness.
629. It has been suggested that a body outside government should be involved
in providing that information. Do you believe that there is any argument for that to
be done?
(Beverley Hughes) There certainly is an argument and we had that debate
during the course of the passage of the Bill. What we thought was a better way
forward, certainly in the first instance, was to establish an advisory panel of
experts and we are in the process of doing that, and underneath that is a smaller
and more focused consultation group who will go into the detail very thoroughly
and produce advice for ministers as to the adequacy and the comprehensiveness
of the in-country information, and look particularly at changes, at the situation in
the countries, and advise us as to how we needed to increase, perhaps, the
number of occasions where in-country information is updated and so on. So that
is the arrangement we are setting in place which will rejoin the passage of the
Bill. Certainly the issue is not set in tablets of stone but we would rather move in
that direction and see how that works because of the fact that, as I say, the in-
country information that we use that the unit compiles is not essentially opinion
by our officials to caseworkers or to ministers : it is a collation of independently-
sourced information anyway.
630. How soon would that be implemented?
(Beverley Hughes) We hope that that panel will be up and running later this
year.
631. Can I turn now to non-suspensive appeals - a peculiar term but there we
are. On what criteria will a claim for asylum be certified as "clearly unfounded"?
(Beverley Hughes) At the moment you know that we included in the
legislation a list of ten countries and in relation to applications in those countries
there is a presumption that that case will be certified in that way and we are
proposing to add another seven countries to that list. In terms of going further
and looking at criteria for other cases that are not country specific and how the
definition of "clearly unfounded" should be made and applied, we are still working
through that because I think that is a much more difficult process to embark on.
There is a clarity that I think has been accepted by the courts about the safe
countries, and we did a lot of work with the judges establishing the judicial
systems that would back that up. In relation to unfounded cases that are not
country specific we would want to proceed very cautiously, and we would want to
try and establish some case law on the basis of particular cases that we would
have looked through and work our way through that in a gradual way, because
the system with the safe countries has been very effective and I think that is
because of the clarity and because of the preparation we were able to do with the
administrative court. All of those issues are more difficult with a more generic
"clearly unfounded" category, and so I think we have to proceed very carefully on
that.
632. What other grounds are you considering?
(Beverley Hughes) I think in general what we mean by a "clearly unfounded"
case is a case that on the face of the facts has no merit but clearly the kind of
different variables that could come together in a particular case, the kind of
factors that you would be looking for, that would add up to a defendable decision
that a case was "clearly unfounded" are many and varied, and I am saying to you
really that I am not in a position today to delineate any of those factors for you
except to say that we would want to proceed ve ry cautiously indeed and only
move from obviously unfounded cases and build up the case law from that point.
(Mr Jeffrey) I do not have anything very significant to add. Certainly at one
extreme there are cases which anyone would recognise as "clear ly unfounded".
It is not completely unknown for people to say they are claiming asylum because
they want a house, for example, but if one were to move beyond the safe
boundaries we have so far been operating on it will be necessary because we
intend to do that to set out quite clearly what constitutes a "clearly unfounded"
case.
633. Is not the introduction of non-suspensive appeals denying people the right
of appeal in practice?
(Beverley Hughes) No, I do not think so. Certainly there are appeals
conducted out of country. People who are denied visas, for example, have to
conduct their appeal from where they are which is abroad, and certainly many of
the legal representatives are geared up to do that, to continue appeals when
people have been removed from a country, and I think we are dealing with cases
here where, because people have come from a country that we deem to be safe,
that is a reasonable thing to do, and I think it is crucial in relation to this group of
cases that early removal, which is what the Committee is talking about, is part of
the process.
Bob Russell
634. Minister, you made reference to ten safe countries in Europe. Would you
accept that right across Europe the Roma community do not consider that they
are safe; they are not protected by the state authorities; and they are suffering
from neo fascist gangs and skinheads. In those circumstances would you not
accept that the Roma community should not regard those countries as being safe
for them?
(Beverley Hughes) The definition of "safe" is partly about the extent to which
people might be subjected to activities which clearly threaten them but it is also
about the mechanisms for policing and criminal justice and the recognition of
human rights that exist in a particula r country as well. Nobody, even people in
this country or in western European countries, can be absolutely one hundred
per cent protected from criminality but the question is whether or not those
countries provide or can provide sufficient protection and s ufficient redress if
people are subjected to criminality. In all of the ten countries that we put on the
face of the Bill and in the seven that we proposed in the Act, we believe - and
certainly as far as the ten that was endorsed in the European Union more
generally - that those countries do have a level of infrastructure around policing
and criminal justice to be able to meet that test.
635. Would you not accept then that the Roma community, which was
persecuted by the Nazis, survived under 50 years of Communism, now find
themselves threatened by the democratic structures that you have just described;
and that is particularly the case in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic?
(Beverley Hughes) No, I do not. I certainly acknowledge the historic
persecution in parts of Europe for large groups of Roma people, but you have to
ask the question as to whether the situation now is one that would engage the
test in the Vienna Convention and I do not think it does. I really do not think it
does. The other question I think you need to ask yourself is: is it a satisfactory
solution to any remaining problems falling short of persecution that perhaps
numbers of Roma people might be subject to criminality, intimidation; is it a
satisfactory solution to say that all of those people then can find a safe haven in
Western Europe rather than their own countries continuing to work, as they are in
the Czech Republic, in Poland, to consolidate the progress they have already
made in protecting certain groups, including the Roma people, from
discrimination, and marshalling their own infrastructure, strengthening their own
infrastructure, to make sure that protection is delivered in practice? Surely it is
the latter. That is the only sustainable solution to those kinds of issues which do
not engage the Convention but, nonetheless, maybe issues that those countries,
yes, continue to need to address. That does not mean that that satisfies the
criteria for people to come here and claim asylum under the Convention.
636. Your confidence will not be shared by the Roma community. Finally,
Minister, people already in this country, whose home countries will be joining the
European Union in the not too distant future, why deport those people from
settled roots in the UK when in a matter of a year or so they will have the legal
right to come here anyway?
(Beverley Hughes) Many of those people do not have settled roots in the UK.
