Oral evidence: The work of the Immigration Directorates (Q4), HC 237Tuesday, 24 June 2014
Oral evidence, 24 June 2014.
Witnesses
Jonathan Kershner, Registration and Coroner Services Manager, Manchester Register Office, and Alicja Gilroy, Superintendent Registrar, Oxford Register Office, gave evidence.
Chair
Mr Kershner and Ms Gilroy, thank you very much for coming here. You are not on trial here. This is an opportunity to share with the Committee your practice, and if it sounds like we do not know what the process is to get a marriage it is because many of us have not been married recently. We were just debating in the private session exactly what the process is. Some of the questions may seem very obvious to you but it is our opportunity to look at this issue. Both of you have provided extremely helpful evidence to the Committee about the number of marriages that have taken place and the number of marriages that have been reported as being suspicious. What struck me about Manchester was that, despite the fact that other places, like Oxfordshire, for example, reported suspicious marriage there seem to be absolutely no reports of suspicious marriages in Manchester according to this grid that I have. Is that because there are no sham marriages in Manchester?
Jonathan Kershner
No. If you look at the third column along “The number of suspect sham marriages reported by registrar” you will see that Manchester is—
Chair
Sorry, my apologies. I am looking at the action taken. It is 166. It just goes to show that I have looked at the wrong column, 166 in 2013 and 157.
Jonathan Kershner
That is correct.
Chair
What I meant to say was if you look across to the last column, in terms of reported but no action taken—so you report them but nothing happens as a result—it is zero in 2013 and it is also zero in 2014.
Jonathan Kershner
I think the answer to that is that we don’t have the information in terms of what action has been taken. We are submitting a significant number of reports. We looked at some figures from July last year to the current date, and approximately 20% of designated notices, that is notices that are given by non-EEA nationals are reported by registrars in Manchester but we don’t get specific feedback—
Chair
From the Home Office?
Jonathan Kershner
—in terms of what action has been taken.
Chair
Let us go from that. I will come back to you in a second. In Oxfordshire’s case in 2013 you had 41 suspected sham marriages reported and 35 cases where action was reported back to you; five in 2014, a big drop—obviously we have only just started the year and this may not be the marriage season—and nine cases of action taken. That is quite a large number of examples of action being taken. In Oxfordshire you seem to be getting good feedback.
Alicja Gilroy
Yes, we do and we have a good working relationship with our local immigration team. We have worked very hard to ensure that we keep each other in the loop. However, a lot of the disruptions that have taken place recently, we had one last week, involved immigration teams from the Thames Valley. So they had slightly more difficulties in getting to us on time and so on, and that creates problems once they do arrive and delays other appointments. But we find in general our relationship with the immigration teams is a healthy one.
Chair
Take me and the Committee through that example that you just gave. People go in and say they are going to get married. They have 28 days or so to publish the news that they are about to get married, is that right?
Alicja Gilroy
A 15-day notice period. Hopefully, with the new Immigration Bill that will extend to 28 days but at the moment it is 15 days.
Chair
In this particular case what alerted the registrar that caused the enforcement team to come to the registry office?
Alicja Gilroy
There were three reasons. One was little interaction between the couple, not a common language between them, and one of them had exceeded their stay in the UK. That last point, just to bear in mind that if you can only tick that one box you do not submit a section 24 report because that is not enough for the Home Office to act on.
Chair
Being an overstayer is not in itself suspicious?
Alicja Gilroy
No. If you are here illegally or you are an overstayer, as a registrar you do not have the right to submit that section 24 report. You must be able to also tick another criterion on that list.
Chair
Tell us the criteria again and what—
Alicja Gilroy
Little interaction between the couple; not speaking the same language; knowing very little about each other—the details, their occupations, where they live and so on; for example, seeing money change hands. You rarely see that.
Chair
At the wedding?
Alicja Gilroy
It may be as they are going out even, or before, but in my experience that is very rarely ticked.
Chair
In this particular case what were the nationalities of the people involved?
Alicja Gilroy
We had an east European.
Chair
That is not a nationality, which country?
Alicja Gilroy
A Lithuanian and a Pakistani.
Chair
Was the man a Pakistani or the woman?
Alicja Gilroy
Yes. The man was a Pakistani and the woman was a Lithuanian.
Chair
If you could describe the scene. I don’t want you to sound like a marriage reporter here. They got to the front. You got out your book.
Alicja Gilroy
We did. It wasn’t quite as straightforward as that. The marriage was supposed to be at 11.30. The couple arrived at 11.15, as we asked them to do, so we can go through the preliminaries to marriage.
Chair
That is done outside the main room or is it done—
Alicja Gilroy
That is in a separate office, not in the main ceremony room. It is just to check whether anything has changed since they gave their notice of marriage. They may have changed their job. They may have had a birthday over the two weeks—that sort of information. So we see each of them, either individually or together. This couple chose to be seen together. We saw them together and went through the process. What usually happens if a marriage is being disrupted, at that stage the immigration team will come in.
Chair
But you would have to alert them?
Alicja Gilroy
They had already alerted us to say they were coming. We had had a phone call the day before.
Chair
They came and told you about this case. You did not report this to them?
Alicja Gilroy
No, we reported the case and they then acted on what we said to them.
Chair
They were there in the room or they burst into the room?
Alicja Gilroy
They didn’t burst into the room; they were running a little bit late.
Chair
All right. Okay.
Alicja Gilroy
That was the biggest issue.
Chair
This is the Home Office we are talking about?
Alicja Gilroy
Yes, the Home Office arrived late because they got stuck in traffic and then travelling into Oxford—those of you who know Oxford—can cause problems.
Chair
Okay.
Alicja Gilroy
So they were late. However, they did arrive. Now, luckily, one of the witnesses to the wedding was late so we could delay the wedding.
Chair
Otherwise the wedding would have taken place?
