Oral evidence: Immigration detention, HC 913
Oral evidence, 8 May 2018.
Witnesses
Peter Clarke CVO OBE QPM and Hindpal Singh Bhui.
Chair
Can I welcome everybody to this session of the Home Affairs inquiry into immigration detention and welcome our first witnesses before us? Can I just ask you to introduce yourselves?
Peter Clarke
I am Peter Clarke. I am the Chief Inspector of Prisons.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I am Hindpal Singh Bhui. I am the Inspection Team Leader. I lead on immigration for the Inspectorate of Prisons.
Chair
Thank you very much. We have obviously seen some of your previous reports and so on. What is it that most concerns you about the operation of immigration detention at the moment? Mr Clarke.
Peter Clarke
From my perspective, the biggest issue is the uncertainty and the distress that is felt by so many detainees because of the lack of clarity as to what the future holds for them. Many of them go into detention and they simply do not know how long they are going to be there for, they do not know how their case is going to be resolved, they do not know whether they are going to be released back into the community, and of course some 50% of those who are detained are released back into the community at some stage. That lack of clarity as to the future we have seen cause considerable distress to those held in detention.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I agree with all of that. I think that the biggest issue when we go into immigration detention is that people are very distressed. There is a very deep level of emotional distress among detainees and uncertainty about when they are going to be released is key in that. We have been concerned as well about the level of vulnerability of detainees over a period of time. One of the biggest issues recently that we have been concerned about, for example, is the number of deaths in detention over the last couple of years. They have risen very markedly, including self-inflected deaths.
Chair
We have also seen quite a lot of cases where people seem to be detained for a long time, including individual cases where it is not clear why, cases of people being detained nine months, three months, five months, but with no clarity about why that was needed. As I understand it, 10,000 people last year were detained for more than 28 days. Do those figures sound right to you?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I am not sure about the figures, but I would not be surprised.
Peter Clarke
In terms of an example, the exact figures globally are not something we would routinely look at, because we are looking at treatment and conditions in individual establishments. In terms of individual establishments, I can tell you that when we inspected Harmondsworth last year, there were 23 people there who had been held for more than one year. Although most people do go through reasonably quickly, within a matter of weeks or a low number of months, there are significant numbers—as I say, 23 in Harmondsworth—that are held for extended periods.
Chair
What tend to be the main reasons why people are held for those extended periods?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Often there are issues around travel documentation, there are issues around late appeals that are put in, but there are also consistent issues around the efficiency of the Home Office case-working and that can delay someone’s release or someone’s removal. For example, there are a number of people held in prisons at the moment, about 400 or so, who are detained under immigration powers. They should be case-worked from the 18-month period before the end of sentence, but often they are not, so many of them would end up being detained after sentence. There are a number of people who are waiting for asylum claims to be dealt with. For example, again in Harmondsworth, we found someone who had not had a claim dealt with for a year. In another IRC we found seven months’ delay in dealing with an asylum claim. There are all sorts of issues, but case-working is a concern of ours as well.
Chair
That was somebody who had been held in an IRC for seven months while an asylum claim was pending and with no progress on that case for the seven months while they were in detention?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
It had not been resolved in that time, that is true, yes.
Chair
Don’t you find that shocking?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Yes. We raised it and published in our report, because we were very concerned about the length of time that people who we felt were quite vulnerable were being held.
Chair
What sense do you get of the response from the Home Office to your reports?
Peter Clarke
I have to say, I am afraid it is variable. You would not want me to be anything other than frank, I am sure. One of the key issues is that we are not a regulator and we do not inspect against Home Office policy, so whether somebody is complying with their internal policies or not is not really our concern. Our concern, as with all the inspection of detention that we do, is the outcomes for either prisoners or detainees and we inspect against international human rights standards. That sometimes causes a certain degree of friction. I have to say that in our dealings—my dealings since I have been in this job and I am now in my third year doing this—remember that we inspect prisons of behalf of the Ministry of Justice, military detentions on behalf of the Ministry of Defence and court and police custody on behalf of another part of the Home Office, I have found I have had more pushback and resistance to our findings from the immigration enforcement part of the Home Office than anywhere else. As an example of the slowness of the response, as you know, we inspect immigration removal centres and short-term holding facilities and overseas escorts. The agreement we have with the Home Office is that three months after the publication of our report in any of these cases, an improvement plan or an action plan—call it what you like—will be published by the Home Office. This seems to have fallen away. Last November I wrote to the then Immigration Minister, Mr Lewis, to point out that we had at that stage a dozen outstanding service improvement plans dating back to December 2016. The inspection had been in September 2016 and the action plan had been due in 2016. We still had not received anything in December. In early February this year, I received a letter from the new Immigration Minister, Caroline Nokes, apologising for that delay and saying that things would improve and that it was her personal priority to make things happen. Unfortunately nothing has happened and now the number of outstanding improvement plans has increased and we still have not had an improvement plan dating back—this is Edinburgh Airport, a short-term holding facility—to December 2016. I suppose—
Chair
How many of them are there in total?
Peter Clarke
At the moment, 16. I suppose what it leads me to think, rightly or wrongly, is if I have this degree of difficulty in getting a response, what must it be like for detainees?
Kirstene Hair
From that line of questioning, would I be correct in saying that you would both agree—and forgive me if I have interpreted this wrongly—that indeed there should be a time limit on detention?
Peter Clarke
We are, as the Inspectorate of Prisons, members of the National Preventative Mechanism. There are 21 members representing those who monitor, inspect or regulate detention in the UK. The NPM has said that there should be a time limit on detention. They have not specified what that time limit should be, but as members, we accede to that position and agree with it. We too have not articulated a particular length of time, but I think that if there were a time limit, I know the argument that says that would render the system more vulnerable to abuse, but at the same time, it might focus minds on achieving timeliness in casework.
Kirstene Hair
Did you want to come in on that?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Just to agree. I think there is a fundamental problem with the lack of a time limit, which is that it does not put enough pressure on the Home Office to casework efficiently and quickly. All too often we see cases where a kind of standoff develops, where the Home Office is really waiting for detainees to give up, whereas what we would rather they were doing was working very efficiently and effectively and quickly to resolve cases.
Kirstene Hair
You think it ensures that they work less efficiently, essentially?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I think it would help them to work more efficiently if they had a deadline.
Kirstene Hair
You mentioned about a time period. Obviously France and Ireland have significantly less, I think 28 and 32 days. You said you did not want to put a time on that, but do you think that we could come down to two months, three months? How far do you think that it could be reined in from what it is at the moment, just from your experiences?
Peter Clarke
I have not personally come to a determination as to what an appropriate time limit should be. Perhaps what there needs to be is a stricter interpretation of the current position, which is there has to be a realistic prospect of removal. Perhaps a stricter or more robust approach to that, combined perhaps with an ultimate time limit, would be more helpful. But at the moment, it would appear that what a realistic prospect of removal means seems to be a somewhat unclear and rather opaque concept.
Kirstene Hair
Would you say during that period that the Home Office provides adequate communication and evidence for that continued detention?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I think that varies as well. There are monthly reviews of detention, which are given to detainees. They have improved, I have to say, but they still routinely will repeat similar things from previous reviews. The biggest piece of evidence is what detainees tell us when we go into immigration detention, which is quite often they are not too sure about what is going in their cases, so I think there is a problem in communication with detainees. There are immigration officers onsite in detention facilities. They tend to be people who are not working the cases. The caseworkers are remote, they are located somewhere else. The people onsite usually do quite a good job of trying to communicate between the caseworkers, who are remote, and the detainees, but at the end of the day, the information flow is affected by the fact that it is not direct and certainly detainees still complain to us quite regularly about the lack of information and communication.