They might have been here for two or three years but not for longer periods of
time, and some much shorter periods of time. In fact it was only last summer
when we were getting peak numbers of people from Poland and the Czech
Republic coming through the port. I actually went to the port and witnessed what
were then significant numbers of people coming from the Czech Republic on
coaches at the immigration desk claiming asylum. The distinction is, yes, when
those countries join the European Union we have said that from the point of
accession that people's rights to come will be operationalised - provided they can
support themselves, and provided they have work then they can come. That is
completely different than coming in claiming asylum, getting that support,
trammelling up the whole system in a period of assessing that claim, going
through an appeal, and the expense of removal. That is completely different. We
have to continue to deal with claims for asylum with people from accession
countries in that way, in order to make the progress I outlined at the beginning.
637. Right to midnight on the last day?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes.
(Mr Jeffrey) Could I just add a point about the legislation because I think it is
worth bearing in mind that what the legislation does is to create a presumption
that people from these countries will not have a well fo unded claim for asylum.
That is a presumption they can displace. In individual cases it is certainly not the
case that we are ignoring what they are saying to us.
David Winnick
638. I want to return for a moment to the questions of destitution put to you by
the Chairman. We all know from our postbag on the doorstep and in the media
that asylum seekers are not the most popular group of people in the country at
the moment; but is it really a satisfactory state of affairs where people, in fact,
could be denied all benefits and, unless they have friends or resort to criminal
action, would find themselves in a position where they were virtually starving?
(Beverley Hughes) I think I have covered that point. There is provision in the
legislation for the most vulnerable groups. The legislation itself does not remove
any obligations if the situation of a person lays down the test of Article 3 of
ECHR, in which instance local authorities would still be able to provide some
support.
639. In what way. If someone is denied benefit do they go to the local authority?
Who would provide that, the Social Services Department?
(Beverley Hughes) It is possible under the legislation for the local authority to
provide residual support, if the situation is such that it could be established that
the threshold in Article 3, which is a high threshold, would be engaged.
640. There is bound to be unease, certainly amongst Labour Members if not
elsewhere in the House, that there is a sort of inflexibility about this. One would
hope that it will be possible for the matter to be looked at again.
(Beverley Hughes) Let me say again, that somebody who claims at the port
will get support automatically. Somebody who claims in-country and can give an
account that verifies that they have only a very recently come in will also get
support. What the law does is to create a presumption that people will not get
support unless they can do that. There comes a point at which I think people's
decisions and their behaviour, often on the basis of advice from the criminals that
bring them in here, mean they have to take the consequences of those decisions.
641. If they have no case to stay in the United Kingdom the responsibility then
comes back to the Home Office that they should be removed, not denied all
benefits and be in a position where they have no means of support whatsoever
because the Home Office have not been efficient enough to take action for them
to be removed?
(Beverley Hughes) If people have been in the co untry for some time on some
other basis, or perhaps illegally, and then try to use the asylum system as a
means of prolonging their stay and getting support at the same time, it seems to
me reasonable that we say to people, "We are bound internationally to assess
that claim, however unfounded we might think it is, but it is not reasonable that
we pay to support you while that claim is processed, given that we believe that
you have already been here for some time, presumably with some means of
support".
Mr Cameron
642. The Immigration Law Practitioners' Association in their evidence brought to
us a particular group of people they thought had a particular problem, which is
those that may be left without any status at all, in particular the Iraqi Kurds ,
where they may have had their asylum claims refused but they cannot return to
Iraq but they are not being given exceptional leave to remain. Is that the
situation?
(Beverley Hughes) Certainly it will be the case with some people in that
group, that they are not given exceptional leave to remain, and others have been;
it depends on their own individual circumstances and the case that they have
presented.
643. Is there not a danger that those who are left without any status, so they
have just had their asylum rejected but they do not get ELR, that they could
become destitute because they have no status under the law? How many are
there of those people; and what are you going to do about it?
(Beverley Hughes) I would need to confirm that figure. I think notionally it is
several hundred - the low hundreds. There is provision within NAS(?)
arrangements for people in that position to have what is called, under the
previous legislation, section 4 support. There are difficulties in that that support is
simply accommodation. Whilst people are offered that, because we are
contracted to provide that accommodation largely through the YMCA, we have
not got that accommodation in every city in the country. People might have been
living in one town but actually, if they qualify for that support, would be directed to
live somewhere else, and quite often they just will not go. They are offered
accommodation, and obviously food and so on within the accommodation, under
the section 4 support.
644. It might be useful perhaps to have a little note on the numbers. These
would seem to me to be a deserving group of people who have had their asylum
claim rejected but they really cannot leave because they cannot go back to
where they have come from, yet they do not have ELR. In the case Mr Winnick
talked about they could go back to where they came from but these ones cannot.
It might be helpful to know numbers.
(Mr Jeffrey) I am not sure that we would readily accept that they cannot go
back. If they have been refused asylum and have not been granted exception
leave to remain under essentially compassionate grounds then, although in
principle it would be hard for us to remove them in practice, there is nothing to
prevent them returning. We know there are routes back to Kurdish controlled
Northern Iraq which people often with status here do take. I do not think it is
inconceivable that they should actually return from where they have come from.
645. Could you explain the difference between the exceptional leave to remain
and the new status of humanitarian protection? What is the change meant to
achieve? Is it a real change, or is it a labelling change?
(Beverley Hughes) No, it is not a labelling change and it is intended to
achieve a shift, in the sense that exceptional leave to remain has a very wide set
of criteria, which includes a wide range of possible compassionate
circumstances. Humanitarian protection will really now be in reserve for people
who fail the test of persecution as defined in the Convention on the basis of race
relations and so on, but nonetheless for other reasons would face risk to life and
limb and torture were they to be returned.
646. Non-state persecution, something like that?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes.
647. The Mafia?
(Beverley Hughes) Criminality is a more difficult issue, because the test will
include whether or not a particular country has the mechanisms that one would
expect to be able to protect people from criminality, and has the human rights
and criminal justice systems in place to be able to provide that protection. It will
also include the test that exists at the moment under the Convention as to
whether or not somebody could nonetheless return to a safe area of that country
where the particular circumstances of their case did not pertain and they would
be safe if in-country flight would be possible. It will reduce the numbers of people
being given ELR at the moment once the system comes in on 1 April.
