Question
Asked By
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will investigate claims that asylum seekers were mistreated by staff of the UK Border Agency.
My Lords, an internal investigation into allegations that appeared in the Guardian newspaper on 2 February has been commissioned. The Home Office expects the highest levels of integrity and behaviour from all its members of staff and takes all allegations of inappropriate behaviour very seriously.
My Lords, the jailing yesterday of Ali Dizaei 10 years after the Macpherson report on institutional racism clearly demonstrates that racist behaviour or racism of any kind is not acceptable. The Guardian report clearly illustrates the culture of impunity among some staff in the UK Border Agency. Will the Minister revisit the decisions taken by the agency in relation to asylum seekers who have been deported to ensure that racism played no part whatsoever, and will he ensure that the inquiry looks at the wider aspects of race relations in the agency?
My Lords, I agree entirely with the noble Lord that racism should play no part in decision-making in relation to asylum issues, and I am rather astonished that he would claim that the fact that there has been an allegation means that there is impunity. We do not know that. We know that an allegation has been made that will be seriously investigated independent of the department and separate from the Cardiff office. People have been accused of things for which they have not yet been found guilty. If there is guilt to apportion, it will mean that lessons have to be learnt. The noble Lord’s latter point of ensuring that there have been no deportations as a result of racism is important. The removal stage is reached only after consideration by the Immigration Appeals Tribunal. I am confident that the inquiry will find a solution to the problem and verify whether the allegations are correct. However, at this point I think we should work on the old premise that people are innocent until proven guilty.
My Lords, if the inquiry endorses the claims that have been made about this behaviour, will the Government bear it in mind that immigration officers hold powers at least equivalent to those of police officers for interviewing suspected criminals, because they can temporarily incarcerate and deport people? Is it not therefore right that immigration officers should be subject to the same camera and voice recordings when such interviews are carried out?
My Lords, again we seem to be leaping forward from a point made in a newspaper article. I cannot say that every article that I have ever read has been 100 per cent accurate, although I believe that this should be investigated. However, we should await the outcome of that investigation before we rush to judgment.
My Lords, the Minister will recall the report published in July 2008 by the Medical Justice Network on private contractors’ abuses against deportees, which was reinforced a year later by the report of the chief inspector, who stated that safeguards to protect against abuses of the process were “singularly lacking”? What has happened to the report by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan—then Dame Nuala O’Loan, the Northern Ireland ombudsman—who was supposed to be inquiring into these abuses and the lack of any proper remedy? When is her report going to be published?
I have taken note of the noble Lord’s question and will respond to him about the report and the follow-up. It has to be said that after those allegations were made, there was a change in the regime. With the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, I had the privilege of visiting Yarl’s Wood, about which one of the major accusations was made. We were shown the major changes that had been made to how that place operates. I am confident that the issues of a year or two ago referred to by the noble Lord are no longer the norm.
Does not my noble friend agree that this is not simply a management problem but also a cultural one? We are asking staff members to do extremely difficult work in these centres, so training is crucial. Central to that training should be an understanding that the government strategy is to win hearts and minds, not to increase alienation.
I agree entirely with my noble friend but I believe the training to be thorough, and that the great majority of the 24,000 people employed by the UKBA not only understand our training but actually treat asylum seekers as they should be treated—as human beings with a problem and with legal rights. If we are talking about any, it is a tiny minority. Frankly, I doubt that the problem is as great as is sometimes suggested in the Daily Mail and other newspapers.
None the less, my Lords, the Minister has made a stout defence of something which may or may not turn out to be indefensible. Can he explain why the head of the UK Border Agency has had on occasion to issue a sincere apology to immigrants; and have any agency staff been given written warnings or been dismissed in the past 12 months?
I always delight in the noble Lord’s questions. They are always very precise and usually defeat me in terms of the information available in my brief. I will respond to him on the latter point, namely the question of any warnings. It has to be said that the UK Border Agency has been dealing with a whole series of backlog asylum investigations. In fact, there is a significant report published today, Fast and Fair? from the Parliamentary Ombudsman, which has some criticism of the UK Border Agency—a genuine criticism which I think the agency will take on board. It is the fourth report of the ombudsman. It says, “Significant improvement but must try harder”. It sounds like one of my school reports, except the word “significant” was never used.
My Lords, I wonder if we can hear from the noble Earl.
Would the Minister accept that he was a little dismissive of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury? It was only last summer that Her Majesty’s inspector of prisons reported, and these are not isolated incidents; they are a policy.
I would be no more dismissive of a question from the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for whom I have a tremendous regard, than I would indeed from the noble Earl, for whom I also have a tremendous regard. I did say I would look into the issue and respond, and I will. If I gave the impression of being dismissive, I apologise to the House.