Kirstene Hair
The level of uncertainty around the communication as well as this indefinite detention, do you think these two aspects have a very significant impact on the self-harm and the mental health issues that we see and hear about?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
There was a very extensive review done of mental health in detention for the Shaw review. Stephen Shaw’s evidence suggested that the longer people are in detention, the worse mental health problems become and that there were significant and serious problems with mental health in detention. Whether there is a direct relationship between the length of time in detention and suicidal ideation or self-harm, it is very difficult to say. We have not done a direct piece of research on that, but it absolutely would not surprise me if that were the case.
Kirstene Hair
In terms of the examples that I cited earlier around France and Ireland, I have not seen specific evidence. I just wondered if you had any around whether they have similar issues with mental health and self-harm, for example, on the basis that those that go in know that they will only be there for an absolute maximum of approximately a month and obviously a lot of the time their cases are processed significantly quicker.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I have not seen international evidence on that, but given again the evidence that the length of time affects mental health, I would be surprised if the level of mental distress is as high as it is in our system.
Stuart C. McDonald
Could I ask, do you have a view on whether screening processes to identify vulnerable people are working or otherwise?
Peter Clarke
If I give a fairly simplistic view to it—and Hindpal can no doubt put some more detail around it—the fact that some 50% of people who come into immigration detention are at some point released immediately suggests to me that screening is not as perhaps effective or as thorough as it could be. Otherwise, the very serious decision to put somebody into detention, one would have thought would have led to a lower subsequent release rate than 50%.
Stuart C. McDonald
But you would not go as far as saying that all the 50% who are released are vulnerable people?
Peter Clarke
I could not possibly say that, but in terms of vulnerability, we certainly have concerns.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Yes, absolutely. I think there is some evidence there are certainly fewer people going into detention at the moment, which is good, but the number of people who are vulnerable in detention does not appear to have reduced greatly. To give you some examples, when we inspected Harmondsworth last year, about 30% of the population was considered to be at level 2 or above of the Home Office’s at-risk policy, level 2 or above in terms of vulnerability. In Yarl’s Wood, it was about a fifth. There are large numbers of people who the Home Office themselves consider to be vulnerable who are in detention. In some cases, it can be very serious. Again, looking at Harmondsworth, we did a sample of rule 35 cases and in a sample of 10 cases, nine out of 10 of those cases had evidence of torture and every one of those people had detention maintained, despite the evidence of torture being accepted. There are certainly people who are vulnerable in detention and we have not seen clear evidence of the numbers reducing.
Stuart C. McDonald
I will come back to rule 35 in a moment, but just going back to the issue of screening, what should happen at the outset and why is it not picking them up? Alternatively, there was a little bit of what you said there, that the Home Office knows that some of these people are vulnerable, 30% and 20% in those detention centres that you mentioned. Why are they still being detained, even though the Home Office have identified them as vulnerable?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We do not look at the time before people come into detention, so it is quite difficult for us to comment on how that screening process is working. When they come into detention, however, they should have an initial screening. The Home Office staff should see them, do an induction interview and any relevant information should be passed on to the Home Office. If vulnerability develops in detention, then the rule 35 process could kick in. It is a concern that there are so many vulnerable people there, but I am not absolutely sure about why it is so many are coming in in the first place.
Stuart C. McDonald
I take it from what you have said that you have some problems with how the rule 35 process is working as well. We had some evidence, for example, that there can sometimes be delays between a request for a rule 35 and it actually happening and also issues about the Home Office ignoring or overruling rule 35 requests.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Yes. We have looked quite closely at rule 35, for obvious reasons, over a period of time. I do not think I can recall a single inspection where we have not had a number of cases where we have been concerned about the level of detail, the level of quality of the initial reports. Often we have a concern about the responses coming back. If the initial report is not of good enough quality and does not have enough evidence in it, then it is quite difficult for the Home Office to make a determination on whether or not someone should stay in detention. There are other issues around rule 35. Torture is only one reason why a rule 35 could be considered, but almost all the rule 35 reports we see are about torture. Just to give you another example, we were in a detention centre recently where there were 60 people who had been considered to be at risk of self-harm over the previous six months and half of them were considered to be at such a high level of risk that they were under constant supervision by the staff, yet there were no rule 35s at all on suicidal ideation, which is another reason why you could have a report put in. It is a concern that the terms of rule 35 are perhaps being interpreted a little too narrowly for our liking.
Stuart C. McDonald
They are only really only engaged when torture is involved?
Peter Clarke
Quite.
Stuart C. McDonald
That brings me on to the adults at risk policy. Is that one of the problems here, in that it appears to—if I understand the evidence right—focus very much on victims of torture rather than broader categories of vulnerable people?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Yes, I think that is one of the issues that could be raised with the policy. When we looked back at rule 35 and put it alongside the adults at risk policy to see what is happening, it seems that since the adults at risk policy came in, the number of successful rule 35s has gone down. It is quite hard to understand this trend. I am guessing that it could only be because of something within the policy that mitigates against releases taking place. At one point there were up to 30% releases following rule 35s being submitted. That has gone down to around 10% or 15% now and the reasons for that are not very clear, but you could infer that it has something to do with the at risk policy.
Chair
Sorry, just to clarify that, you could infer what?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Because the number of successful rule 35s has reduced since the adults at risk policy was implemented, it would seem that the two are somehow linked.
Stuart C. McDonald
But you are not clear on what that link is?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I am hesitant to make a clear determination about what is going on there.
Stuart C. McDonald
But if we were to explore it with the Immigration Minister, for example, what sort of lines do you think would be worth exploring?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I think the direct question might be helpful.
Stuart C. McDonald
Sure. Any other comments on the adults at risk policy, whether it is up to the job and other improvements that you would like to see to that particular policy?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I think that was our principal concern.
Stuart C. McDonald
There has obviously been considerable controversy about the definition of torture and I think the Government have now laid their replacement policy before Parliament. Have you any thoughts on that particular—
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I think our role will be to examine the impact of that new definition and to see what is happening in detention. I know there is a raging debate about the definition and about the propriety of it. I think our proper role probably is to look at what happens.
Peter Clarke
As so often with these issues, we will look very carefully to see the way in which the new policy is being interpreted and whether we feel that that is appropriate.
Chair
Can I just clarify, you said 90% of rule 35 cases are staying in detention; you said only 10% lead to release?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
No, sorry. We look at a sample of 10 rule 35 cases in every IRC we go to. I gave an example of one IRC where nine out of 10 of those cases, there was evidence of torture accepted and all of those had detention maintained. It is a more specific point than—
Chair
They are admittedly small samples. Nevertheless, on your small samples, 90% of those cases, where there is significant evidence of torture, people are still continuing to be detained?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
In that very small sample, yes, but overall 10% to 15% of rule 35 reports at the moment are successful.
Peter Clarke
I think the point about that particular sample was the evidence of torture was accepted by the Home Office. It was not as if it was contested. It was accepted, but nevertheless, detention was maintained.
Chair
In that 85% more broadly of rule 35 cases that are not successful—and by successful, do you mean lead to a release from detention?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Yes.