Alicja Gilroy
We would have had to have gone ahead. We can delay it for so long but unless we have any reason we cannot then not go ahead with that, saying to them, “We are waiting for the immigration team to come and disrupt this wedding”. We cannot say that.
Chair
Extraordinary. They arrived and then what happened?
Alicja Gilroy
They arrived. They did not burst in, they knock on the door and go in and say, “We’re from the immigration team”. The registrars then leave. Then they explain to the couple what is going to happen and then separate them. They have the bride in one room, the groom in the other room. The witnesses and any guests are usually by that time in the ceremony room. Then they explain and they conduct interviews with them. This went on for an hour and a half.
Chair
The marriage in this particular case did not take place?
Alicja Gilroy
It did not take place.
Chair
Mr Kershner, give me an example of you and your registrars in Manchester alerting the immigration authorities to a sham marriage.
Jonathan Kershner
As I said before, on a daily basis registrars are submitting section 24 reports.
Chair
On a daily basis?
Jonathan Kershner
On a daily basis.
Chair
Goodness.
Jonathan Kershner
As I say, perhaps one in five foreign nationals who come to give notice in Manchester are being reported. The actual appointment itself is not a lengthy appointment. Couples are only required to give relatively basic information when giving notice of marriage. It is not like the immigration interviews held by the Home Office in terms of assessing whether a couple are genuine or not.
Chair
Sure. Do you think in the case of a foreign national there ought to be a more rigorous interview? Would you like to be able to do that as a registrar?
Jonathan Kershner
I think that would be very difficult, if only because of what you said before, that we are also dealing with a lot of genuine couples, many of whom will be foreign nationals, and for them the experience that we want them to have is not one of an immigration interview. For many couples, giving notice of marriage is quite an exciting experience. Some of the other challenges are that some of the characteristics that my colleague referred to that registrars are supposed to look out for, can also apply to genuine marriages that might be—
Chair
Of course. Do you have a list of the characteristics?
Jonathan Kershner
It is on the section 24 report itself.
Chair
We will get a copy, so it is not a problem.
Jonathan Kershner
There is a tick box of about eight or nine things.
Chair
The last time that this happened in Manchester where you were presiding, give me an example of what you saw. What alerted you to this issue?
Jonathan Kershner
I don’t personally take notices of marriage any more. It is my staff who do that. Having spoken to staff over the last few days, knowing I was coming here, it is the same sort of thing: little interaction between the couple; sometimes a third party who seems to be in control of the arrangements and co-ordinating what is going on is often quite a common one. No common language is another common one. Those are the most obvious ones on their own. I think there is also a gut instinct. When you see a lot of couples arranging marriages you get a feeling for what a genuine response is, what are perhaps natural nerves and what perhaps might indicate something more than that. But we are talking about suspicions and it is not scientific.
Chair
Absolutely. Are there particular nationalities that have come to your attention as far as the EU is concerned, as well as those from outside the EU? Are there particular countries?
Jonathan Kershner
I think we have seen different waves of nationalities come through, and the registrars would be more aware of what those trends are. Presumably, because we are sending the reports to the Home Office, they would have better data on that. Certainly when I talked to staff they said, “A few years ago we saw, for example, quite a lot of Portuguese nationals”. Obviously in Manchester we have a large airport nearby and there are a lot of cheap flights in and out, so it is easy to fly someone in to give the notice and then for them to fly back for the marriage.
Chair
Do you have evidence of that? Are there examples?
Jonathan Kershner
We certainly saw trends of Portuguese nationals marrying. That seems to have stopped now and we are seeing perhaps feedback from staff about other nationalities, perhaps Slovakians, I think someone mentioned to me. Perhaps the trends are changing.
Chair
Ms Gilroy, do you see trends emerging?
Alicja Gilroy
I would very much echo what Jonathan said. We still have Portuguese coming through but perhaps more and more of the newer east European countries, which I think was shown in John Vine’s report: Lithuania; Polish is not unusual.
Chair
What seems to be very clear from the comments that we have received is that the feedback from the Home Office is so poor. Therefore, if you look at the list of where it is reported it simply cannot be the case in certain parts of the country that they have never reported a single sham marriage, as we have in one or two of the areas. Would you like to see more feedback? Perhaps more training? What is it that you would like more than anything else? If you had come along with your wish list to the Home Affairs Committee, what would be your top three asks, Ms Gilroy?
Alicja Gilroy
Mine certainly would be more feedback from the Home Office. We held a staff away-day last October to which all staff came. For one of the sessions we invited the Home Office immigration team to come and address staff, to tell them about the advantages of these marriages and the problem of sham marriage. Staff really bought into that and were really engaged. We found that helped, from the receptionist right up to the people taking the calls, to the people taking the notices as well. So that does help. However, we are very aware that the Home Office are very restricted with resources. We are aware that they are dealing with many problems and perhaps don’t always have the staffing there to be able to do that. But perhaps feedback via an electronic way could be done. Perhaps it does not have to be face to face.
Chair
But you do need that feedback?
Alicja Gilroy
I think that feedback really helps and it keeps staff motivated. We take the job very seriously. We report very carefully and with great consideration. It is not taken lightly. We have had a couple of high profile court cases in Oxford where the registrars have gone before a court, so they have to be very certain of what they are reporting and very clear about why they did it and what they asked. So it is done with great consideration and not taken lightly as I say.
Chair
Mr Kershner, do you all get together once a year somewhere, the registrars, and share this good practice because obviously you will be picking up trends, you will be seeing how things are developing? It is clear Manchester is different from Oxford and London is different from Leicester, but there are common themes that you can all share. Where is the good practice coming from?
Jonathan Kershner
There is a national panel for registration that represents the local registration service, which does share a lot of good practice. There is also the General Register Office that supports us in the work that we do. In terms of sham marriages, there have been quite a few pieces of work and pilots involving both the Registrar General’s office and the Home Office. In fact, some of the changes that have come out in the Immigration Act were a direct result of requests by registrars for changes in the way things worked. For example, it was registrars who were saying, “We want to be able to report people when they are making appointments” because it is often at the appointment stage, even before the notice, that we are seeing suspicious activities.
