Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

First, I apologise to the Home Secretary and to my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for not being present for the initial speeches. It is not like me to be absent, but I have been dealing with a matter that is pertinent to the debate during the afternoon, as the Minister for Borders and Immigration will appreciate. There is a letter waiting for him when he returns to his office. However, I apologise for speaking so late. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) because we find ourselves speaking about the same topic. The House may recall that the Yarl's Wood detention centre is in my constituency, and I have raised several issues about it over the years. I have had run-ins with the UK Border Agency, and I may well do so again in my remarks this evening. In my view, Yarl's Wood has worked well on behalf of detainees and it makes considerable efforts to ensure that children's time in detention is handled as well and as effectively as possible. The conditions in which the children are kept are good, as are the educational facilities—it is just sad that they are there. I share the hon. Lady's view—I wish that they were not. It is a difficult issue, as Conservative and Labour Front Benchers well know, but I do not believe that children should be detained. Perhaps the circumstances that I shall describe will emphasise that. On Saturday, I went to see a family at Yarl's Wood. The family is Sudanese—a mother with three girls, aged 14, 10 and three. They have been in this country for a couple of years—coincidentally, they lived in Cardiff, though not in the hon. Lady's constituency. The father disappeared in Darfur and the family applied for asylum, but the application was turned down. A couple of months ago, the family were taken to Yarl's Wood. The three girls face the inevitable prospect of female genital mutilation when they return—the 14-year-old faces it almost immediately on her return. It is impossible to describe to the House the horror and apprehension that the family feel about their imminent return and the desperate situation of the 14-year-old girl. They are in deep despair. I went to see the family because of the circumstances of their attempted removal last week, about which I have already written to the Minister. A further letter has gone to him today. I agree with the hon. Lady—I have always found the Minister, who is a long-standing friend, capable and humane. I hope that he will agree to my request to see him before removal directions are carried out. I visited the family on Saturday with a member of Yarl's Wood Befrienders, to whom I pay tribute. The Befrienders are a group of ordinary men and women who, sometimes out of Christian conviction, sometimes out of sheer humanitarian concern, go and see the people who are detained in Yarl's Wood, not because they are taking part in their cases—that is left to lawyers, refugee groups, asylum groups and others—but because they want those detained, who are currently almost exclusively women and children, to have someone to talk to, who might care for them and understand what they are going through. We know that all sorts of cases end up in a detention centre—in some, it is appropriate that the people are returned. There will be cases of justice and injustice, but all who are there need a human touch at times, and the Befrienders do a wonderful job. On Saturday, I went with Heather to see the family whose case I am describing about their attempted removal. I was contacted suddenly before their anticipated removal, and I asked whether the Minister would be good enough in the circumstances, bearing in mind the likely consequences of their return for the girls, to put the removal directions on hold and allow the family more time to see a new solicitor and present another case. On the afternoon in question, the family were taken from Yarl's Wood. They were in a van on their way to the airport when news came through from the Minister's office that he had been kind enough to grant a stay of removal directions. The information was immediately transmitted to the mother, who still had her mobile phone, and she told the escort service that the removal directions had been cancelled. Understandably, the escorts needed to confirm that and they did so shortly after they arrived at the airport. However, instead of being immediately taken back to Yarl's Wood, the family was taken to another part of the airport, away from the main concourse, and then on to the tarmac. Their bags were loaded into the plane and it was made clear that the family would be put on the plane. The family members were separated from each other so that the children could be loaded on to the plane first. The mother became extremely distressed and was restrained in the elastic cuffs that are used. I am pleased to say that the children were not so restrained. The mother resisted, not unnaturally, and there was further to-ing and fro-ing. She was placed in the aircraft, where she continued to resist, and then the escort said that further confirmation had been received that the removal directions had been cancelled. That followed a further intervention on my part to the Minister's office, asking what on earth was going on when removal directions had been cancelled but, contrary to the Minister's express wishes, were being carried out. The family was taken off the plane, put back in the van and returned to Yarl's Wood, where they were placed in a separate area to help them recover. I appreciate why Serco at Yarl's Wood did that—I am sure that it was right and proper. The next morning, before they were to return to the unit, they were served with a further notice of immediate removal, which was in breach of the 72-hour rule. They should not have been served with such directions until 72 hours had passed after the previous attempt to remove them. Again, I made a further intervention and again, the Minister's office understood that a mistake had been made and the order was countermanded. The family was then let be, and I went to see them a couple of days later. I wrote to the Minister, saying that I would be grateful if he held an inquiry into the circumstances and ascertained why instructions had been countermanded and why the family had been put through the extraordinary distress and agony, which I cannot adequately convey to the House, of being told that their removal had been cancelled and then put on a plane, having the directions rescinded again, returning to Yarl's Wood and receiving a further removal direction. The hon. Lady spoke about clause 57, which deals with the welfare of children, and I am wondering where current provision for welfare is in such circumstances. I have asked the Minister whether he will be good enough to inquire into the circumstances. I learned this afternoon that removal directions have been set again for the family for Friday. As far as I know, no inquiry has taken place into what happened the other week. No time has been given for the new solicitors to make proper representations about what is likely to happen to the girls when they return to the Sudan. I am deeply upset that a further intervention by me is required to ask the Minister to give proper time for an inquiry into what happened and the reasons for it. I also ask the Minister to consider the case because I think that the family should be out of there. I do not mean that the case should be closed, but I do not believe that the family should be in Yarl's Wood. Families are detained at Yarl's Wood because the UK Border Agency has reason to believe that they might abscond. I am still puzzled about why families with children, especially young children, who need to be registered for health and education reasons, are perceived as likely to abscond. We all understand that that might apply to single people or even couples, but I have always been puzzled about why it would apply to children. The reason given is that families have refused directions previously and that makes them likely to abscond. I do not think that it does. I believe that it makes them likely to refuse directions in future, but not to abscond from their homes. The family should go back to Cardiff. The 14-year-old was unable to take a public examination when she was due to take it. As the hon. Lady knows, that is often a consequence of the UK Border Agency's intervention and of taking children at the wrong time, such as sensitive times for their education. The young lady was allowed to take her exam in the confines of Yarl's Wood. That is only one family's story. I do not pretend for a second to have the answers. I understand why some children are sometimes detained and why it is not possible for the Minister to say that we should never do so. I also understand the restriction on my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), but I am concerned. I have been talking about just one family's story. I do not know whether we can have a policy in this country for no child ever to be returned to a place where she would face female genital mutilation, but I wish that we did. I do not see how we can make that work for everybody, but I am sure that the House can understand that anyone who had met a family in such circumstances, worked with them and seen their children would want to find some way of ensuring that what they feared did not happen. The situation is like the story of the woman on the beach who sees all the starfish lying on the shore. She walks down, picks one up and tosses it into the waves, but there are hundreds more on the shore, so her friend says to her, "What on earth are you doing? Look at all the starfish. You can't deal with them all," and she says, "No, I can't deal with them all. But I can deal with this one—I can toss this one back." Sometimes that is all that we can do. We can see only the odd case that comes to our notice and try to do our best. When the Minister gets back to his office, will he kindly look at the letter that I have written, lift the removal directions for this week, give the case an opportunity to be looked at afresh and see whether there is not a better answer? In the meantime, while the case is being considered—it may take some time—could the family return to Cardiff, where they ought to be?