Chair
In that remaining 85%, do you have a sense of what proportion of those it is accepted that there has been torture that they have then been overruled by other immigration considerations and what proportion are cases where they have concluded that there is no evidence of torture?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I am afraid we do not have the analysis of all those cases. We only have the evidence from our own sample.
Chair
But you would expect the Home Office to do a systematic analysis of that?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I would, yes.
Stephen Doughty
I want to ask you both about the decision that was snuck out by the Home Office on Friday about Brook House and G4S continuing to operate for another two years. Were you aware of that decision and were you surprised by it?
Peter Clarke
We were not aware of the decision. We have absolutely no part to play at all in the contractual arrangements between the Home Office and service providers such as G4S. I cannot really express surprise or otherwise. I was not aware of what was happening. I have to say, we do not take a view at all on the appropriateness or otherwise of these services being provided by the public or the private sector. It is exactly the same as in prisons. We look at the treatment and conditions of those who are being held, not at who is doing it and at what cost. We are almost exclusively focused on outputs and outcomes, not inputs.
Stephen Doughty
But given the outcomes we saw, particularly in the BBC “Panorama” investigation into Brook House, and given that there is an ongoing review—the Lampard review—into that, which I understand has not yet reported, what were your thoughts about what you saw at Brook House in that “Panorama” programme and subsequent allegations that have come out, not only just about there, but about other places? Do you feel that those are now being dealt with, listened to, responded to?
Peter Clarke
Clearly there are several inquiries going on into what happened at Brook House. My immediate response on seeing that “Panorama” was, I am sure, very similar to everybody else. It was absolute disgust at seeing what would appear to have been ill-treatment of detainees. From an inspectorate point of view, of course our concern was that we had inspected Brook House in November 2016. The abuse that was portrayed on “Panorama” apparently took place at some time after that and it was of great concern to us to understand whether or not our inspection, which is inevitably a snapshot, had missed something wrong in terms of culture or ill-treatment. The context is that we go in and inspect over the course of a fortnight. What it would appear had happened is that neither the senior management of the centre nor the independent monitoring board, who are there all the time, nor the Home Office monitors, nor the many NGOs who work in the centre, they did not appear to be aware of what was going on either.
Stephen Doughty
Why do you think that was, that they were not aware, given that extensive regime you have just described?
Peter Clarke
That I do not know. I could guess, through my previous experience in a different life: when poor culture infects a unit or sub-unit in a large organisation, usually that is due to lack of intrusive and effective first-line or second-line supervision. That is just my own experience in a different organisation. What we saw on “Panorama” was apparently people who were first-line supervisors taking part in what appeared to be poor behaviour. Our concern as an inspectorate was to establish whether we had missed this, what was going on. What we did subsequently is employ what has been termed and what we have termed an enhanced methodology at subsequent inspections—and Hindpal can explain exactly what that is, because he has used it before at Yarl’s Wood—to try to find this very thing. Are our snapshot inspections missing this sort of thing?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Shall I explain a little bit more about it?
Stephen Doughty
Yes, sure.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
The methodology we used subsequent at Brook House has involved offering every detainee an interview. We would talk to lots of detainees anyway and we do a survey of detainees, but we decided to offer a physical interview with an interpreter to every single detainee in the centre. The biggest difference, I guess, is that we are now trying to canvass far more intrusively the views of staff. I think what happened in Brook House was that there was maybe a bigger group of staff who knew what was going on, but did not tell anyone. How do you get to that kind of information? Perhaps the only way to do that is to give staff a chance to confidentially tell people like us what is happening so that we can look in a bit more detail. We now do a full staff survey and we also go and interview a number of individual staff from all agencies working in the centre. We also write to the NGOs involved in the centre beforehand and ask for intelligence and we also invite ex-detainees to speak to us as well through those NGOs.
Stephen Doughty
It sounds like that is an idea, because obviously it was a staff whistle-blower who largely came forward with the information. Since the “Panorama” programme, what concerns have you had raised with you about G4S in particular that you have communicated onwards to the Home Office or that you have taken as part of your overall inspections?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
About G4S itself, I think it is difficult for me to say, because obviously all the centres are run by different organisations.
Stephen Doughty
Yes, but specifically G4S facilities I am asking about.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
There are only two, Tinsley House and Brook House. We have not been back to Brook House since the “Panorama” programme.
Stephen Doughty
You have not been back?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We have not been back to Brook House, no.
Stephen Doughty
Have you had contact with any staff or any detainees at Brook House?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We have seen some detainees in other centres who were at Brook House and we have recently inspected Tinsley House; that was only a couple of weeks ago. They share some staff with Brook House.
Stephen Doughty
What did you find there at Tinsley House?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Tinsley House we found to be relatively well-run. We did our intrusive methodology there as well. We spoke to a lot of staff; we spoke to a lot of detainees. The staff at Tinsley House were quite happy working in Tinsley House, but one consistent finding was that they were all quite concerned about working in Brook House.
Stephen Doughty
Why haven’t you been back to Brook House since the allegations broke?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
It has only been about a year and a half or so since we went to Brook House in 2016. Our methodology and our funding allows us to go back to centres roughly every two to three years.
Stephen Doughty
Have you been able to take part in the Lampard review?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We are being consulted, yes, by Kate Lampard.
Stephen Doughty
You have been consulted?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We spoke to them extensively.
Stephen Doughty
So essentially the Home Office has made a decision here to extend G4S’s contract at Brook House and Tinsley House without you having gone back to Brook House and while a review is ongoing; that is correct?
Peter Clarke
We cannot possibly comment on what has been going through the Home Office’s mind when they are reaching a decision, but we have not been back to do another inspection. We are funded for a certain amount of inspection activity.
Stephen Doughty
That is quite concerning. Just in terms of the specific issue of drugs that was also highlighted in that exposure, across the immigration detention estate I know there have been a lot of concerns raised about use of particularly substances like spice, allegations about staff smuggling it in and dealing to residents of the facilities. What is your assessment of the drug problem at the moment across the immigration detention estate?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
It varies between centre and centre. I think in places like Brook House and Harmondsworth and Colnbrook, we tend to have higher proportions of ex-prisoners who may have been slightly more imbued in that culture and there are more drug issues. The level of drug use in IRCs has certainly gone up a lot over the last three to four years.
Stephen Doughty
What do you see as the biggest drivers for that going up?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
It is very difficult to say. As I said, partly I think it is because there are people coming from the prison estate, where spice is a big issue as well. It could be the detention, the despair that people talk about in immigration detention quite often; it could be levels of mental health issues; it could be a whole range of factors. I would say though that the level of drug use within immigration detention is not remotely comparable to the level of drug use in the prisons we go to routinely at the moment. It is a rising problem and a developing concern, but it is certainly not out of control at the moment.
Peter Clarke
Just to expand a little on the last Brook House inspection, the makeup of the population of detainees had changed dramatically, as Hindpal mentioned. I think at the previous inspection two years before, about 5% of the detainees had been foreign national offenders. By the time of the 2016 inspection, that had gone up to about 45%. We were told during the inspection that staff believed that this was having an impact on the availability of drugs, but what we did report on after that inspection as well is that there did not appear to be a very coherent supply reduction strategy to keep drugs out. This is something that we see all too often across the prison estate as well, but I just mention it in the context of your questions about drugs, that that is what we found at Brook House in November 2016.
