§ Baroness Scotland of AsthalWe are today publishing the report by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, of his investigation into the serious disturbance at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre on 14 and 15 February 2002.
Immediately after the disturbance, Stephen Moore, a senior member of the Prison Service, was asked to conduct an investigation of what had happened. He made significant progress but was unable to have access to the information necessary to complete his investigation until associated court proceedings had been completed. On 19 June 2003, my right honourable friend the then Minister for Citizenship and Immigration announced in a Written Statement that she had decided that Stephen Shaw, who had been providing an independent overview of the work done 54WS up to that point, should take overall responsibility for the investigation, in order to ensure that it was fully independent. As Mr Shaw notes in his report, he had unfettered access to papers and staff. We are grateful to him for the care with which he has examined what was by any standards an extremely serious incident and for a very thorough report, and to Stephen Moore for the considerable effort he invested in the earlier stages of the investigation.
The report criticises the handling by the contractor Group 4 of the incident which gave rise to the disturbances. It identifies weaknesses in design and materials which it attributes to the time constraints under which the centre was built, and which, in Mr Shaw's view, rendered it unfit for purpose and unable to withstand the assault on it that occurred on 14 and 15 February 2002. It finds that "the operation that ended the disturbance seems to have worked well", but that there was a lack of clarity as to who was in charge and the command structure. It notes the lack of information held centrally at that time on detainees, of the kind that would have supported a more effective risk assessment of the detained population.
Stephen Shaw pays tribute, as I do, to the bravery shown by individual members of the Prison Service and Group 4 staff, by members of the emergency services and those detainees who rescued staff who were trapped. As he says, there was no loss of life, but the disturbance and fire were traumatic events for those involved.
It is important to remember the context in 2000 and 2001, when the Yarl's Wood and Harmondsworth removal centres were built. Asylum applications had risen significantly in 1999 and remained at high levels. All those involved—Ministers and officials alike—were rightly convinced that part of the solution was the creation of significantly more detention accommodation than had previously existed to support the removal of failed asylum seekers. In that context, the creation of such additional accommodation was understandably seen as an urgent priority. It is easy to be wise with hindsight, but we readily acknowledge that the weaknesses in design and materials identified by Stephen Shaw existed and made the centre more vulnerable to a disturbance than it would otherwise have been.
The important thing is that there were clear lessons to be learnt, and they were. As the report notes, the Colnbrook removal centre, which opened recently, was built to a much more robust design. The Harmondsworth centre, originally built to the same design as Yarl's Wood, was extensively refurbished, with the installation of sprinklers and the strengthening of parts of the infrastructure, as was the surviving part of Yarl's Wood. The command structure in the event of a disturbance was clarified and improved, and effort invested in staff training.
We are also publishing today the report of an investigation of the more recent disturbance at Harmondsworth on 19 July this year by Sue McAllister, the head of the Security Group in the Prison Service. We are grateful also to Ms McAllister for her work. This has been a more limited 55WS investigation, because a number of those involved in the disturbance still face criminal proceedings. It is, however, clear from the report that, as a result of the refurbishments I have described, Harmondsworth was significantly more able to withstand a serious disturbance than would otherwise have been the case. Damage was limited, the command arrangements for responding to the incident generally worked well, and the restoration of order was, in Ms McAllister's words, "a successful operation" in which Prison Service, police and other staff acquitted themselves well. There were no injuries to either staff or detainees and there were no escapes from the centre. The centre was up and running again within three months of the incident. The inherent weaknesses in the design were, however, a factor in the extent to which the disturbance spread throughout the centre, and fire safety requirements limited the measures that could be taken to control detainees, including preventing their confinement to their rooms. Officials have been addressing urgently with the contractor and fire authorities what more can be done to improve control without jeopardising fire safety.
Ms McAllister comments on the lack of systems for assessing the suitability of detainees for the open regime at Harmondsworth, and recommends a more strategic approach to the management of disruptive individuals. It is important to recognise that the expansion of the immigration removal estate was in part a result of the decision to end the practice of detaining immigration offenders in prisons. Since the Yarl's Wood disturbance, the Immigration and Nationality Directorate has strengthened arrangements for assessing the risk which individual detainees represent and for considering the case for moving disruptive detainees elsewhere in the estate or into prison accommodation. These arrangements are however being reviewed again in the light of experience at Harmondsworth and Ms McAllister's comments, and there are plans to enhance the assessment process. Perhaps the most significant development is that the new centre at Colnbrook, built to a more robust design, provides an option for managing the more difficult detainees short of transfer to the prison estate—an option which did not previously exist.
These two reports highlight the challenge which the management of immigration detainees now represents. Detainees are not convicted criminals. As Stephen Shaw notes, one of the factors in the design of Harmondsworth and Yarl's Wood was the aim to create an environment which, while secure, was not a prison environment. These events have shown the tension between this aim and the need to maintain control and security. As Stephen Shaw notes in his report, as the effectiveness of the removals process increases, detainees are now spending, on average, much shorter periods in detention. This is, in itself, welcome, but it tends to raise levels of tension among the detained population and limits the scope for constructive activities of the kind that longer-term custodial institutions provide. That said, we have to ensure within the detention estate a humane regime that provides purposeful activities and is strong on contact between staff and detainees. That, rather than the 56WS structure of the buildings (important as that is), is the surest means by which the risk of disaffection and disturbance can be kept to the minimum. We have already accepted Stephen Shaw's recommendation (number 60) that a forum comprising officials, contractors and relevant interest groups be set up to consider provision of purposeful activity in removal centres. The forum will be chaired by the Senior Director, Operations in IND, and the Chief Inspector of Prisons will be invited to be represented.
Stephen Shaw's report makes a large number of other recommendations, many of which have already been acted on, while others will now be considered carefully and progressed, along with relevant conclusions of Sue McAllister's report. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has asked IND senior management to draw up an action plan based on these for publication in early 2005.
There have been many improvements to the management of the detention system—indeed of IND as a whole—since these events took place but we are determined that we should learn any further lessons of these very serious events, and do everything we can to prevent a recurrence.