Chair
What is the answer?
Jonathan Kershner
My understanding is the Act will now allow that to happen.
Chair
But previously it did not—
Jonathan Kershner
Previously it—
Chair
—and you had to wait until the last minute.
Jonathan Kershner
Another example might be registrars were asking that they could report other immigration offences, because they could not report an overstayer purely as an overstayer, it had to be linked to another suspicion. Again, the Act will allow registrars to report to the Home Office someone who presents with documents that suggest they perhaps should not be in the country.
Chair
That goes on the section 24 report?
Jonathan Kershner
At the moment you can add it on, but it is not a reason for reporting in its own right, so registrars felt restricted by that.
Chair
Thank you.
Mr Winnick
Ms Gilroy and Mr Kershner, when you started the job were you aware from the start—I am not quite sure how long you have been in your post—this was a problem?
Alicja Gilroy
I certainly was. I started slightly over 10 years ago and I remember very early on in my career having a sham marriage then between a Portuguese and an Albanian, and almost 10 years down the line I am not sure a lot has changed. However, with the Immigration Bill coming I think that will bring big changes.
Mr Winnick
That was the first case of a sham marriage. Are you—
Alicja Gilroy
For me it was the first case. It probably wasn’t nationwide but, yes.
Mr Winnick
—but you simply became very suspicious?
Alicja Gilroy
Yes, you do get a gut feeling. Jonathan mentioned it earlier. You see so many couples giving notice of marriage. We talk about little interaction between the couple, but also there can sometimes be too much interaction between a couple. If you see somebody in your reception area, if you are a genuine couple you don’t normally expect them to throw themselves over each other but in our reception areas sometimes those couples will be being slightly perhaps too amorous, when you don’t need to be because you are not trying to prove anything if you are a genuine couple. You see you get—
Mr Winnick
No, and that is the case, is it?
Alicja Gilroy
It is an interesting one, isn’t it, and I have asked for that to be added on to a section 24 report and they are considering it. It is a gut feeling a lot of the time but you can usually also tick one of the criteria in addition to that.
Mr Winnick
The sort of way in which those involved in sham marriages behave—that is a telling sign, is it?
Alicja Gilroy
It is, yes, very much so. What we sometimes do is very occasionally you might take the questions slightly out of order, so if they are expecting the one about the address you might ask for their occupation. That can sometimes throw them a little bit. Registrars do use techniques and tactics to try to deter people.
Mr Winnick
That is your experience, is it?
Jonathan Kershner
Very similar. I have worked in registration for 17 years. It was an issue when I started 17 years ago and we have seen various different initiatives come and go. The certificate of approval scheme, which I think was in existence for six years, which did appear to lead to a reduction in the numbers of sham couples that we were seeing, but now we seem to be back to the figures that we saw many years ago and we will have to wait and see what difference the new Act makes next year.
Mr Winnick
Would it be the case in your area, as with what we have just been told, that those who are likely to be involved in a sham marriage would be throwing their arms around each other?
Jonathan Kershner
Absolutely. As a registrar one of the difficulties is not just at the notice stage but that you are forced to participate in that charade of a marriage, which is not a pleasant thing. I think all registrars—certainly the ones I spoke to in my office said it is almost liked being mocked in your own job. We take our jobs very seriously. We want to deliver a good service to genuine couples, and to have to perform what is a total charade of a ceremony, and then possibly at the end of it be asked if we would have a photograph with the couple, is not a pleasant experience.
Mr Winnick
No, and makes a total mockery of what should be very far from a matter of a mockery of. It goes without saying, of course, it is an insult to all those who are engaging in a genuine marriage or partnership as the case may be.
Jonathan Kershner
Yes.
Mr Winnick
Price will vary obviously and it would be odd if it didn’t, but what would you say is the going price for someone to engage in such a marriage with a UK national: £500, £1,000?
Alicja Gilroy
You mean the payment for an EEA national?
Mr Winnick
Yes.
Alicja Gilroy
You read different things in the papers, don’t you? It varies from possibly £500, £1,000 and some people quote £3,000. I suppose if you are coming over here from one of those countries, they tend to choose quite vulnerable people I think. One of the cases I was involved in involved a young Polish girl and it was a Pakistani man that she was supposed to be marrying. She was very vulnerable. She was here on her own. She had no parents back in Poland and I think she was perhaps picked on and was paid a certain amount of money, which—she came over here with almost nothing—she thought might allow her to perhaps start some sort of life. I am not excusing her but there may be reasons why that happens.
Mr Winnick
Indeed, yes. I suppose there is a going price, and in some instances depending on nationality.
Alicja Gilroy
Yes.
Mr Winnick
When it is clear to you, as far as it can be, that it is a sham marriage what do you do? Do you phone the Home Office section dealing with it or what?
Alicja Gilroy
You complete a report. You print a report off our web-based system and then you fill it in and then you usually email it to the Home Office.
Mr Winnick
The Home Office responds pretty quickly, Mr Kershner?
Jonathan Kershner
Obviously there is the notice stage where people are presenting you their documents, and at that point that is when registrars would report a marriage to the Home Office. Then the Home Office have however long it is before the time of the marriage to decide whether they want to come on the day of the marriage and stop the marriage from taking place. If they don’t do that then the marriage—even though we have potentially already identified it as a sham marriage—will have to proceed. Having performed a sham marriage, there is a facility for the person who performed that marriage to also report that couple to the Home Office, even though they are married, that they believe it to be a sham. My understanding about that is that even though they are now married that information will be kept on file and when that person then applies for further leave to remain or for residency, obviously that will be flagged up and taken into account against that application. That is my understanding.
Mr Winnick
Do you have situations where the Home Office come on the scene, as you have explained, and say, “We are of the view that this proposed marriage is not genuine in any way”. In some instances do they simply say, “This is a lie, you are accusing us of something which is not so”.