Stephen Doughty
One last specific question. Are you aware of cases of wrongful detention in any of the detention centres you have inspected? Have you become aware of cases of wrongful detention subsequently?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We are aware of a number of cases that concern us, but we do not investigate individual cases over a period of time. I would say that it is quite clear that there are a number of wrongful detentions because of the amount of compensation paid every year for that very reason.
Stephen Doughty
When you have become aware of cases or groups of cases of concern, have you reported those on an ad hoc basis to the Home Office?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We publish them openly.
Stephen Doughty
You publish them openly. But as far as you are concerned, there have been wrongful detentions?
Peter Clarke
Yes.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Undoubtedly, yes.
Douglas Ross
Just following on some of those questions, how effective do you think the whistleblowing and complaints procedures are?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We have been asking specific questions about this recently and going into some detail with staff about the—
Douglas Ross
Because you are not satisfied with it at the moment?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We wanted to know whether or not it was good enough. We asked—
Douglas Ross
You are going in with a view that you have to look at this because you believe it was not good enough?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Clearly it was not good enough at Brook House. We knew there was a problem and we wanted to know the extent of that problem, so we have asked staff more routinely about whistleblowing. I would say in the last two to three inspections, staff are more aware of the whistleblowing process than they had been previously, but in each of those inspections, we have been concerned about staff still not having confidence in the system and the systems not being clear and easy enough to use.
Douglas Ross
Before I come on to that, where does the lack of awareness come from? I would have thought any staff working in these establishments would be aware if they see something that they are uncomfortable with that they have a measure to take to raise these concerns, but you are saying there is generally—not looking at the process at the moment—an unawareness that they could even raise these concerns?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I was saying there is some lack of awareness. I think generally staff are aware, but not all staff are using the process. Again, to give you a specific example, in the last IRC we went to, most staff said, “Yes, we know about the process” and then we said, “Have you used it?” “No.” No one had used it. “Would you use it?” Most staff said they would, but there were a small number of staff who said absolutely they would not, which clearly concerned us a lot, so we said, “Why? Why would you not use it?” Some said because it was too complicated and others because they had no confidence that their identity would be kept secret.
Douglas Ross
What is complicated about the system?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
The last place we went to there was a whistleblowing line, for example. I would expect if there is a whistleblowing line, I would gather my courage, I would want to phone the line, I would want to make a comment and then come off the line quite quickly. This particular line you had to wait for two and a half to three minutes, press various numbers before you get to the right person or the right place to record your comment. One member of staff told me that he had phoned this line and halfway through, to use his words, his bottle had gone and he did not want to stay on the line to make the comment he was going to make. That is what I mean. It needs to be a streamlined, quick, easy process.
Douglas Ross
Do you think that is going to happen?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We have been told it is going to happen, so we will investigate, we will look next time we go back and find out if it has been done.
Douglas Ross
Mr Clarke, you said you were disgusted at the ill-treatment of detainees that was highlighted on the “Panorama” programme. Were you also disgusted that it never came up in your inspections before or are you 100% confident that, in your words, the abuse took place after the inspection?
Peter Clarke
We can never be 100% confident that we have not missed anything, which is why we have taken the steps we have since that “Panorama” programme was broadcast to do everything we can within our power and our remit to make sure that during the course of inspection, we do not miss anything that could be either covering up or symptomatic of that sort of treatment of detainees.
Douglas Ross
But there was no lingering doubt after the inspections that, “There is maybe something going on here that we are not getting to the root of”? Because it was in 2015 that undercover reporters found the problems at Yarl’s Wood; 2017 it was an undercover reporter that found the problems at Brook House. Why can’t your inspections uncover this?
Peter Clarke
That is exactly why we are doing what we are, to try—
Douglas Ross
Yes, sorry, I understand that going forward, why you are trying to solve this, but why was that problem not being highlighted in the first place? If we are to have faith in the inspection regime, why did this behaviour not get highlighted?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
The inspection regime is a snapshot. It is two weeks we look in depth at what is going on. There is no doubt that we will miss things. Sometimes what we say to establishments is, “Look, we have gone as far as we can go within two weeks. We are now highlighting to you some systemic issues, some things you need to look into in more depth over time to establish whether or not our hunches, our pieces of evidence, can be verified”. We will say in our reports and in our findings what we can absolutely 100% verify. There are always other issues around the edges that we have not been able to completely verify, but which may turn into a concern. For example, at Brook House in 2016, there were detainees who said that there had been assaults committed against them. We spoke to a large number of detainees; we spoke to staff; we looked at documentation. We could not verify any kind of systematic culture of abuse and we could not get the evidence for that, but we did leave that evidence with the establishment and say, “You need to carry on looking into this in a bit more detail”.
Douglas Ross
Sorry, how can an undercover reporter 12 months later be able to publicise this? Is there a lack of confidence with you as an inspectorate if you are speaking with detainees, you are aware that there may be some underlying problem with abuse, yet you still cannot find the golden bullet to deal with that, yet less than a year later, it was highlighted publicly in the media?
Peter Clarke
The indications are that detainees do have confidence and knowledge of our independence and the response rate we get to surveys is high. When we conduct our survey work, we make sure that we have interpreters and indeed that the documentation pointing out our independence and our establishment is multilingual. We do not have indications that detainees do not have confidence in us, but it is always possible for things not to surface.
Douglas Ross
No, sorry, the evidence we have just received is that it was surfacing, just not to the level where you could write it in black and white that this is definitely happening. Yet less than a year later, because an undercover reporter went in, it was verified, so there must be something to do with the confidence of speaking to you, either detainees, staff members, that needs to be overcome. I am getting a slight resistance from you, whereas I would have thought you would be accepting that as a failure and having to address that.
Peter Clarke
I have no intention whatsoever of being resistant. That is why we did everything we could afterwards to try to make sure, to establish if we had missed something, how is it that we did not catch it and what can we do to make sure that in the future we would bring such things to the surface? We do not know. That is the simple answer: we do not know definitively if what we saw in the programme was happening at that moment during our week and a half or two weeks in this centre.
Douglas Ross
But your inspectors at Brook House in 2016 found enough evidence to raise their concerns to leave it with the people who operate Brook House. That means—
Peter Clarke
Yes, as we always do.
Douglas Ross
Yes, but not enough evidence to say it was definitely happening?
Peter Clarke
Correct.
Douglas Ross
I just find that worrying, that there is still not the confidence to come to you, as an independent body, an inspectorate who is trying to improve the conditions for detainees and others and staff working in there, that there is an underlying feeling from your inspectors that there is a problem here, yet you could not get onside with detainees or staff members to give you enough information to clarify that in a public document and a report.
Peter Clarke
I think it is important to remember the findings at Brook House were very much in line with findings at other inspections of IRCs. There was nothing particularly out of—
Douglas Ross
That gives me even less confidence.
Peter Clarke
It possibly should or should not, but there was nothing standing out from that inspection of Brook House that said, “Definitely there is something here, definitely something that we are unhappy about”. If we had been, we perhaps could have taken things further, but we did not have that feeling. The gradings that we awarded at the end of that inspection reflected our honest assessment of what we had seen. I take your point entirely something clearly was not right there. The issue is to work out some way of doing this that can be fool-proof and I doubt there is a way. The point I made earlier I think is relevant, that those people who are there day in, day out, both managing the centre, the independent monitoring board, the NGOs—who are there all the time and who encourage detainees to speak to us—and the Home Office monitors, none of those people, who are there all the time, picked up what was going on.
