Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I rise in support of Amendment No. 67 which would provide automatic bail hearings. The Government claim that detainees have the opportunity to claim for bail through judicial review and habeas corpus, but apart from the expense and complication of such procedures there are two fundamental reasons why the situation is difficult. First, a great number of detainees simply do not know that they are allowed to make an application for bail. Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) quotes one detainee as stating:"““The information on bail is in the small print. Also, by the time you get the letter in detention, your state of mind is such that you don’t always take it in. They don’t explain it to you””." Another person stated:"““In Oakington I did not know anything about release/bail procedure. I did not know anyone there. Only I knew about right for someone to have a solicitor from the American movies””," That is clearly a crucial point. Other noble Lords have emphasised, or will emphasise again, that we all know the sheer difficulty of getting any legal representation for detainees. A large number of people are being held in detention, as has been emphasised. In 2004, some 20 per cent were held for longer than three months and 55 people for over a year. As was subsequently shown, we know that many of those people, if they had had automatic bail hearings, would have been out before eight or 36 days. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, gave a very moving example from his own experience. In another example, a man was detained for eight months before BID made a bail application on his behalf. At that bail hearing the Home Office did not contest his release and the Immigration Service could offer no reason for incarcerating him for over eight months. He was released with surety and no reporting conditions and is now living with relatives and has a new solicitor. Automatic bail hearings would ensure that such miscarriages do not take place. We know from the Human Rights Act, which was quoted by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, that we should make provision for such hearings, and which the then Home Secretary Jack Straw said should be made provision for in the earlier Bill. So I strongly support the amendment.