Alicja Gilroy
You mean the couple or the Home Office?
Mr Winnick
Yes, that is who I meant.
Alicja Gilroy
They have to conduct the interviews with the couple and sometimes at the end of that interview period, it then transpires that the marriage can go ahead even though they may have wanted to disrupt it, for whatever reason—and it is usually an immigration one—it can proceed. Sometimes I have heard nationally that registrars can feel quite disappointed—maybe not disappointed—but you have disrupted a marriage and it may well be that the same couple come before you again the next week to be married, in spite of the fact that an attempt was made to disrupt the marriage.
Mr Winnick
Thank you very much.
Alicja Gilroy
We have a detention centre in Oxfordshire, where people are here illegally and waiting to be deported, and since the removal of the certificate of approval scheme, we now marry people from the detention centre. I think we did three marriages in 2012. We then suspended them following a violent incident in the registry office and we are now about to reinstate them again. So being here illegally, although that often is the reason why a sham marriage has taken place, we are not allowed to report it.
Chair
No, I understand.
Dr Huppert
There has been a lot of stuff covered on this but there are a few things I would be grateful for comments on. If I can start off on this issue about feedback because you have to make a very tough judgment on whether a proposed marriage is real or not. So presumably you would sometimes make a mistake. You think something is suspicious and it turns out to be fine. But if you are getting no information back from the Home Office, for the future how do you know if you are reporting too many or indeed too few? In the last couple of years between you you have reported about 400 and have had no feedback at all.
Alicja Gilroy
Yes.
Dr Huppert
How do you learn whether you are getting it right?
Alicja Gilroy
You don’t really know, do you? You have the situation before you and you make a judgment on that situation. I know that the national panel for registration is trying to do a lot of work with the Home Office at a high level. They invite them along to their quarterly meetings to try to encourage them to cascade information down, and that has allowed us to have names, to invite people along or to get in touch with them. We don’t have much feedback, not on how to improve our section 24 reports, but what they might be looking for. I am not sure that that is in their remit to tell us. Do you? I do not think so.
Jonathan Kershner
I would just add that some of the section 24 reports will not be used until that person applies for further leave to remain, which might be some time in the future. So there probably is a bit of a difficulty in terms of feeding that information back about something that might have been reported over a year ago. But certainly in terms of supporting registrars and encouraging registrars to report, I think we all like feedback in our jobs and it is a motivating factor for all staff.
Dr Huppert
Do you get occasionally to talk to the local staff?
Alicja Gilroy
The immigration staff, yes, we do.
Dr Huppert
Do they ever tell you, “Thanks for those 20 reports, actually three of them were totally legitimate and the others, no”? Do they say anything?
Alicja Gilroy
Not to that level of detail certainly in our case—I do not know about Manchester—but they will tell us; it does not fall into a black hole, as Jonathan has explained. It will form part of the bigger picture when they come to apply for further immigration statuses later.
Dr Huppert
But as I understood it—maybe I misunderstood what Mr Kershner was saying—only sometimes would that be the case. Sometimes presumably you make a report and nothing happens or it is decided it is perfectly legitimate; presumably that must happen.
Jonathan Kershner
The thing is, the report is a report of suspicions. So the registrar had those suspicions, and it is a question of whether those suspicions tie up with information already held by the Home Office on an individual, or subsequently when they come to do a marriage interview with them. If they are planning, for example, to apply for residency and they conduct, I understand, a much more detailed marriage interview with that couple, obviously if a registrar has reported suspicions, they have a feeling that maybe there might be something up with this couple and they might want to probe it further. But again this is only information that has been given to us. I am not 100% certain on how the Home Office operates.
Alicja Gilroy
They do tell us that our report forms the final part of the jigsaw. They do have other information they act on, not just solely on the section 24 report.
Chair
Yes, but do they tell you? Neither of you have reported any reports leading to prosecution.
Alicja Gilroy
I think I have had two, possibly it was one.
Chair
You have had two: one in 2011 and one in 2012.
Alicja Gilroy
Yes, that is right.
Chair
But none from you, Mr Kershner. But as far as we know people might have been prosecuted but you do not know about it.
Jonathan Kershner
I opened the Evening News yesterday and there in the paper in the Crown Court on Friday were two brides and a groom who were prosecuted for this very offence.
Chair
Is this the Bulgarian women who were flown over as part of the game?
Jonathan Kershner
Possibly. I have brought the paper, you can—
Chair
No, I saw the same story.
Jonathan Kershner
But that was the first I had heard of it.
Chair
That was the first time you knew about it?
Jonathan Kershner
If I had not bought the paper on that day I would not have known about it.
Chair
Was that one of the ones you had reported?
Jonathan Kershner
We did report one of the two married women.
Chair
That is extraordinary. There you are collecting vital information and nobody even tells you whether people have been prosecuted.
Jonathan Kershner
There is another step because in terms of prosecutions they tend to come back to registrars asking for statements and registrars have commented, certainly in my office, that they are increasingly being asked to provide statements, which does suggest that prosecutions are taking place. But after that statement stage, if we have not seen it in the paper or if there is not high publicity about it, we would not know.
Chair
Of course, because you are highly professional people. You are providing an incredibly important service. For many people it is the most important day of their lives and therefore you only want to report things that you are suspicious about. You do not want to disrupt the lives of people, even though in years to come they may find it very funny that their marriage was stopped as a sham marriage when they celebrate their 40th anniversary. Certainly at the time it will not seem funny to them. But it seems that it is very clear from the responses we have had from registrars that they are just not getting the feedback. This could help you, in effect, do a better job. As far as civil partnerships are concerned, has the change in the law meant that there has been an increase in the number of section 24 reports? In Manchester, Mr Kershner?
Jonathan Kershner
Not that we are aware of.
Chair
What about in Oxfordshire?
Alicja Gilroy
Same. Not that I am aware of either.