Sarah Jones
I wanted to go back to an earlier conversation, when we were talking about no statutory limit on detention and you were saying that perhaps we can be better at defining what a realistic prospect of removal means and sticking to that. I just wanted to get your thoughts on the letter that we saw to the Prime Minister from the Home Secretary that was leaked. The Home Secretary wrote, “I have instructed immigration enforcement to renew its focus on removability in order that beds are not being blocked by illegal migrants that we have no realistic hope of removing from the country. This means that those with no near-term prospect of removal would be released into the community on strict reporting conditions”. Given it is unlawful to be holding people when there is no realistic prospect of removal, what is going on here when the Home Secretary is talking about all the people who are being held with no realistic prospect of removal?
Peter Clarke
From my perspective, I saw the letter—the same as I am sure many other people did—the first time when it appeared in the press. I do not want to hedge around this, but I suppose what it did not say was how high those hurdles the Home Secretary envisaged being, but I could not really comment beyond that on what was in the Home Secretary’s mind when she wrote that letter.
Sarah Jones
What is your sense of the numbers that are being held who have no prospect of removal? What sort of scale of a problem is it?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Again, it is very difficult to say outside of our own small samples, but there are people we regularly—in virtually in every report—say should not be held because it is not clear from the casework evidence that they are going to be removed in a reasonable period of time.
Sarah Jones
In terms of the casework, you talked earlier about the delays in people’s cases. What do you think is required in terms of the scale of that issue? Do you have any sense of how many extra people you would need to recruit in order to be dealing with the problem or what needs to be happening in terms of a solution to that issue?
Peter Clarke
No, because we do not look at detailed casework and so we could not possibly make an assessment of what would be needed to speed the whole process up in terms of—
Sarah Jones
You just identify it as a problem?
Peter Clarke
Yes, absolutely.
Sarah Jones
Can I just ask about your experience looking at immigration detainees compared to other prison estates and whether they are treated differently or not, in your experience?
Peter Clarke
There are some obvious difficulties, that if an immigration detainee is held in prison, they will not be entitled to have access to a mobile phone, for instance. Similarly, there is a question as to whether they are able to gain access to the specialist legal advice that they would receive in the immigration centre. The question is whether that would typically be present in a prison or not. There are some significant differences around treatment according to whether a detainee is in a prison or an immigration removal centre.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
For example, in an immigration removal centre there are weekly legal surgeries. Detainees can get legal advice, if not always representation. In a prison that does not happen. They cannot get internet access in a prison obviously, whereas they can in an immigration centre. There is a whole range of issues that are not as positive if you are held in a prison.
Tim Loughton
Can I touch on an issue that featured about 18 months ago now in a report, which was the removal of detainees who were then deemed to be suitable for deportation? There was evidence that the contracted company was failing quite badly to provide the service to transport detainees, usually to airports, to the extent that those deportations were cancelled and expensive airline tickets were not used at great cost. Have you covered that in some of your inspections and have you seen any change in the experiences there? That obviously has a great knock-on effect for the length of time that people are kept there and the uncertainty surrounding it as well.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We are regularly seeing it. I could not give you an overall systematic analysis on how often it is happening or whether it has improved or not. We do regularly hear about the escorts not arriving when they should do and removals being delayed for that reason. There was a case recently where it took three months to book escorts to remove someone from the country who had completed everything and wanted to go. There are some delays, but I could not give you an across the estate analysis.
Tim Loughton
The excuses given were feasible or not?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I do not think we had the excuses or the reasons. I assume it was operational problems and a lack of staff availability. That is usually what we have heard.
Tim Loughton
If you are dealing with potentially violent criminals who have been detained and are then to be deported, it often involves several staff members to accompany that person on the airplane as well.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Sure.
Tim Loughton
Therefore you are looking at the cancellation of multiple tickets so that is quite a considerable cost.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
It is, yes.
Tim Loughton
There would appear to be few significant penalties against the contractors.
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I do not know about the penalties.
Tim Loughton
Talking about services by contractors, healthcare provision provided by the likes of G4S, Serco, mental health services and so on, have you seen any improvement there? Again, the reports of absence of or delay in training of staff on mental health result in a significant deficiency for those people who are there for any length of time, particularly vulnerable persons.
Peter Clarke
Certainly in broad terms, the healthcare provision in IRCs is reasonable. The big shortfall is in the provision. Given the level of people with mental health issues, there are shortfalls in the provision of mental health services. That is where we see the biggest weakness.
Tim Loughton
What is being done about it?
Peter Clarke
From our perspective, we report on that. We work with the Care Quality Commission. Every one of our inspections has a section dedicated exclusively to healthcare and we make recommendations. The uptake of recommendations is something that is of continuing and continual concern to me.
Tim Loughton
You do not think it is being treated as a priority?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
It depends on the centre as well.
Peter Clarke
It varies from centre to centre, but I would certainly like to see more focus on the issue of mental health.
Tim Loughton
If it differs from centre to centre. Is that because of a different provider or it is potluck as to whether there is decent healthcare services at whichever institution you are looking at?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
I think it depends on whether or not the providers, whoever they may be, are focused enough on the actual needs being presented by detainees. In Yarl’s Wood in 2015 we were concerned about the level of mental health provision for people at a lower level. If there was an acute level need we were satisfied that most times that need would be met, but not at a lower level, which was most of the women there. In 2017 they had a new service that we thought was rather good. It was a service by Kaleidoscope that was providing a whole range of low-level drop-in type services that were much valued by the women. We found levels of distress had gone down at that time in 2017, which we thought was partly because of the mental health support being provided. We went to Harmondsworth last year and we thought there was a huge level of mental health need there. Services clearly could not cope with that level of need and they were not able to provide what detainees required in terms of healthcare support. Mental health really is the issue rather than the other areas in health support.
Tim Loughton
There is no evidence that best practice is being followed throughout the estate?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Not systematically throughout the estate, no.
Tim Loughton
You made recommendations, pointing out some good experiences—and you gave one there—and asked why this should not be the norm across the whole of the estate. Again, nothing has happened, as far as you are concerned, to take that up?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
Not enough, certainly.
Tim Loughton
On legal representation as well, we heard in private session from some former detainees in various immigration centres about a lack of access to various healthcare services and also to advocacy and legal representation. We then heard from Serco, who was managing that particular institution, which claimed they absolutely have full access to all sorts of independent advocacy and other legal support, solicitors and whatever. Which version would you err to?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
We need to make a distinction between legal advice and representation. There is a fairly good level of legal advice. There are surgeries running in IRCs on a weekly basis usually. Detainees can usually get to see someone to obtain some very simple and straightforward advice. That session of seeing a legal adviser could be no more than 15 or 20 minutes. Getting representation beyond that point is much more difficult unless you can pay for it. Detainees who can afford it can get ongoing representation; detainees who cannot will find it far more difficult. There is a genuine problem there. The access to initial advice is not too bad at the moment.