648. One other question about an unrelated topic, something related to our visit
to Harmondsworth included in one of the bits of briefings we received. As I
understand it, single mothers on benefit in this country can get tokens for infant
formula milk but asylum seekers with young infants are not able to get those
tokens. Why not?
(Beverley Hughes) I will check this but I am sure the Home Secretary
changed that provision.
649. He did not. I asked a parliamentary question about it and got the answer
back that, unless it has changed since then, mothers who were asylum seekers
with young children are not eligible to get tokens for infant formula milk. It seems
odd to me, because a small number may be coming from Africa and may have
Aids or other transferable diseases, and it would seem to be sensible to make
available infant formula milk in the right circumstances. It obviously would not
cost much money but just be a relatively straightforward change to make I would
have thought?
(Beverley Hughes) I am pretty sure that we have made a change. I think
there may be a difference in the age of the children that qualify between
indigenous people and children of asylum-seeking mothers.
650. My question was only a month ago.
(Beverley Hughes) I will check on it.
Chairman: Send us a note about that.
Bridget Prentice
651. I am going to return to removal and delay but try not to cover the ground
you have already covered with some of my less punctual colleagues. I want to
ask you about how long the average wait from the end of appeal to remova l is, if
you have those figures; and what the longest wait has been. It has been put to us
that it is almost entirely the fault of the Home Office that these delays occur.
(Beverley Hughes) The variants in terms of the period between the end of the
process and removal is very great indeed. People going through the non-
suspensive appeals process at the moment, and I think about 97 per cent of
those who are refused are removed within a period, it is taking about 10-14 days
in total. That is at one end. At the other end, there are very small numbers of
people who have been here some considerable time. I think the longest period of
time, which you probably have already had, is somebody who has been in
detention for about 500 days.
652. What is the reason behind that? Why is it taking so long?
(Beverley Hughes) There are a number of reasons why removal cannot be
affected immediately, which I am sure the Committee have come across in its
deliberations. They are not all to do with the Home Office, although I think whilst
we have got much better at organising removals, as I said at the beginning, I still
think we have got further to go in terms of making this an integral part of the
asylum process. Until recently it has been tacked on to the end and do ne
separately; but I think it needs to be an integral part of the process. Travel
documentation is one particular problem; legal issues; human rights applications
and judicial reviews are another factor that can delay removal; lack of
cooperation from receiving countries to accept somebody as their national; or,
indeed, to agree, for example, to charter flights landing. There are a number of
issues around other countries. Although this is not a factor in those rare cases
where there are long delays, it does happen quite a lot as you probably heard
from your visits to removal centres, I think it is an increasing phenomenon the
behaviour of some asylum seekers as they are taken on to planes to try and
frustrate removal by threatening violence or by pretending to be mentally ill. I
think this is an issue because when those people (if the removal is thwarted
through that because, understandably, pilots are reluctant to take people whose
behaviour looks like it might be a risk) go back to the removal centre I am told
through my visits that word gets round very quickly that this is one way of
delaying the process. Last but not least, although this is not a significant factor in
the run of things, as I said earlier I do get a large number of letters from MPS,
and once an MP's letter comes in then the removal is delayed until I have looked
at the case, which I try to do very, very quickly. I do think colleagues have to
sometimes weigh up how they fulfil their obligations to people in their
constituency, but also understand that sometimes MPs will also be used at the
end of the road just to delay things further.
653. Amongst that variety of things, even after the appeal system has been gone
through, there are still legal ways by which a person can delay removal?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes.
654. Also problems with travel documents. Indeed, in our own visit one person
told us directly that they do make themselves behave very badly on route to the
plane in order to stop them going. Have you never considered then charte ring a
plane in which you would take purely those people who had to be removed?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes, we actually do a lot of charter flights relatively.
Obviously, as I say, we need the permission of the country to land and the
technical ability to land. Certainly there have been weekly flights out to Kosovo.
In fact, I went to Stanstead myself very early one morning before Christmas to
see one of those charter flights and how it was handled. I was very impressed
with LPI that had done the escort from Harmondsworth, and the way in which
they managed that, and watched the flight go and talked to some of the people
who were going on that flight. Where technically we can, where we have got the
volume of people going to one place to support that - because that is where it
makes sense also in terms of cost-effectiveness because it actually starts to
become cheaper apart from anything else to move a large number of people (40
people, say, on a flight to Pristina) than to try and remove them individually even
if we could - we are very keen to use charters, and where the volume of people
going to one place supports that.
(Mr Jeffrey) If I could just add some figures. In the last couple of years we
have removed by charter just over 4,000 people to Kosovo.
655. What other improvements do you expect to see in terms of reducing that
delay between decision and removal?
(Beverley Hughes) First of all, we are trying to use contact management with
asylum seekers right from the beginning of the process. Certainly with new intake
people we have got the ART(?) card, we have got the identity, we have got the
fingerprinting and we have got a number of pilots in different parts of the country,
the Liverpool team for example, who work very well piloting a much more active
contact management with people throughout the process, keeping in touch with
them so that we actually know where they are, if and when their claim fails.
Secondly, we are trying to anticipate problems with documentation much earlier
in the process, and trying to resolve those difficulties or make sure that at the
point at which the process is complete those problems have been resolved. That
will not always be possible, but it is an attempt to say we are not going to wait
until the end to suddenly find out we might have a problem with documentation.
This has got to feature in the thinking about the management of that case right
from the beginning. Thirdly, working diplomatically with colleagues in the Foreign
Office with those countries where tra vel document issues, and issues about
accepting people back, are more problematic, and that is going on. Fourthly,
negotiating readmission agreements with particular countries. My colleague Bob
Ainsworth, on our behalf, recently concluded readmission agreements with
Bulgaria and Rumania, for instance. We are trying to work with Turkey to find a
route through into Northern Iraq - not an admission agreement, obviously, but
permission to have a route through there. Certainly those discussions were going
reasonably well. A number of measures targeted on the particular problems to try
and actually eradicate them.