Chair
Your figures show to this Committee that there has been an increase over the years. Is this on the increase?
Alicja Gilroy
I think it is. A gradual increase I would say rather than a dramatic one, but it is on the increase.
Chair
Are those who seek to get married in front of you becoming more sophisticated?
Alicja Gilroy
Very much so. I read the report that John Vine mentioned about Brent, about the texting in the ceremony, about not speaking the same language. In Oxfordshire we do find that they can almost become a little bit more sophisticated with that. Often you will look in the passport and you will see the visa is about to expire in two months and that may be the only thing. You will have an inkling about something but there is nothing on the report that you can tick apart from the fact that there is an immigration breach possibly coming up.
Chair
Mr Kershner, would it help if you had no-notice inspections by the Home Office because presumably the ceremonies are public ceremonies?
Jonathan Kershner
They are, yes.
Chair
So Immigration officers are not excluded from coming and sitting in a public gallery.
Jonathan Kershner
Absolutely not. Anyone can walk into—
Chair
Have you ever known anyone from the enforcement team just to sit there for the day to see what goes on? You have?
Alicja Gilroy
Mine have certainly come and waited in the waiting room.
Chair
Yes, but in the ceremony themselves, because it is a public gallery.
Jonathan Kershner
Not that I am aware of. There have been different waves and we did have some activity in 2010 where the Home Office spent quite—the immigration team spent a few weeks in the registry office working closely with us, which did have some impact but apart from that, not really. They tend to be very polite and always phone and ask whether it is okay if they can come and whether we can find them some parking.
Chair
What we have also seen is an increase in reports by members of the public. That has shot up in recent years to 6,900. Do members of the public contact you all and say, “This is a sham marriage that is happening”?
Alicja Gilroy
I get a lot of emails via the Oxford registry office inbox and I always pass them on to the immigration team to investigate.
Chair
Is that before or after the wedding has taken place?
Alicja Gilroy
It can be a mixture, before and after. But they are always passed on. I do not know what happens with them, I presume it gets added to the case.
Chair
What about you, Mr Kershner?
Jonathan Kershner
Yes, absolutely the same. We do get quite a lot of members of the public writing in. I think the advice we have now been given is that those people should—there is something on the Home Office website where they can submit it and that it is better if they do that rather than us. I am not sure why, there is a legal reason for that.
Chair
We all have constituents who make allegations. We send it to the Home Office website. We do not necessarily get a reply but anyway we try. May I thank both of you for coming in? If there is anything you have missed in your evidence that you want to bring to the attention of the Committee or as a by-product of your coming here—other registrars talk to you and say they have information for this Committee—we would be very pleased to receive it because we do want to have a report that is sensible and straightforward and that will help those who are genuine to have a very good ceremony but those who are involved in a sham marriage to be obviously reported to the relevant authorities, and we are extremely grateful to both of you for coming here. I hope it has not meant that there are any marriages today that have been delayed in Oxfordshire or Manchester.
Alicja Gilroy
No, but I was supposed to have a meeting with my local detention centre about reinstating marriages that I have had to delay. I will have to get that rescheduled.
Chair
Thank you very much for coming. Order order. Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses
Dr Bob McGuiness, Chief Executive, UK Central Government Division, Serco, and James Thorburn, Managing Director, Home Affairs, Serco, gave evidence.
Chair
We now continue with the Select Committee’s inquiry into the work of the Home Office, in particular we are looking at the management of Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre. Could I call to the dais the Chief Executive of the UK for Serco and the Managing Director, Home Affairs, for Serco? Mr McGuiness and Mr Thorburn, thank you very much for coming in to give evidence. What has prompted this evidence session is the Committee’s look at the work of the Home Office and in particular we are, and have been concerned in recent years, about the provision of services by the private sector. This particular session has been prompted by the very serious allegations made about the way in which your staff, Dr McGuiness and Mr Thorburn, have acted at Yarl’s Wood. We are particularly concerned at reports about the alleged assaults on those who are in Yarl’s Wood under your care, who have made very serious allegations about the way in which they have been treated. Are you aware of these reports, Dr McGuiness?
Dr McGuiness
Yes, we are. Yes, I am.
Chair
What would Serco like to say about them at the outset?
Dr McGuiness
Thank you, Mr Chairman. At the outset there are two or three things I would like to say. The first thing is that we take the health, wellbeing and security of those in our care extremely seriously. Now because Yarl’s Wood is what it is, we believe it is a very difficult place, both for the people who are in there, but also for the people trying to manage Yarl’s Wood. We accept completely that a number of incidents have occurred since it has been in our care since 2007, and we believe that all of these have been dealt with. We know, and it is widely known, we receive complaints from whistleblowers and many other sources but also—I think the Committee knows this—we are very correctly subject to regular independent reviews from professional bodies such as the independent monitoring board, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, the Care Quality Commission, and it is on record all of these have strongly endorsed the management of the centre. We would be happy to get into further details as the Committee wishes.
Chair
We are very interested in the details. There is an internal report that you have commissioned that has been published in bits by The Observer, which makes a number of very serious allegations about the way in which your staff have treated the women in the detention centre. One of them of course says this, “The guards would flirt with the detainees. I spoke to some ladies who were in proper relationships with the guards. They used to give these women the impression that, ‘If you sleep with me I will put in a good word for you’”. Another one who says, “You are very vulnerable. You are thinking that if I get closer to this person he might help me out, so many girls were flirting. Two or three had got to the point of having sex in exchange for favours”. This is extremely serious. It is a damning report, is it not, into the way in which your staff have been dealing with the detainees at Yarl’s Wood. These are people who have no access to the outside world.
Dr McGuiness
Mr Chairman, there are a number of points there. The first one is that I do not accept some of the statements and allegations made here, but we are very happy to deal with these incident by incident and examine the facts as much as we can.