Tim Loughton
I am thinking more of knowledge of what inmates’ rights are and what they should expect. We were told that everyone gets a proper briefing and are told what they can get expect, what access they can have and so on at the beginning. Again, that did not appear to be the experience of the people who have been through the system whom we spoke to. Are you satisfied everybody has ample opportunity to be appraised of their rights and expectations while at these institutions?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
There are two ways in which that can happen. One is by being briefed by the Home Office. As soon as a detainee comes in to detention they should have an induction interview. They should be told about various rights and about bail. We do not always find that happens. There are usually welfare teams in immigration detention centres. In fact, I think they are in all of them now. They should be able to provide ongoing information. They are not qualified to provide legal advice, but we saw some good practice at Tinsley House recently where the welfare team had been accredited by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner to provide very basic advice and information. This made a big difference to detainees who often simply wanted to know, as you say, what their rights might be and what their next steps were. However, as far as I am aware, that is the only place where the welfare staff are properly accredited. The organisations that used to exist to provide free legal advice and representation have generally collapsed for lack of funding. There are very few organisations out there that can provide free advice to detainees nowadays.
Tim Loughton
It can happen, it is happening?
Hindpal Singh Bhui
It can happen, but it is very patchy.
Chair
Thank you very much. Do you have any final issue that you would raise with us, perhaps that we either have not asked you about or that you would want to particularly stress that we should keep in mind in this inquiry?
Peter Clarke
No. If I may say so, the breadth of questions has been what we broadly anticipated as being the subjects that would be on the Committee’s minds. I hope we have been able to provide you with some useful information.
Chair
Thank you very much. We are very grateful for your time. Examination of witnesses
Witnesses
Rt Hon Caroline Nokes MP, Sir Philip Rutnam and Hugh Ind.
Chair
Welcome, Immigration Minister, Permanent Secretary and Mr Ind. We are very grateful for your time. We obviously want to cover a whole series of issues around immigration detention. I am sure you would expect us to also want to cover some of the wider issues around Windrush and wider immigration issues first. We are grateful too for the Home Secretary agreeing to come and give us a further update as well, I think next week. We were told last week there would be an inquiry within the Home Office and a lessons learnt inquiry. Who is going to be leading that?
Caroline Nokes
I am not sure we have finalised the name yet. Sir Philip might correct me on that. It is important to us that we do have a thorough review internally to understand what went wrong and whether the steps that we put in place to put matters right have been effective. Certainly we will be working with this Committee, and I would imagine others, to make sure that is a proper and thorough exercise.
Sir Philip Rutnam
The Minister is correct, the identity of the independent person is still to be confirmed. As the Minister said, we are very clear that this person should provide independent and thorough oversight and assurance of the lessons learnt review.
Chair
We have obviously written to you. I have written to you two different letters, I think, asking a series of detailed questions, including the number of people affected by different issues as part of the Windrush programme. When will we get answers to those 50 questions? My assessment is that we have had answers to about five of them so far.
Caroline Nokes
I think—this is not a criticism and should not be taken as such—the first 10 or so questions were directed at the former Home Secretary, which makes them quite specific. We are working on the answers at present. What I am very conscious of is that we have, using the systems we have, gone back to 2002 to look at those who may have been removed incorrectly. That has thrown up in the region of 8,000 records where a computer trawl is not good enough and is requiring a manual investigation of the paper files in order for us to seek reassurance that correct procedures have been followed and people have not been incorrectly removed. Once that is complete, then we will obviously want to move on to looking at the detention estate and individuals who may have been detained incorrectly. What is clear to me from both the press coverage and our initial investigations is that we have yet to identify anybody who has been removed incorrectly, but it is very clear that people have been detained.
Chair
You said 8,000 records have been thrown up. Was that by looking at the age and the country to which people had been removed?
Caroline Nokes
That was age and nationality, so anybody over the age of 45, because obviously they are the people who would have been born prior to 1973, and indeed nationality.
Chair
You have potentially 8,000 people in that category who, depending on when they came, may have been wrongfully removed?
Caroline Nokes
It would be very wrong to say 8,000 people may have been wrongfully removed. There have been 8,000 cases of individuals who were of the correct nationality and date of birth for us to wish to look thoroughly to check they have not.
Chair
How long do you assess it is going to take to work through all of those cases?
Sir Philip Rutnam
The previous Home Secretary covered this matter in her comments to the House. She was very clear she wanted the work to be done very thoroughly, because we cannot afford to have errors in this respect, and also for it to be independently checked and audited. Therefore it will take some small number of weeks, I would expect, before we are in a position to complete that work. Just to reinforce one point the Minister said, while the cohort of persons who have been removed—defined by age and nationality—is around 8,000, it is absolutely not the case that there are 8,000 instances of wrongful removal, absolutely not. In fact, so far we have not established any, but we are checking that methodically.
Chair
What are you checking them against? Because obviously you do not have landing cards to check those 8,000 cases against. If the whole point about those cases was that at some point the Home Office had decided there was not the proof on their records, what are you using to determine whether those cases have been wrongfully deported or not?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It requires an examination of the individual case file and what the evidence is in that case file around when the individual arrived in the United Kingdom. In many cases there will be evidence of when the individual arrived. For example, if we are able to establish the individual arrived in 1985, then that is not a Windrush generation case. It involves a methodical review of each of those cases to establish whether there is evidence of when individuals arrived and the circumstances in which they were removed.
Chair
I am still unclear. The whole point about the Windrush cases is that a lot of them do not have the proof, so the proof is not going to be on their file about when they arrived. How are you going to be able to assess that somehow people have been legitimately deported rather than wrongfully deported?
Sir Philip Rutnam
That may be the case for some of the Windrush generation, but not all. For many others there will be evidence as to when they arrived that will allow one to establish they were not here before 1973.
Chair
Are you going to contact all of those 8,000 people to give them the chance to make representations?
Sir Philip Rutnam
This is a detailed internal review of our historic removals, back to 2002, as the Minister has said.
Chair
Do you not think maybe you should be attempting to contact some of them?
Caroline Nokes
It is perfectly reasonable that where we can demonstrate somebody has arrived post-1973 or perhaps in cases of serious criminality, we should not be contacting them. If somebody has arrived, for example, as Philip said, in the mid-1980s and has been deported due to criminality they are very quickly excluded from the review. No, I do not think it appropriate that we should be contacting them in those circumstances.
Chair
If you have removed the cases where you have categoric proof of them arriving perhaps in the last few years, you will have a significant number of others where you may not have proof at all of when they arrived. Will you be contacting all of them?
Sir Philip Rutnam
This is an internal review. Your questions indicate the complexity of the task, which is one reason why we are going through it very methodically. We do have evidence in our files of the decisions in relation to those 8,000 individuals and that is what we are going through to check the decisions we have made.
Chair
Is that internal review part of the independent review or is the independent review something separate?
Sir Philip Rutnam
This is something separate. The review that I think you began your questions about is a lessons learnt review, essentially in relation to the whole Windrush generation episode. I think it needs to go back many years in terms of the way in which policy has developed and decision-making has taken place.
Chair
Will there be any independent review of the 8,000 cases?
Sir Philip Rutnam
The previous Home Secretary said she wanted that scrutiny of the 8,000 cases to be subject to an independent audit. That will be a separate process from the lessons learnt review.
Chair
Some of those cases, maybe somebody who arrived in 1983, might be a child of a Windrush case. Will that be looked at as well, because obviously you have said that the taskforce is also including children who have arrived since 1973?
Sir Philip Rutnam
We will obviously need to look at any potential interaction between these.
Chair
Are you doing so at the moment? I can see you are looking for those cases where you have some evidence of when people arrived, but at the moment are you already looking at whether they have a parent who was part of the Windrush generation?
