Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

The clause deals inter alia with interception in immigration detention facilities, and it is that which leads me to oppose its inclusion in the Bill. We can see that there is some replication of previous legislation in the provisions that deal with interception in prisons and psychiatric institutions, but the provision on immigration detention facilities is new and it is deficient in several respects. The theory underlying it is deficient, because immigration detention facilities are dealt with in a part of the Bill that includes psychiatric hospitals and the facilities are defined to include immigration removal centres, which are short-term holding facilities in which people, including families with children, are held in the so-called pre-departure accommodation.

Immigration detention has been the subject of much discussion on the Floors of both Houses because it is done by administrative fiat and without limit of time. The person detained will not have been brought before a court or tribunal to have the lawfulness of their detention or entitlement to bail considered, unless they instigate such a process; and the powers to detain are very broad and cover a large number of scenarios. The Bill states that conduct is to be authorised if it is done in the exercise of any power conferred by or under the detention centre rules or the rules for short-term holding facilities.

It may help the hon. and learned Lady to abbreviate her remarks if I say that the provision is not intended and cannot be used to deal with someone’s asylum or immigration status. That is not its purpose. With that assurance, perhaps the last point she made will not quite hold the water in her mind that it currently does.

That does not really give me the assurance I seek. I was going to say that, under the clause, conduct is to be authorised if it is done in the exercise of any power conferred by or under the detention centre rules, or the rules for short-term holding facilities and pre-departure accommodation made under sections 157 and 157A of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 respectively. The latter sets of rules do not actually exist. Rules governing the regulation and management of short-term holding facilities were made in 2002, but it took until 2006 for draft rules to appear covering similar ground for short-term holding facilities as the detention centre rules do for immigration removal centres.

Back in 2006 the Home Office consulted on draft rules, to which various persons responded. In 2009 the Home Office consulted on another draft of the rules, to which there were further responses, many of them adverse; a number of freedom of information requests and parliamentary questions followed. In April 2012 the rules were described by the then Minister, Damian Green, as being “still under development”.

In March 2014, during the passage of the most recent immigration Bill, which became the Immigration Act 2014, Lord Taylor of Holbeach gave a commitment to Lord Avebury, who had been chasing the rules since 2006, that

“rules governing the management and operation of short-term holding facilities and the Cedars pre-departure accommodation will be introduced before the Summer Recess.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 March 2014; Vol. 752, c. 1140.]

Lord Avebury was informed before the recess that the commitment would not be met. He continued to pursue the matter, and draft rules were finally published on 18 February this year, almost a decade after the first draft was published and some 14 years after they were envisaged. That wait does not appear to have produced a version markedly different from earlier versions or particularly tailored to short-term facilities. In those circumstances, it is very far from clear what powers are being given by the current Bill. That shall be the gravamen of my exception to the clause.

In his review of immigration detention, Sir Stephen Shaw paid special attention to the problems of short-term holding facilities and the dreadful conditions in some of them. We have all heard about that on the Floor of the House. His concerns led him to recommend that a discussion draft of the short-term holding facility rules should be published as a matter of urgency. In the meantime, after he had said that, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons published a damning report on one particular facility, the Longport freight shed in Dover, describing the dire state of the facilities there. He said:

“on various occasions Home Office staff told us that they did not consider Longport to be a place of detention…despite detainees being in possession of legal authority to detain documentation and obviously being unable to leave. At this facility, the normal mechanisms of internal oversight and accountability that should apply to any form of detention were lacking.”

Under such circumstances, the notion of any lawful exercise of the powers contained in clause 44 seems fanciful.

There are also problems with immigration removal centres. The latest version of the detention centre rules dates from 2001. They were last amended in 2005 to update the name of the tribunal hearing immigration cases and bail applications, but by the time that was done the name itself was out of date because it had already been replaced by the immigration and asylum chamber of the first-tier and upper tribunals. The rules contain a broad range of powers from powers to fingerprint individuals and powers of search, to powers to identify survivors of torture or persons with a mental or physical illness; powers on medical information and notification of illness and death; powers to segregate and use force, and powers to carry out compulsory tests for drugs. There are also rules regarding visitors to centres and contractors.

My point is that the rules cover the sorts of matters that would be covered by prison rules but they apply to a different regime and to people who have not been detained by the courts or by due process of law. The overall effect is a lack of clarity. When one is working against the background of rules that do not exist or, if they do exist, lack clarity, a clause such as clause 44 potentially has a very far-reaching impact on people whose civil liberties are already severely undermined by the circumstances of their detention. The Government do not need to take just my word for that; it is a view widely held, including by a number of Government Back Benchers and peers.

We will not oppose the clause but I wish to put on record our concern about immigration detention and the intercept of communications in immigration detention facilities. There is growing concern, as has already been said, about the fact of that detention, the length of it and the conditions. There have been a number of reports, to which the Government have responded. In those circumstances, it is incumbent on the Government to justify the clause, although we will not seek to delete it.

I will be equally brief. There is a misconception about this matter. The Bill as drafted simply ensures that any interception carried out at a detention centre and under detention centre rules is lawful. No purpose is intended other than the maintenance of safety and security of the people in those centres. It is clearly right that officers should be able to intercept attempts to send contraband material, for example, such as drugs, in particularly sensitive environments. The power cannot be used to deal with the outcome of any immigration cases, asylum applications and so on.

The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 contains the power to make rules for management of immigration detention centres. Clause 44 provides that interception, carried out in accordance with those rules will be within the law. In a sense, it is as simple as that. I can see why the hon. and learned Lady might have misunderstood this, but I can assure her that that is what is in the Bill and, I put on the record, is the Government’s position. Rather than detain the Committee now, it might help if I send copies of the detention centre rules to Committee members, as they contain the essence of the argument that I have just made.

My essential objection to the clause is that subsection (1) states:

“Conduct taking place in immigration detention facilities is authorised by this section if it is conduct in exercise of any power conferred by or under relevant rules”,

with the relevant rules described in subsection (2), and the underlying “relevant rules” are wholly inadequate. There has been a long history of problems with the rules, so the clause rests on a very shaky and unsafe foundation. I am concerned to protect the civil liberties of persons who are not criminals, who are not guilty of any violation of the law, but who are detained under immigration rules and whose civil liberties are already severely curtailed.

I have a great deal of regard for the hon. and learned Lady’s diligence, but she is tilting at windmills. The clause is pretty straightforward. The points she makes about the management of detention centres may be perfectly reasonable debating points for a different Bill at a different time, but this Bill is not really about the management of detention centres and similar places. That matter is rightly dealt with in the relevant legislation. This Bill is merely about the application of certain powers to those centres to ensure that they are lawful. It is not much more complicated than that. On that basis, I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

The Committee divided:

Ayes 10, Noes 2.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Clause 44 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 45 and 46 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 47