Chair
There must be some truth in this. Are you saying they have all been made up? You cannot believe all these women have independently decided to make complaints about your guards. You commissioned an internal report that has all this information in it. You resist publication of this report, even though you are all in receipt of public money. How much public money does your company get from the Home Office in respect of the detention centres that you run every year?
Dr McGuiness
About £12.5 million per year.
Chair
Exactly. That is £12.5—
Dr McGuiness
For Yarl’s Wood.
Chair
That is just for Yarl’s Wood. That is £12.5 million of taxpayers’ money so there is a right for this Committee and the public to know how the detainees are being treated. Public money is clearly not being given for your guards to ill treat women or detainees in Yarl’s Wood; that is correct, is it not?
Dr McGuiness
Mr Chairman, I accept that completely.
Chair
Therefore do you want to take this opportunity to apologise to those women who had to make these allegations about the guards who work in Yarl’s Wood for which you are paid £12.5 million?
Dr McGuiness
Mr Chairman, if I may, I would like to comment specifically on the report but before I do that, your last point, we set very high standards for ourselves and our staff. As I have explained, there have been a number of specific incidents, well documented, over the years—seven years since 2007—and on those instances where we have fallen short of the standards that we have set for ourselves I absolutely am sorry and apologise for those cases.
Chair
How many of those cases are we talking about where you feel that you owe an apology to those women and other detainees involved? How many are you apologising for or is it a general apology?
Dr McGuiness
It is a general apology for those cases where we have fallen short.
Chair
So how many of those were there?
Dr McGuiness
I would like to hand to my colleague who has the detail better than I. If you would like me to answer it I will.
Chair
If you could give us the numbers.
James Thorburn
Seven.
Chair
So you are coming to this Committee to apologise to seven individuals for whom you believe you have fallen short of the very high standards that you say Serco has in respect of these detention centres, is that right, Mr Thorburn?
James Thorburn
May I clarify a few points here?
Chair
If you could answer that question. Are you apologising for those seven cases?
James Thorburn
If you could allow me just to clarify. There are 31 cases out of around about 30,000 women who have been in our care over the last seven years within Yarl’s Wood. Thirty-one cases and we have taken the broadest definition of what may be a complaint of a sexual nature. In those 31 cases we have dismissed, or people have resigned during the process—we have had eight cases, 10 people who have been dismissed during that time.
Chair
Mr Thorburn, this is not an issue of a percentage. This is not a World Cup match. How many matches do you win? Even if it is a single case of a person in your care having been subjected to what is in the broadest possible definition a sexual allegation, that is very serious. Do you not accept that?
James Thorburn
Where those cases have been substantiated we absolutely apologise for that.
Chair
So that is seven cases?
Dr McGuiness
No, it is not. It is 10 people, eight cases.
Chair
It is 10? Ten people?
James Thorburn
Ten people have been dismissed as a result of eight cases.
Chair
And eight cases. So the seven cases you were referring to, Mr McGuiness, are these a different seven or the seven we just got the figure on?
Dr McGuiness
Seven of the eight, and it is a question of detail. I would stand by the detail that James has—he is closer to it than I am—but we absolutely—I agree with you completely that one case is too many. I agree. In those cases,—and it is right the cases and the individuals are two different numbers—the number of individuals I think correctly is 10.
Chair
How often are you inspected by the Home Office? How often does a senior member of the Home Office come into Yarl’s Wood and look and see the things that you are doing there, Mr Thorburn?
James Thorburn
There are permanent members of the Home Office on site. An oversight team who have officers on site and are permanently there.
Chair
How many are there?
James Thorburn
There are several. There are three who are there most of the time but then of course there are all the case workers onsite as well. But perhaps I could set this in context because one of the things that you remarked on was access to the outside environment. A picture that has been portrayed of Yarl’s Wood is as a closed institution and I do not recognise that picture. Let me explain why. We are overseen by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons who produced a report in summer last year, and they returned specifically after that following various media allegations to do a specific follow-up audit of the centre in relation to the sexual allegations. They interviewed 50 detainees, 12 members of staff, and they came to the conclusion that they found, and I quote, “No evidence that a wider culture of victimisation or systemic abuse had developed”. And further following one of the cases that has been widely reported, they found that, “Steps have been taken to minimise the risk of sexual relations incidents occurring again, including training”. In addition to this we have the IMB, the independent monitoring board, set up by the Secretary of State to review her permanent officers on site. We are reviewed by the Detention Centre Services Monitoring Unit from the Home Office who review six monthly. We have our own internal central audit team as well as self-audit within the contract.
Chair
That is what worries me and the Committee. The fact you have all these people in there doing all these important things, monitoring everything that you do, but still there are seven members of staff that you have had to dismiss because using the broadest possible definition of what a sexual assault is they have fallen below the standards. Define for me “the broadest possible definition of a sexual allegation.”
James Thorburn
We view anything that could be construed in any way sexually as the broadest possible definition.
Chair
Give me the definition, since that is the definition.
James Thorburn
Shall I give you the breakdown of the 31, would that be helpful?
Chair
No, give me the definition. Give me the definition that you are testing all these dismissals on and what you have said to this Committee. What is the broadest possible definition of a sexual assault? I have never heard this term before.
James Thorburn
This is where it could be surmised that there could be any suggestion of any sexual element to the complaint. For example, sometimes where members of staff might overstep professional boundaries in having an inappropriate conversation about their personal lives or personal circumstances, we would include that. Where a member of staff might put their arm around a detainee—these are very vulnerable women—they may consider that an inappropriate approach or sexual approach within the environment that we are in. We also have situations where when we use—in the very few instances—control and restraint, where several officers are moving someone to the Care and Separation Unit, that can sometimes give rise to complaints against them. They are a broad spectrum.
Chair
A statement that is used, when she approached with a problem of headaches and dizziness, she approached one of your staff and he responded she did not need medication but needed his penis. Is that part of your definition?
James Thorburn
Absolutely, sir, that would be part of that definition.
Chair
So that person has been dismissed? Has that person be dismissed?