Sir Philip Rutnam
We will check that. I am afraid I cannot tell you now. I will establish that.
Chair
That will be very helpful to know. What would also be helpful to know is whether you are specifically looking at those who arrived as children, even if they arrived after 1973, where there may also be wider issues at stake.
Sir Philip Rutnam
Do you mean in relation to the policy on Windrush and the offer the Government have made of citizenship now?
Chair
Looking at potential wrongful deportation cases.
Sir Philip Rutnam
We are looking at the potential. We clearly very much hope there will not be wrongful deportation cases, but we are looking at those 8,000 cases very carefully. I am afraid I cannot answer your question about the potential for some child relationship with a Windrush generation migrant. However, we will ensure that all relevant considerations are taken into account in that review.
Chair
You have accepted that the Windrush taskforce also needs to cover children of Windrush generation arrivals. My question is are you therefore looking at whether the potential wrongful deportations might also include the children of the Windrush generation?
Sir Philip Rutnam
You make a good point about the potential for a relationship between those two issues. I am afraid I cannot answer that now, but we will look into that.
Chair
That will be helpful. It would be useful to have some factual clarification on the targets issue because there have been different reports. Could you clarify what targets the Department has or has had over the last few years in terms of removals and so on? There has been reference to a 10% figure, there has been reference to individual precise figures of 12,800 and also reference to KPIs. Can you give us some clarity about what targets have been operating?
Caroline Nokes
It is important from my perspective to state that there have not been targets since I became the Minister, but I will pass over to Mr Ind, who might want to comment on previous targets the Department has had.
Hugh Ind
Chair, as you asked the question for a comprehensive history of what the performance management regime has been over a number of years, we need to set that out clearly on paper. There is not really a clear way of summarising that for you in person over the period you are talking about.
Chair
Given we obviously had a lot of discussion about that last week, I would have expected by this week to have some kind of clarity. A memo has been reported in The Guardian that says the Department, “set a target of achieving 12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18”. Is that accurate?
Hugh Ind
I interpreted your earlier question as going back over a large number of years and I do beg your pardon. I can certainly tell you more recently.
Chair
That will be helpful.
Hugh Ind
For the beginning of 2017-18 my senior team did set a target of 12,800 enforced returns. There were no targets for other kinds of returns during 2017-18. Later, during 2017-18, we modified that to an ambition to reach between 230 to 250 enforced returns per week because we had not achieved the success we were counting on in ensuring asylum appeals, in detention particularly, were progressed as swiftly as we hoped. Therefore we had to moderate our ambitions in the second half of 2017-18. For this performance year my senior team took a decision in March of this year not to operate targets for returns.
Chair
Did you have targets for 2016-17?
Hugh Ind
Yes.
Chair
For 2015-16?
Hugh Ind
Yes, but not for 2014-15.
Chair
You accelerated the target to a weekly target. Did you also have local or regional targets as well?
Hugh Ind
In order to achieve a return, around about four or five different functions within immigration enforcement need to work together. You have an intelligence team; a casework team dealing with people in the community; an arrest or detention team who can effect an arrest or a detention; another team dealing with the casework once somebody is detained and you have yet another team dealing with the logistics, talking to High Commissions and airlines about procuring a seat for that individual. In order for those targets to be broken down more locally they have to be phrased in a slightly different way. This has changed over years, as the structure of what was previously the UK Border Agency has changed. Last year, if you were in a non-detained casework team or if you were essentially one of the detention teams, your target would have been expressed in terms of detentions that led to a removal or tasking that led to a removal of your casework. You specifically were disincentivised for tasking or detaining anybody who would then not be removed through other issues that then cropped up.
Chair
The focus was around basically people who were easiest to remove, not the cases that might have been a threat in any way or anything like that?
Hugh Ind
The focus was on thorough preparation and consideration of first of all the non-detained casework teams to make sure that nobody they passed over was in any doubt that it was the correct action to move them to detention. That focus was redoubled with the team who effected the detention, to check as far as they could and with all the information they had available to them that that was indeed a correct person for detention.
Chair
There are checks and balances in the system. You have all of those people being really under pressure, they have to get it up to 230 to 250 per week. What is the check in the system to prevent people wrongly being pushed through the system in order to meet the target?
Hugh Ind
There are several. I have to say in terms of my staff they absolutely understand the importance of operating the immigration system with humanity. I promise this Committee my people are extremely motivated by that. They know how serious this role is and they know how important it is to approach it with humanity. That—and themselves being decent professional people—is a very big check on some of the possible incentives you describe. Secondly, we have, as I think you know, a detention gatekeeper who, even after the checks that have been done in the casework teams and the checks that have been done by the detention teams, must do a further check to make sure that person specifically is an appropriate person to be detained at that time. The detention gatekeeper is a new innovation from around about 2016 that is still growing and still becoming more effective, which absolutely rejects people from detention. I know when I go around my teams, there is—for want of a better word—some friction between the teams because they know there is a process where they need to persuade the gatekeeper they have done the correct checks.
Chair
What proportion of checks that go to the gatekeeper get turned back?
Hugh Ind
I do not know the answer to that off the top of my head, but I will be very happy to share that.
Chair
We will probably have some more questions about the gatekeeping thing. For the Permanent Secretary, do you have an overall delivery plan or internal strategy in terms of meeting the net migration target?
Sir Philip Rutnam
We have a single departmental plan that is the standard mechanism for setting a framework for objectives and performance in a Government Department. The Cabinet Office issues guidance on that. Of course the Government’s net migration target is part of the framework within which we set about taking forward the Department’s operations.
Chair
Do you then have a cascade down in terms of a strategy and plan as to how you will either meet the net migration target or make progress towards it?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I would say it is not as simple as that. Plainly the Government’s net migration target is part of the context and framework within which we take forward activities in the Department. However, it does not translate into a whole series of individual actions in the way that you describe. It is rather part of the background and context that then clearly informs decisions being made by officials, but is even more relevant, I would say, for Ministers in terms of the way in which they are thinking about the development of policy.
Chair
Do you have strategy documents then that set out, “In order to make progress on net migration target, here is what we need to do in terms of measures on reducing immigration and here is what we need to do in terms of measures on increasing departures”?
Sir Philip Rutnam
Obviously you would not be expecting me to discuss advice to Ministers in a forum like this. The role of officials is to bring forward a set of proposals or plans for allocation of resources in the Department and to provide policy advice to Ministers on ways of delivering on the Government’s agenda. That of course includes the net migration target and a whole range of other objectives.
Chair
Do you therefore have proposals about how to reduce immigration and increase emigration or increase departures as part of making progress towards the net migration target?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I would say from within the Department it is not as simple as that. The net migration target, the Government commitment, is part of the background and context within which the Department is operating. Clearly a whole series of proposals either are brought forward or can be commissioned by Ministers to address that. It is not the case that starting from the net migration target we then drive all polices or allocation of resources towards the delivery of that.
Chair
You clearly have an objective to meet the net migration target. Do you then have a process of deciding what your other targets will be, whether they be removals targets and so on, in order to meet the net migration target?
Sir Philip Rutnam
It is not as simple as that. On some aspects of immigration policy, if there is an issue on which we think we need to give Ministers advice or a decision about the allocation of resources, we will put that forward to Ministers and clearly they would want to take account of the Government’s commitments, including the net migration target.