656. I think we are aware of some countries being more resistant to having
people returned to them than others. What do you do to keep people informed
about the progress of the case? You have talked now about contact
management. One of the problems that has been put to us is that a person is
down for removal but has no idea when that is likely to happen; they are not able
to take up work; they are given temporary permission to remain; all of which are
really not satisfactory. What is done, or should there be anything done, to keep
that person informed as to when they are likely to be removed?
(Beverley Hughes) I would make two points there. I think keeping people
informed is a good aspiration if you think people are going to cooperate with the
removal. That is the dilemma in many cases, that people do not want to go and,
therefore, there is a difficult decision about how far keeping people informed and
therefore, in a sense, helping people to prepare for removal becomes
counterproductive because they simply disappear. That is a difficult judgment to
make. Secondly, it has been my view for some time, and I know Bill Jeffrey
shares this, that we do not do as much as we could in terms of maximising the
potential of voluntary departure. When I was in Canada before Christmas,
although they deal with much smaller numbers and it is therefore much easier for
them, nonetheless they do have an approach in whic h they start to talk to people
from day one about "what if your claim does not succeed" and throughout the
process, in a sense, to bring them to the point when their claim is refused of not
just writing them a letter, not even just serving the notice on them personally
(which we have started to do) by going round and giving them the letter of
refusal, but actually calling them in and saying, "Look, here is your refusal letter.
This is where we are. This is what the options are. One of the options is volunta ry
departure", and to put a case for that as a much more dignified and managed
way of leaving the country, given that leaving will probably be inevitable. We
want to try that approach much more, because I think there is much more
potential to get people to that point of acceptance than perhaps we have been
able to draw on hitherto.
(Mr Jeffrey) Could I just briefly supplement that. I agree very much with what
the Minister says about voluntary removal and we have got to build it much more
into the process and work where we can get people to remove voluntarily; but we
must accept also that it is in the nature of this phenomenon that the majority of
people do not want to go. It is not really, as much as Mrs Prentice was
suggesting, a question of us keeping people waiting (and I was tempted to make
a point when we were talking about the impediment to removal) but more a
question of a lot of people disappearing. I think our best chance in these cases
lies through ever-closer relations with the police. We ha ve always worked quite
closely with the police. I think that relationship is building up in localities
particularly in London, and we have a very close working relationship with the
police which leads us to discover a number of people who have disappeared but
whose removal we can then pursue.
657. One of the problems about disappearance is that it is such a gap between
the decision and the potential removal. That is a good excuse to disappear, is it
not?
(Mr Jeffrey) Increasingly that is the not the case. There is a very significant
difference between the past and the present. We do not really have the figures
for the readings to deal with IT support if one goes into the past, as I mentioned
earlier. It is certainly the case that there are people whose asylum claims date
from some years ago who were refused some time between then and now and
they have not been removed but have disappeared in the meantime. Exactly how
many we cannot be sure. As one gets more up-to-date ones gets into a period in
which the information is better, and our own performance is better in terms of
taking relatively early decisions - we are hitting our decision-taking target at the
moment - and then moving relatively quickly towards removal. Underlying that
there are questions for us about where we set our targets. We have been giving
quite a lot of thought internally to that in recent times.
David Winnick
658. Minister, in many respects this is the crunch of the matter, is it not? You
have people who, as far as they are concerned, think one asylum seeker is one
too many, but for the large majority of people who will be reasonable the general
feeling is that there is so much delay about those whose cases are judged to be
lacking merit before they actually leave the country; and a good number, as
indicated by Mr Jeffrey, simply disappear?
(Beverley Hughes) I think you have to think of two populations because, as
you know, there was a very significant backlog some years ago and what we
tried to do to get on top of the whole process to deal with new claims and to set
targets about the timescales for decisions and for appeal, and then to removal
people with that population; but it is certainly true, that although we have reduced
the peak of the backlog from 120,000 plus to just under 40,000 now, and that is
not much more than work in progress, I think that is a considerable achievement.
There is still obviously a significant number of people who have been here for
some considerable time and they present particular issues, because the delay,
yes, has been much greater in those cases. With the new cases, I think if you
look at the course of those - and that is particularly why I want to have the cohort
basis for statistics up and running - you will see that the process for them in
terms of the timescale between the actual end of the process and removal is
much, much less and coming down. We have also legislated for that group, since
October 2000 was the implementation date, and the previous legislation, that
people no longer can mount successive appeals; they have to put everything in
one pot at the appeal stage. Whereas previously, for a group of people who have
been here for some time and certainly came before October 2000, their process
is still covered by the previous legislation. Some of those do put in successive
appeals and human rights claims of one kind or another. Where we have
changed the system, and set ourselves targets for new cases, we are not doing
badly. It is the older cases, very often that MPs come across a nd write to me
about, where, yes, those delays are significant and, yes, people can disappear.
659. Would you accept that at the moment, with a good deal of public disquiet -
leaving aside those I have already mentioned whose prejudices can never be
appeased, and should not be as far as I am concerned - and the broad public
who have anxiety over the numbers of people staying in this country without any
merit whatsoever, that much more will have to be done to assure the public that
there is a far quicker process of removing people whose cases have been turned
down by the Home Office and have no further right of appeal?
(Beverley Hughes) I think you are absolutely right, yes. Of course I agree with
you. I am a constituency MP as well. I think that those kinds of issues, together
with what people see clearly as abuse of the asylum system, is what fires
people's concern and anger, and rightly so.
660. Exploited of course by hooligan elements in the political field, and I am
talking about the ultra right and the rest.
(Beverley Hughes) Of course, that is why this issue can be and is being
highjacked by those with a completely different agenda. The concerns of ordinary
people in communities who see some of this abuse and have concerns about the
number of people here illegally, nonetheless, are valid. As politicians I believe
absolutely that we have to take those seriously and be thinking of doing
something about it. I really share that with you.
661. The Government's record in this particular field will be judged, would you
agree, Minister, by how far you are able to minimise the delay between those
who have no right to stay in the country and their actual leaving?
(Beverley Hughes) I certainly think that is one of the important variables. As I
said earlier, reducing the number who come in, in the first place, is equally
important; because if you can do that then you are obviously dealing with a
smaller group of people and the task becomes more easily manageable; and
also the visibility with your success in dealing with people becomes more
apparent.