James Thorburn
The person that you are referring to is in the report and in that case—
Chair
The person who made that comment, which you regard as being totally unacceptable—and I agree with you, it is totally unacceptable—has that person been dismissed?
James Thorburn
That is unacceptable if it is true.
Chair
But has he been dismissed?
James Thorburn
The nurse in that case?
Chair
Yes.
James Thorburn
No, that nurse has not been dismissed.
Chair
So even having used those terms or been alleged to have used those terms, you do not think that this person should even be moved somewhere else? All the people who remain there, the 31 minus the seven, they are still working at Yarl’s Wood?
James Thorburn
No. We may be talking about a different case, I am not sure, but if you are referring—
Chair
This is from your internal report, which I assume you have studied.
James Thorburn
This is the internal report that has been in the media, and The Observer and The Guardian.
Chair
It has been and we would like a copy of this, so could you please send us a copy?
James Thorburn
We would be happy to provide a copy of that report, sir.
Chair
Because I know that the solicitors acting for some of these women asked for a copy to be sent to the Chief Inspector and to this Committee six months ago. The Observer asked for disclosure of this six months ago but neither of them were given a copy. I can understand why you may not want to give it to a newspaper but there is no problem with giving it to this Committee?
James Thorburn
No, of course not, sir.
Dr McGuiness
Mr Chairman, may I comment on that please because you have referred to this report a number of times?
Chair
Of course.
Dr McGuiness
The situation is we will always attempt to comply fully with all authorities. The report I believe you are now referring to was an internal disciplinary report, which contains very sensitive information and contains names not only of the individual who made the claim and the complaint but the individual against whom it was made and a number of witnesses.
Chair
Who are still working there?
Dr McGuiness
Absolutely.
James Thorburn
May I clarify—
Chair
This is a Committee of the House and we will be very careful what we publish but we will publish it. If you wish to send it to us we will undertake—
Dr McGuiness
We will send it happily to you.
Chair
—not to breach your confidences.
Dr McGuiness
I would very much like to explain why, with your permission.
Chair
Why what?
Dr McGuiness
Why we went through the process we did with The Observer. We provided this report, it is a sensitive internal report. We provided it as we always would to authorities. We provided it to the police. We provided it to the Home Office. We did not provide it upon request to the newspaper for two reasons. We have a duty of care to our staff, both the individual named, but also the witnesses who contributed of their own free will to the investigation, which is what we all want. In addition to that, we raised the matter with Bedford Police. There was a separate investigation being carried out by them at this time and when we explained what was going on, we asked if they had concerns and they told us they did have concerns and they would prefer it not to be provided. When this went before the court and the court found that it should be published, we complied immediately and we will continue to do so.
Chair
Very helpful. Just before I bring in Dr Huppert, could I just ask you: have you now paid the Ministry of Justice the fine that they asked you to pay as a result of your overcharging the Ministry of Justice for tagging?
Dr McGuiness
Yes.
Chair
What was the total that you paid?
Dr McGuiness
£68.5 million.
Chair
£68.5 million. But the contract that you have for Yarl’s Wood with the Home Office is worth £12.5 million.
Dr McGuiness
Yes.
Chair
What is the total amount of the contracts that you currently have with the Home Office? What is the value?
Dr McGuiness
With the Home Office—
James Thorburn
£104 million, sir.
Chair
£104 million. Your total amount of money that you get from the taxpayer for all your contracts with the UK plc is what?
Dr McGuiness
£1.5 billion per annum.
Chair
So if I get the figures right for the record. £12.5 million for Yarl’s Wood. £104 million for the Home Office contracts. £1.5 billion for the total amount of money you get paid by the UK Government in one form or the other, and the overcharging of the taxpayer was £68.5 million, which you have now paid back?
Dr McGuiness
Yes.
Chair
In full?
Dr McGuiness
In full.
Chair
Thank you. Dr Huppert.
Dr Huppert
Mr Thorburn, it was interesting you quoted from the independent inspectors’ report and you had a particular sentence. Have you read the next sentence and the one after that because it was not quite as clear cut as the extract you had?
James Thorburn
I am sure I have but—
Dr Huppert
Because immediately after your quote was, “However this exercise reinforced our view that women’s histories of victimisation were not sufficiently acknowledged by the authorities. There are insufficient female staff for a predominantly women’s establishment. Women detainees complain that male staff enter their rooms without waiting for reply after knocking”. The report went on to talk about under reporting of victimisation. Apparently the annual bullying survey had fallen into disuse, which strikes me as an odd way to make sure you are avoiding bullying. “Staff had no specific training in recognising and managing the particular vulnerability of the female population.” Does that not sound somewhat alarming to you?
James Thorburn
I do not recognise that description. We have at the moment—
Dr Huppert
Do you want page references?
James Thorburn
Yes, but I am saying that, being in the centre, I do not recognise that description in the centre. We have at the moment just over 50% male staff, 50:50. We are very actively trying to bring on more female staff. There are a variety of things that we are doing. We are trying to understand in the local community the reason why more women do not apply. In a recent induction and training course, 75% were female applicants, so we are trying to increase the numbers of female staff that we have within the centre. We are trying to put on bus services locally in case there are one-car families, and so on, to try to make that easier. What we also have is a very clear policy on door-knocking, when people go round and do the calls. We absolutely try to make sure that that is females in all cases that we can, and there is a very clear policy on how a door should be knocked, clearly announcing presence, clearly announcing if it is a male, opening the door a little bit before going into the room to try to make sure that there is no inappropriate coming through a door by a male member of staff. There was a quote that said very clearly there was very little victimisation, little evidence of victimisation within that same report that you are quoting. We run a safe and respectful establishment. Staff/detainee relationships were very good and we were very pleased with that report, which rated us good on all four of the standards that we were assessed on. In terms of training we have a seven-week induction and training course before any member of staff gets their badge to work as a detention custody officer, and every year two and a half days of annual refresher training. I go up to the centre a lot and I speak a lot with the management team about what is going on in the centre. They are absolutely mortified and horrified by the impression that is created by the stories that have been going round. We welcome the CQC, the Care and Quality Commission, report about our health care; the HM Chief Inspector of Prison’s report and the ratings that it gave us overall in that centre; the independent monitoring board report that was published about a month ago—within the last month—all of which give a very favourable view of the overall establishment.