Chair
With respect, Sir Philip, you are kind of fudging this. I understand everything is complicated within the Home Office, I am sure it really is. I am still trying to work out—effectively it is a yes or no—whether you have strategy documents that say, “This is our objective to meet the net migration target and these are the measures on immigration and on emigration that we need to take in order to make progress towards the target”.
Sir Philip Rutnam
The net migration target is a very important commitment and is an important part of the context within which the Department operates. However, it is not the case that all of our policies and activities nest within some structure driven by the net migration target.
Chair
I am sure they do not all, but do any of them?
Sir Philip Rutnam
There clearly will be documents within the Department that refer to the net migration target, many such documents. There will be documents that refer to other constraints on resources and other objectives. It is then a matter for Ministers, as you know, to set the priorities of the Department and to decide what policies are taken forward and what policies are not.
Chair
Minister, in terms of the establishment of targets or not—or objectives or not—do you have objectives within the Department both to reduce immigration and also to increase the number of people leaving?
Caroline Nokes
The net migration is a very obvious one and has been endorsed in three separate general election manifestos. It would be absolutely accurate to say we want to have a suite of measures that tackle illegal immigration. We are familiar with right to work checks, right to rent and the banking measures that were recently implemented. This is all about direction of travel and making sure we move towards a position where net migration is at sustainable levels.
Chair
Do you have, or have you had, in your time in the Home Office plans within the Home Office to increase the number of people leaving the country in order to contribute towards the net migration target?
Caroline Nokes
I do not believe I have seen any such plans, no.
Chair
Part of the reason I ask is that when you were appointed to the post you were asked about the net migration target. You were asked, “Give me one way in which you will be able to make a significant hit to the net migration numbers” and one of the answers you gave was, “We are working hard to make sure we continue with removals”. You gave an answer about removals in the context of the net migration target. What I am trying to establish is whether this approach around removals is being seen in the context of the net migration target, because that was the impression you gave when you were first appointed.
Caroline Nokes
We would always seek to make sure that we were removing people who had no right to be in this country. We have a consistent determination to make sure that people—when they have no right to be here—leave, either on a voluntary basis or through enforced returns.
Chair
Are you saying then that the Home Office has never tried to increase removals or departures in order to make progress towards the net migration target?
Caroline Nokes
I have not seen a target to increase removals or departures in order to effect that aim. However, I do not think it is unreasonable for any Government to want to make sure that people who are benefiting from services in this country are here legally.
Stephen Doughty
Minister, in the last six years are you aware of any wrongful cases of deportation or detention by the Home Office going wider than the Windrush scandal?
Caroline Nokes
I would have to check over the last six years. I do not think it is fair to ask me about things that might have occurred before I was a Minister.
Stephen Doughty
You would have been briefed on becoming a Minister. Have there been cases of wrongful deportation or detention in the last six years? It is a very simple question; yes or no?
Caroline Nokes
I am certainly conscious of cases where people have been detained and then released.
Stephen Doughty
They have been wrongfully detained?
Caroline Nokes
Yes.
Stephen Doughty
And wrongfully deported?
Caroline Nokes
I do not think I have had any cases of wrongful deportation brought to my attention, no.
Stephen Doughty
I asked the new Home Secretary on 30 April—in his first appearance in the Commons—the same question and made clear it was wider than the Windrush scandal. He also said, “I am not currently aware of any cases of wrongful deportation” but he refused to answer my question on wrongful detentions. We have just been told by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons that undoubtedly there have been cases of wrongful detention. I have a letter here from Robert Goodwill, one of your predecessors. It says very clearly to me, about a constituent case, “I can confirm that on the receipt of the certificate together with a copy of Mr A’s expired British passport we have been able to establish Mr A is a British citizen and should not have been removed from the UK”. That is a constituent of mine who was wrongfully deported. It is a very complicated case and involves an individual with mental health concerns and a lot of other issues around it. However, he was wrongfully deported, a British citizen wrongfully deported to Somalia. Do you still stand by the comments you just made? Are you aware of wrongful deportations or detentions?
Caroline Nokes
I am now, because you have just drawn one to my attention.
Stephen Doughty
This is a letter from one of your predecessors. Why have you not been briefed on becoming Immigration Minister on the number of wrongful deportations and detentions in your Department?
Caroline Nokes
I do not think I can answer that.
Stephen Doughty
Can you explain it, Sir Philip? Can you answer the same question first: have there been wrongful deportations or detentions by your Department in the last six years?
Sir Philip Rutnam
I have been in the Department one year. I am not an expert on the immigration system and Mr Ind might therefore want to add to my answer. I would expect there certainly have been cases of wrongful detention. Those do occur. There may also have been occasional cases of wrongful deportation. I am not aware of that case. I am aware of a case where an individual was removed within the last year to Afghanistan and then, by an order of the court, we had to bring the individual back. Whether that counts as a—
Stephen Doughty
That is at least two cases. Why did the Home Secretary answer to me in the Commons Chamber, “I am not aware of any cases of wrongful deportation”? I made it clearer that it was wider than Windrush.
Sir Philip Rutnam
I am afraid I am not familiar with the exchange. Without looking at Hansard I cannot really comment other than that—
Stephen Doughty
I am quoting verbatim, Sir Philip. Since we cannot get an answer from you as Permanent Secretary, Mr Ind, can you explain whether there have been wrongful deportations or detentions from your Department in the last six years, yes or no?
Hugh Ind
Yes.
Stephen Doughty
There have, on both counts?
Hugh Ind
I am aware of the deportation of your constituent. I am aware of how complicated that case is and I am aware that we continue to work with the family.
Stephen Doughty
Have there been other cases?
Hugh Ind
I am aware of the case that the Permanent Secretary mentioned. As that is still the subject of legal proceedings, whether or not it was wrongful or not is still open to question.
Stephen Doughty
Have there been more cases than those two?
Hugh Ind
In relation to wrongful detention?
Stephen Doughty
No, I am asking about deportations first. Have there been more cases of wrongful deportations on top of those two cases?
Hugh Ind
There have been times when we have brought individuals back.
Stephen Doughty
How many?
Hugh Ind
I am thinking of a handful.
Stephen Doughty
A handful. How do we numerate a “handful”?
Hugh Ind
Five, up to five.
Stephen Doughty
Five, 10, 20?
Hugh Ind
You are asking me over a period of the last four or five years?
Stephen Doughty
Six years.
Hugh Ind
I am saying a handful.
Stephen Doughty
Why does the Minister for Immigration, the Permanent Secretary and the new Home Secretary not know that?
Hugh Ind
What I do know is the wrongful detention situation.
Stephen Doughty
I am asking you specifically about wrongful deportation first. Why does the new Home Secretary, the Immigration Minister and your Permanent Secretary not know that there have been wrongful deportations?
Hugh Ind
I do not know.
Stephen Doughty
You do not know. On wrongful detentions, and you admit there have been wrongful detentions, how many?
Hugh Ind
I am taking as my yardstick the compensation we have to pay out. After a period of often protracted legal proceedings the courts do ask us to compensate people for detention that was subsequently found to be unlawful. That figure has been around £5 million a year in the past. It was £3.3 million for the last year so it has come down by about 25% in the recent year or two, but it is obviously a deep problem.
Stephen Doughty
How many individuals does that equate to? There was about £3 million paid in compensation last year and £5 million in previous years.
Hugh Ind
I do not know how many individuals.