Miss Widdecombe
662. May I just look a little further at this issue of delay ad look not at delays
between ultimate refusal and removal but rather at delays earlier on in the
system - delays which may encourage people to build lives here while they are
quite genuinely waiting for a decision. You gave a rather rosy picture of where
you would like to be about working with people through the various stages of
their applications, and preparing them for removal at the end of it; but the reality
is very different. Those of us who, unlike one of your ministerial colleagues, have
not banned all asylum seekers from our surgeries are regularly presented with
cases of people who come and they have got a port reference; they have got
solicitors' letters; the address that they initially gave is the same as the address
at which they are still living; and sometimes, 16 months down the line, they are
still there waiting for a determination. All the time that they are waiting for that
determination they are beginning to build lives in this country, which is what
makes removal difficult when the time comes. Indeed, as the Home Secretary
acknowledged the week before last during questions, the longer you leave it and
the more people build lives here, validly, while waiting for a decision, the more
complex removal becomes. What can you do that is serious and effective about
actually responding to queries from people who are waiting for a decision over
inordinate periods of time and whose complaint to me all the time is, "They won't
tell us what's happening. We can't get through. Nobody seems to have their
finger on this particular case". That seems to me still to be a significant area of
failure?
(Beverley Hughes) I think you are raising two issues in there. I want to clarify
with you that my understanding of the question does raise two issues. One is the
actual period of time for the determination and its various stages; and, secondly,
you are raising a point about people saying they are finding it difficult to get
information and replies to letters within a reasonable period of time. On the
former, that has been one of the most important objectives that we have already
referred to several times in this sessio n, to reduce right down the period of time
that it was taking for somebody's determination to be concluded. We have made
legislative changes I have just referred to in order to prevent people extending
that process through successive legal challenges but, for our side as well in IND
and in the Immigration Appellate Authority, setting targets within which we want
to see cases determined. For the initial decision, which is undertaken by
caseworkers, we set a target in successive years for certain percentages to be
determined within six months. We are already exceeding that target. I think the
target for this year is 65 per cent determined within two months, and we are
doing well over 70 per cent of cases within two months. I am not saying 70 per
cent is the end of the road, but we have made enormous progress, I hope
members would agree, in that stage of the determination with so many now
decided within two months. We need to continue to make progress at the two
other points in the system. One is the time taken for the Home Office to prepare
the bundles, as they are called, to be sent to the Appellate Authority; and then for
the Appellate Authority to determine the appeal; and we are seeking a target of
four months there - envisaging a six-month process for most of the applications.
We are on course to achieve that substantially. In relation to queries, this is a
problem. It is a problem I meet as Minister because MPs continually write to me,
often not simply to say, "Please don't remove somebody", but to say, "Can I
please have an answer to my letter of three/four months ago". I have made, with
Bill Jeffrey and others, really very considerable efforts to make sure that just
generally in terms of administration we bring IND up to the standards that you
would expect of an excellent public service; and it is not there yet, but what I can
tell you is that we have put processes in place that, starting with MPs'
correspondence, working through official and public correspondence, we have
plans and mechanisms in place to drive up performance on that. I am seeing
performance increase. We have also improved the MPs' hotline; and colleagues
have said to me that they have noticed the improvement in the MPs' hotline. We
have substantially strengthened that with back-up teams of caseworkers so
queries can be answered properly. Right throughout the system the delivery plan
that has been produced in relation to SR202, whilst much of that is about the
high level targets we need and want to achieve in relation to the asylum system,
we know that much of that depends on having a strong, well organised
organisation administratively. We have now a substantially new team at
directorate level, and are going through the rest of the organisation in terms of
new appointments, and not a wholesale reorganisation but strengthening the
capacity of the organisation; and the objective of delivering administratively and
organisationally is as important to me as some of these very high level more
political objectives around asylum and how we manage it. I will ask Bill just to say
a bit more about some of the detail because it is a very important issue that you
have raised.
663. Before he answers, can I just try and focus on what I am saying which is
that you get people who arrive and obey the rules at least as far as determination
is concerned; but that the point from arrival to determination can often be, I would
say, excessive. If you are 70 per cent there, nearly one-third of people are still
facing long delays. In between that point and long before they come to an MP
who then writes to you, they are trying to get information on the progress of their
case and getting absolutely nowhere at all. It is fairly easy, and we have all done
it, to talk about targets and statistics. What I would like to know is when we are
going to notice a step change in the number of those people coming to see us?
(Beverley Hughes) Both in terms of the time taken and their problem in
getting information - in terms of the former, I am not saying that 70 per cent is
enough but we started where we started, and we are where we are. We want to
drive up from that. That 70 per cent has to increase to 75 per cent and go beyond
that. You will know, because of your experience, that you simply cannot click
your fingers and change from a system with long delays in it to making sure
everybody has their claim determined within six months within the space of a
year. You actually have to build on building the capacity; build the practice
experience and do that as quickly as possible, but you cannot do that overnight. I
am not being complacent; I am simply saying to you that we have made
progress, and will continue to make progress. I accept that some people in that
30 per cent are not having their cases decided in anything like two months of the
initial decision. We need to improve further. I also accept your basic premise that
the longer people are here in this country legitimately waiting for their claim to be
determined, yes, the factors that make removal more difficult in terms of them
putting down roots and making relationships become more difficult. We have an
obligation to keep that timescale as short as we can. On the information flows I
will look particularly at that issue with Bill Jeffrey in terms of people's queries
about the process of their application. As I have said, more generally it is part
and parcel of complete reform of IND administratively which is a continuing
process.
(Mr Jeffrey) Could I just make two points. Firstly, as the Minister says, I do
not think any of us - including any of the staff who work hard in IND but
sometimes do not produce outcomes that they themselves would be happy with -
would want to say the general administration of the Directive is as it could or
should be. What we are about now, and it is the larger part of job, is to change
the organisation, to change the performance that we provide, not least to
Members of Parliament. I am sure Miss Widdecombe would say that the proof of
that pudding is in the eating and I certainly agree with that. We are determined to
improve things like the quality of the public inquiry service and the telephone
enquiry bureau and we are making some progress. On the main issue the
Committee is discussing today perhaps I could just add two facts to what the
Minister has said. On appeals we are currently receiving something like 4,000
appeals a month, and the Appellate Authorities are disposing of something like
6,000 a month; so there is steady progress in that area. In relation to intake, the
reason we are getting the asylum intake down, as crucial as it is, is that if we can
get it down we can then begin to eat into these older cases. It is true that we are
much more on top of the more recent cases that we ever were before; but if we
can reduce the intake to the point where we are gaining ground by eating into the
backlog of around 40,000 that the Minister mentioned then there really is a
chance that we will get substantially on top of the problem. This month, without
going into specifics for reasons that the Minister gave earlier, we have
determined a thousand or more cases in excess of those we received. There is a
sense in which if we can keep getting the intake down we can actually make
some inroads not only into the current cases but into the backlog as well.