Dr Huppert
I am fascinated, Mr Thorburn, because you say you recognise all the bits of these reports that say how well you are doing, but you do not recognise the bits in it that say how badly you are doing. Surely if they are getting it wrong you would expect they would be getting it wrong in each direction.
James Thorburn
Do give me the page and reference number so I can look at it.
Dr Huppert
For example, S6 at the bottom of page 13 is where it says, “Staff had no specific training in recognising and managing the particular vulnerability of the female population”. If you give me a moment while somebody else asks a question, I can give you the references for every other quote because they are taken from the exact report. On other issues, the report specifically criticises several times the process of men being the people who go into the rooms, that they were not announced. That is what is described in this report. If you are trying to change that, that is a good step. But there are some quite serious criticisms in here, particularly around women. I will get you the references that I quoted and the exact page numbers. Just another quick question for either of you: when was the last person who died in Yarl’s Wood?
James Thorburn
It was a lady called Christine Case who recently passed away and has been the only death in the centre in the last seven years since we have run it.
Dr Huppert
Because there were some interesting claims about whether she was given the medical attention that was necessary, whether it was turned away, whether there was support given for other people who witnessed this. I have seen that you deny that there was any basis for that. Are all the people who are witnesses still in the country and able to give evidence at the inquest?
James Thorburn
I do not know the answer to that question. I know that there is an inquest going on at the moment but I do not know the answer to that question.
Dr Huppert
Presumably you would want to encourage the Home Office to make sure they were able to give evidence because if there was culpability you would presumably want to be transparent about it.
James Thorburn
Yes, absolutely. This was a tragic event. I will be careful about what I say because it is under a coroner’s inquest at the moment, as you will appreciate, and there is also a Prisons and Probation Ombudsman review going on at the moment as well as our own investigation, as would always happen in any case of a death in custody. But please be reassured of the seriousness that we have attached to this. It was a tragic event and I will await the findings but if I may say, in what I have seen so far, and in speaking to staff who attended at the event, and what I know from our own internal records, I have not seen anything to suggest that this was anything other than a very tragic and very sudden death. Indeed, in the coroner’s hearing that is going on at the moment, the independent GP who was commissioned by the coroner has said, “I do not consider that this acute event could have been predicted nor prevented by the medical staff at Yarl’s Wood”. An ambulance was called within three minutes of the collapse that happened and the panic button being pressed, and my view is I cannot see anything to say that our staff did not act entirely appropriately and in line with all our policies and procedures in such an event. [Interruption.]
Chair
Order, order. Members of the public gallery cannot—sorry, order. I will suspend the session and we will end the inquiry if people interrupt witnesses from the public gallery. It is not in order. I apologise to you for that. Please continue.
Dr Huppert
We will see what the inquiry has to say about it. Just one last thing, I cannot remember now which one of you it was who said you were very upset at the idea of Yarl’s Wood being seen as closed. I am afraid I did not write down which of you it was.
James Thorburn
That was me.
Dr McGuiness
I agree.
Dr Huppert
There have been some reports that some international observers have not been allowed in to have a look. Presumably you do not want it to be closed so you would want international observers to be able to come and have a look. Can you clarify that for me?
James Thorburn
Absolutely. The idea that this is closed, all the detainees have mobile phones and there are no restrictions on being able to call out of the centre. They have access to IT facilities and the internet so that they are able to get on to sites like Yahoo and Hotmail and their internet accounts. We have not only the review bodies that I talked about but a lot of charities and other monitors coming through. Even though it is a secure establishment it is a very busy establishment: legal aid agencies; lawyers—we are dealing with several thousand lawyers a year coming in and meeting—we have the Befrienders who come in and work with detainees; we have Hibiscus; we have a variety of charities on site, so this is a very involved—
Dr Huppert
Again on page 26 of the report it says, “Detainees are not allowed to keep mobile phones with them during legal and social visits”.
James Thorburn
During legal and social visits but they have them in the centre at all other times.
Dr Huppert
Just to be clear on the question I asked. You would welcome international observers; you have no desire to ban international observers from coming in to have a look?
James Thorburn
We are very happy for anyone that the Home Office is happy to come in to view the centre.
Dr Huppert
So you rely on the Home Office to stop people coming in rather than—
James Thorburn
Yes, that would be a decision that would be made by the Home Office, not by us.
Dr Huppert
But you would be entirely relaxed if they were to say yes.
James Thorburn
We are entirely relaxed, yes.
Dr McGuiness
Mr Chairman, if I may comment on that because I feel very strongly about this. We welcome openness. I think you will find in that specific instance there was a ministerial decision. It is not in our gift.
Chair
Is this Rashida Manjoo?
Dr McGuiness
I beg your pardon?
James Thorburn
Yes.
Chair
Is this Rashida Manjoo who is not allowed to come in?
Dr McGuiness
Yes.
Chair
You do not make that decision?
Dr McGuiness
We do not make that decision but if I may make our position clear to this Committee, we welcome openness and— correctly it is not in my gift—but we would very much welcome if the Committee were to come and visit.
Dr Huppert
Were you in any way consulted about it?
Dr McGuiness
I beg your pardon?
Dr Huppert
Were you consulted on that particular case?
Chair
Rashida Manjoo, were you consulted about whether Rashida Manjoo could come and visit?
James Thorburn
I am not familiar. I think that the lady concerned, the special rapporteur for the UN, that she turned up announced and without any arrangement, so in those circumstances where someone turns up like that we would certainly seek the guidance of the Home Office.