Bob Russell
664. Minister, is it correct that an increasing number of countries are not
accepting the common format European Union letter and Chicago Convention
travel document as valid documentation for people being returned? If that is the
case, why? Are you able to say which countries are the main offenders, as it
were? What action is the UK government taking to try to redress that problem?
(Beverley Hughes) It is true that there is a slight increase in the number of
countries no longer accepting EU letters. I think it is about 30 countries in all now
which do not accept them. Not all of those countries are significant from a
removal asylum seeker point of view - obviously places like Germany and New
Zealand - but others are: Algeria, Sri Lanka, India and China, for instance, do not
accept those documents, and that is significant. Obviously without a travel
document, even on charter flights, we cannot remove people without a travel
document. Some countries also have quite a long verification process before
they will issue a document. As I said earlier, we are doing a number of things to
try and address that issue, including diplomatic negotiations with some of those
countries to try and unblock that issue. It is a significant issue for some people in
terms of removing them.
665. Is progress being made with those main players you have just mentioned?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes, with some of them.
666. So watch this space?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes.
667. Minister, many witnesses have expressed disapproval of the way in which
removals from homes are carried out. The Immigration Advisory Service said,
"We are concerned at frequent reports of cases where persons reporting to the
Home Office are taken into detention without any prior warning and removed the
following day without them being able to collect their personal possessions or
make arrangements regarding their accommodation, engagements etc. IAS has
personal examples of this inhumane treatment". Why, therefore, is it being done?
(Beverley Hughes) As I said earlier, the removal teams and the local
enforcement officers have to make a judgment based on the history of the case
as to whether people are likely to resist removal. Certainly it is my information
that in the case of family removals usually a pastoral visit is made before
removal. In some cases, if there has been evidence of attempts to frustrate
removal then, yes, some of those visits do take place unannounced, and they
can take place in the early hours of the morning, because that is when we expect
people to be there. I think those instances are kept to a minimum. I have had
some feedback from colleagues recently about the way in which particularly
difficult removals were conducted praising the removal team that arrived. Yes,
there are difficult issues here; and if we want to increase the number of people
that are removed then, as the Director General said recently, we do start from the
position that most people do not want to go. Therefore, in some instances that is
the procedure that has to be adopted.
668. The Immigration Advisory Service do not agree with that scenario, because
they then go on to say, "There is little evidence to the contrary that in most cases
persons informed that they must leave will do so in an orderly fashion without the
need for detention". While accepting there will be the cases of the type you
referred to, the Immigration Advisory Service are saying that they are very much
in a minority. That being the case, could I ask you and your colleagues to look
again as to whether the early dawn raids and so on are necessarily the right
picture that the government should be putting out; or is that a deliberate picture
that they put out?
(Beverley Hughes) No, it is not a deliberate picture, in the se nse that we want
to execute a removal in the most straightforward way possible. In fact, a removal
of that kind requires a lot of resources. We have police presence. We have to
have a warrant to enter. It is highly organised and orchestrated and takes a lo t of
time and preparation. If there are alternatives for some people then we will use
them. I do not accept at all what the Immigration Advisory Service is saying. I
wonder what their contentions are based on; because our experience is that, in
fact, many people do not want to go and that does raise issues about how you
manage an effective removal. Even as members of the Committee you have
talked to people in removal centres and surely got a clear picture that there are
many people who do not want to go, and even at the point of being detained and
taken to an aeroplane will try and frustrate that removal. We have to respond to
the behaviour that people demonstrate. In some stances, in order to remove
people, we have to undertake the procedure in the way you have outlined.
669. No doubt the Immigration Advisory Service will read your response and
communicate with you accordingly. How frequently are people removed
mistakenly where they have not finished all the stages of their asylum claim; and
if there are such cases, are they audited; and what are you doing to avoid them?
(Beverley Hughes) There have been a very small number of cases, certainly
that have come to my attention, where people have been removed before their
process has finally ended. That has usually been as a result of a very late
representation not being communicated to the removal centre in time to stop that
removal.. We have been looking at the systems in relation to particular cases as
to how we strengthen that.
670. I appreciate that. Just as an aside, Minister, the compassionate way that
the Government wishes to proceed, there are occasions when there are children
in this country who are at school who have school exchange trips overseas, are
you able to provide documentation to enable a child under the age of 18 to travel
with a school party and then return to the UK? Clearly they do not have
documentation otherwise. Is there such a provision?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes.
671. Finally, Chairman, is there any monitoring of what happens to people
returned to their country? Is there any risk to them when they are handed over to
the immigration authorities in the receiving country? Is Chechnya regarded any
differently to any other part of Russia?
(Beverley Hughes) On the former part of your question, clearly there will be
some support for those people who return voluntarily; that is part of the package
for voluntary returns, to have some in-kind support - not cash; and some
resource is spent on establishing people when they get back. Generally
speaking, for enforced removal that will not be the case, no. People are going
back to their country of nationality, and I do not think it would be reasonable to
extend the remit of the immigration and nationality department to actually finding
out what happens after they have returned to their country - other than making
sure, as there is in most instances, that one of the voluntary agencies that we
work with (such as the International Organisation for Migration) will be there and
is available for people to give them further assistance if that is required.
672. What is the definition of nationality for those people from Chechnya?
(Beverley Hughes) I think you raised this last time.
673. I know, and I shall keep on raising it.
(Beverley Hughes) The applications from people from Chechnya are decided
in the same way as every other application on the basis of their individual merit.
Chechnya is an integral part of the Russian federation. For those people who are
of no interest to the Russian authorities there will be no issue if their claim fails of
returning them, possibly to somewhere else within the Russian federation. Some
people will not be returned. It really does depend on their individual cases; and in
that sense they are treated in exactly the same way as every other applicant.
Chairman
674. We return people to Chechnya, do we?
(Beverley Hughes) I need to check if we have returned somebody actually to
Chechnya. We have certainly returned Chechnyans to other parts of the Russian
Federation.
Mr Cameron
675. Minister, trying to understand a bit the basis of the decision taken to detain
someone prior to removal. Is there a series of risk factors that are looked at?
How is that judgment made? It is a question we asked at Harmondsworth and I
did not quite understand the answer.
(Beverley Hughes) There is a series of criteria for staff to use, including when
we need to establish somebody's identity - and obviously if they are one of a
group that at the moment can be fast-tracked through the Oakington process -
where we do not think somebody will comply with any conditions that could be
attached to temporary admission, or in order to effect a removal.
676. And what percentage of those who are not detained abscond or fail to co-
operate with the removal directions?
(Beverley Hughes) I cannot give you an overall figure for that this morning. It
varies in relation to different groups in that overall population, to be honest. You
might be talking about people given temporary admission. Are you talking about
asylum claimants?
677. Yes. It is a very difficult thing we are asking you to measure but the
purpose of the question really is to try and work out are you detaining the right
people and how do you measure whether you are detaining the right people and
how can you have a rolling improvement to your system so that you only use
detention when it is necessary. There must be some indicator that you use and it
might be useful for our final report to know a bit more about that.
(Beverley Hughes) We are trying to use detention in an increasingly selected
and targeted way and trying to keep the period of detention as short as possible
and focused on the point of removal. You are right, we do need, I think, to look
increasingly strategically at both removals generally and how we use detention to
support the strategic priorities in relation to removal and that is some work that is
going on at the moment. We have been reviewing internally and across
government how removals are executed. That review has produced some action
points that we think we can take forward and I think one of the most significant -
and you have talked to some of the arrest teams/enforcement teams - is that
whilst there is a very strong commitment amongst the teams to removing people
and improving performance, we could do better if we had a clearer set of
strategic priorities about how we might do that and what particular groups of
people within the total population of asylum seekers it might be useful to have a
priority on and, secondly, how we use detention to support that strategic
objective.
678. There is one group of people it has been put to us that it should not be
necessary to detain which is those who have got family or substantial property
and business here. Surely, they are less likely to abscond before removal?
(Beverley Hughes) I cannot disprove the implied contention in your question
that there might be significant numbers of people who have got those established
roots whom we have detained., but I would be very surprised if that were the
case. With families it is sometimes more difficult. There are some families in
detention but, by and large, certainly in relation to the families I have seen and
am aware of, they are not families with well-established roots here but are
families that have come here very recently.
679. Do you have a figure for the proportion of detainees that have not
completed all the legal stages of their asylum claims, those who are still going
through the process?
(Mr Jeffrey) We might be able to get that, I do not have that with me.
680. Clearly if someone is absolutely at the last appeal and you are worried they
are going to abscond if that appeal goes the wrong way, is that the o nly reason
for holding somebody when the legal avenues have not been fully explored?
(Mr Jeffrey) No, it is not. As the Minister was saying earlier, we are smarter
than we used to be in using detention. We used to really make an assessment as
to whether the people were a good or bad bet, whether they were likely to
abscond or not. We are focusing it much more on the end of the process, people
who are within sight of being removed, so I think it is unlikely that we would be
detaining in many cases other than quite close to the point when we think
removal is actually within sight.
681. But it is not ruled out?
(Beverley Hughes) To supplement that, we have mentioned Oakington and
the fast-track process and that is another attempt to use detention sparingly but
to keep people in detention not just at the end of the process but right throughout
the process where you know you can execute that process in a very short period
of time, in a matter of two or three weeks.
682. In the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 there was provision for automatic
bail hearings. That was never implemented and it has now been repealed. Could
you explain why?
(Beverley Hughes) You will recall that we had this debate during the passage
of the most recent piece of legislation in which that provision was repealed. We
felt looking at the number of people who had used that facility - and, as you say,
it had not actually been enacted - there had not been any great call for that.
People can apply for bail at any time and therefore the resources involved in
implementing what would be a six-monthly routine consideration of whether
somebody should be given bail and all the apparatus that would have entailed in
the light of the fact that people can through their representatives apply for bail at
any time at all it seemed an unnecessary bureaucracy.
Mr Clappison
683. Were those factors known when the decision was taken to include that
provision in the Bill originally? The picture which you have just described now,
was that known when the provision for automatic bail was first included in the
Bill?
(Beverley Hughes) Was it known that people could apply for bail at any time?
684. Yes, was the picture the same as to whether people availed themselves of
that opportunity then?
(Beverley Hughes) I would imagine that it was but I would also imagine that
this was included as a potential extra safeguard. Having looked at the picture
again, and for the reasons I have just outlined, and in terms of what we are trying
to achieve now, it seems to be an unnecessarily stringent safeguard and one that
is actually unnecessary.
685. I understand, I am exploring the reasons why it was done in the first place
because it seems a little strange.
(Beverley Hughes) It may well have been an amendment.
Bridget Prentice
686. A quick question on detention; is it in theory possible, Minister, for
somebody to be detained indefinitely?
(Beverley Hughes) No, it is not legal for somebody to be detained indefinitely
with no clear purpose. There either has to be the prospect of removal or working
towards removal for that to be lawful. We cannot simply keep people detained for
no reason.
687. Even when all the reasons you have given as to why removal might be
delayed, some people have been detained for quite a long time. Is that not in
contravention of some of our international obligations? Should there not be a
maximum period?
(Beverley Hughes) I would not support the idea there should be a maximum
period and I would also point out that people through their representatives have
the opportunity to challenge continued detention through the courts if it is felt to
be excessive. There is only really that one case where for very particular reasons
that person has been detained for a considerable period of time. If you look at the
figures even for people detained more than a few days we are actually taking a
few weeks largely as being the extended periods of detention as we regard them,
so I would not support a maximum period and I think the legal redresses people
have to challenge if they do think detention is excessive are adequate.
Chairman
688. But people do remain in detention for long periods, do they not, because of
the difficulties of removing them?
(Beverley Hughes) There is a very small number who have been in for a
period of time.
689. We were waylaid by somebody at Harmondsworth who had been detained
for six months or so.
(Beverley Hughes) As I say, the legal position - and I will get the Director to
check this - is that we cannot detain indefinitely unless there is the prospect of
removal in circumstances where, as was mentioned before with certain groups of
people, even if we had the detention space, we could not detain them if there
was no prospect of removal.
(Mr Jeffrey) The test is the one that the Minister mentioned, namely there has
to be a prospect of removal and, as I said earlier, we are detaining people for
lengthy periods much less frequently than we used to in the past. The one
exception, just to be clear about it, is in relation to terrorist suspects (and you will
be very familiar with the legislation that was passed after 11 September) which
does allow for detention, although we have no desire for it to be indefinite, where
there is not an immediate prospect of removal.
Mr Prosser
690. I want to ask a few questions about conditions in detention centres. We
have been told - and it has certainly been my experience - that the living
conditions in those parts of the estate run by the private sector are far above that
run by the Immigration Service and certainly far above those run in wings of
prisons or former parts of the prison estate; what is your view?
(Beverley Hughes) I cannot give you a view from pe rsonal experience
because I have visited two of the removal centres so far working my way round
them. I have visited Harmondsworth and Dungavel in Scotland and both of those
of course are contracted out. I have not visited Haslar, Lindholme or Dover
Harbour yet which would be in the other category you outline. I think it was
recognised when some of the former Prison Service establishments were re-
rolled, as it was called, to become removal centres that there would be a period
in which the conditions would have to catch up to what was already available in
the contracted-out centres, but they do operate in the same way and they all
operate to the same standards. They are all operated under the detention centre
rules and in the three former Prison Service facilities we are continuing to work
on those areas that do need improvement.
691. You are working towards harmonising the conditions, but has the Operating
Standards document been published yet?
(Beverley Hughes) I think so.
(Mr Jeffrey) I am not sure.
(Beverley Hughes) When you say Operating Standards document, what do
you mean?
692. It is a document which you proposed to publish in order to raise all the
standards to a common level.
(Beverley Hughes) Certainly there is such a document internally within IMD. I
will make enquiries about any commitment to making a public document
available and write to you after the meeting.
693. Thank you. Can you tell us how many instances you are aware of of self-
harm or suicide in our detention centres, be they run by the Immigration Service
or by the private sector?
(Beverley Hughes) I cannot give you a figure today but we will certainly
provide you with one. Although obviously any incident is of concern, they are
very small in number. There are instances of self-harm. There is only one case
that I know of during my period of office in which there has been a successful
suicide attempt and actually that was quite recently. So that is one of those and
the numbers of self-harm incidents are relatively small.
694. Finally, are you confident that you have measures in place at all centres
which protect against these sad occasions?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes. You will know that all of the centres, whether they
are contracted out or in house so to speak, are managed by IMD. All of the
contracted-out centres have a contract manager who is an ideal person and
there are mechanisms in place whereby those people meet together and make
sure that the standards operating are harmonised as far as possible. Are you
asking specifically about self-harm and suicide?
695. Yes.
(Beverley Hughes) Although having come from a Prison Service background,
I think we probably need to strengthen the extent to which we collate information
and have a really robust picture of those incidents and that is something that we
are going to put in place.
Chairman
696. Finally Minister, voluntary returns. About 1,200 people I think returned
voluntarily during 2001. How can the programme be extended?
(Beverley Hughes) As I said earlier, I think there is more potential within
voluntary returns, notwithstanding the fact that some people do not want it. I think
there is more potential and we have not yet capitalised on the voluntary returns
programme generally. In terms of immediate extensions, you know about the
Afghan returns programme.
697. Is the Afghan programme separate from the one we have been given this
1,200 figure for?
(Beverley Hughes) The figures are all included I think.
698. That includes the Afghan programme?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes. In terms of voluntary returns, I think we can do much
more in the removal centres themselves. The way it operates at the moment, as
you probably know, is that in a way people almost have to be self-selecting. They
have to first of all know about the voluntary returns programme. They tend, as I
understand it, to have to make an approach themselves to the International
Organisation for Migration which then deals with the practicalities on behalf of the
Home Office. There is certainly a lot more potential for us to make sure the
information is available, that people are talked through it and if they want to make
an approach to the IOM they are helped to do that, as opposed to simply left to
get on with it. As I say, we are looking at all of those ways in which we can
strengthen that. There is a slight issue in the removals centres, I do not know
what feedback you got from people there, both staff and detainees, but we need
to make sure that does not look terribly coercive if we are trying to help people to
remove voluntarily. Having said that, it does seem clear to me that there is a gap
at the moment at the point at which people reach the end of the road in terms of
the vigour and the thoroughness with which they are really informed that this is
an option for them.
699. Perhaps that refusal ought to be accompanied by a leaflet on how you can
organise a voluntary return?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes, I think in all our communications, including either a
leaflet or quite explicitly in the refusal letter, that is one of the options we are
considering that we ought to be doing that.
700. What is available to someone returning voluntarily?
(Beverley Hughes) Outside of the Afghan programme it is benefits in kind at
the moment not cash, up to the value of £500 per person.
701. What about the air fare?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes, that is all settled.
702. The air fare, and then what are these benefits in kind and how are they
delivered?
(Beverley Hughes) They are delivered by the voluntary organisations in the
countries to which people are going which will organise, as far as they can,
whatever particular support people need and then get recompensed for that by
the Home Office. It really depends whether it is help to organise housing, help
into employment, those kinds of things, that will help people to restabilise
themselves in their country.
703. Would you be able to give us a breakdown of the countries to which these
1,200 people returned?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes, of course.
704. You could do that?
(Beverley Hughes) Yes, we will provide you with that certainly.
Chairman: It will give us some idea. Thank you very much for coming to see us. I
am sorry we have strayed slightly over the two hours that we were aiming for. I
think it has been a very helpful session and we look forward to seeing you again
in the not-too-distant future. Thank you very much. Thank you to Mr Jeffrey and
Ms Ramlagan-Singh. The session is closed.
