MS LIN HOMER AND MS EMILY MILES

15 JANUARY 2008

  Q1 Chairman: Could I welcome you to this session of the Home Affairs Select Committee looking at the work of the Border and Immigration Agency, and can I refer all present to the Register of Members' Interests and the declarations declared therein and welcome Lin Homer back again to the committee. Ms Homer, in May of last year the then Home Secretary, John Reid, told us that the Immigration Service was not fit for purpose. Since then, of course, you have changed your name. Is it now fit for purpose?

Ms Homer: Chairman, I think the phrase my permanent secretary used, that we are fitter than we were, is probably the right phrase to use. I think when I first appeared in front of the select committee I both recognised that an enormous amount of very good work had been done in the Agency before my time but I did say that I thought it would be a number of years before we got the Agency working as smoothly and productively as I think the public and you have a right to expect.

  Q2  Chairman: If you were to give a self-assessment on the performance since John Reid's famous statement, how many marks would you give BIA out of ten?

  Ms Homer: As an ex local authority chief executive. I got very used to corporate assessments and I slightly preferred those where you are allowed a mark on two axis, one for effort and one for delivery. I think we have definitely improved our productivity and I think a number of the reports we have given you illustrate that. If you look at foreign national prisoners, we have both heard the message that we should concentrate on criminality and we have considered the numbers of people that we are removing, but I think, importantly, alongside that (and, again, that very early conversation with this Committee was very informative), we have been looking at and improving our procedures, and I think we have gone a long way to putting many of those in place, but, for instance, it will be another two years, at least, before we have a fully integrated case-working system that technologically supports our caseworkers to the level that I think they need.

  Q3  Chairman: Is it about six out of ten.

  Ms Homer: I would be pleased if you gave me six out of ten. I am quite a hard task-master. I think it would vary from parts of the business to part of the business. What I can assure you is that we all remain very committed to that continuous improvement agenda.

  Q4  Chairman: One issue that we are concerned about, at least the Committee was exercised about this, quite rightly so, at the end of December, is the number of letters that you send me, for example. We are not upset about the number of letters—we like to be kept informed—but that find their way to the press first before they get to me. You seem to have a lot of leaks in your department.

  Ms Homer: I am very sorry if any have got to the press before they have got to you. I have to say, we did agree a procedure with your predecessor to try and make sure that the Committee got the news first, and I am very happy for my office, yours and our parliamentary clerk to have another look at that, because I think it is essential that you are the people that get the information first. Indeed, one of the reasons I have written to you quite often is that I felt that was an early commitment I made to the Committee. I am very happy to be guided by you as to whether you would rather—. I think what I have suggested in my last letter is that I would aim to write to you about every six months. If you are going to tell me that is too much, I would, of course, listen, but I know your level of interest and I am very keen that you keep informed.

  Q5  Chairman: No, that is fine, we like to hear from you with all the facts and figures that you have to give us. We now turn to the issue of removals, but before I do so and talk about foreign prisoners and their removals I want to raise, as you know, the case of Ama Sumani, which has been in the press over the last few days. I have just finished a telephone call with her. She is in a hospital bed in Accra in Ghana and she gave me explicit consent to raise this case with you, because, obviously, it is a private case though it has got into the public domain. She was removed while she was in hospital in Cardiff getting dialysis treatment. Though, obviously, there is an expectation that people should stay within the rules, ministers keep telling us that there is also a compassionate side to this Government. Why was she taken from that hospital, put on a plane with three immigration officials and made to continue her treatment in another country?

  Ms Homer: As you know, as an agency, we are very strict about not speaking about individual cases, and that is something we try and hold to because even when an individual puts their case—

  Q6  Chairman: Indeed, and that is why I phoned her and she is very happy that I should raise it.

  Ms Homer: I understand that. Can I just, in a sense, draw back a little bit to a wider spectrum of health cases and then come back to this case in point, Chairman. I think, at a personal level, not only I but many of my caseworkers will feel a deep personal sympathy to many of the cases that we are confronted with where there are incredibly challenging circumstances for the individuals in returning them to their country of origin. Although it is very hard to say, that of itself is not enough to make a case like this unique for the Agency. We deal with many hundreds of cases where the personal circumstances of the individual, I think, reach and touch and affect those people involved. Indeed, I would have to say, I think it is one of the things that makes being a caseworker in the Agency an incredibly difficult job, and I am always enormously grateful for those who are prepared to do it.

  Q7  Chairman: But as Mr Winnick will test you on a little later on on the students, you have intervened yourself, have you not, on cases?

  Ms Homer: Not on individual cases.

  Q8  Chairman: On policy?

  Ms Homer: On policy, and the difference between those two things is, in cases where an individual either is here illegally or has applied for asylum and that claim has not been recognised, we have a very clear policy, which has been tested all the way to the courts of Strasbourg, has been retested in our domestic courts many times, that confirmed that medical claims will only reach the threshold to generate an Article 3 claim in rare and extreme circumstances, and, indeed, other than the case of D v the UK in 1997 no others have reached that threshold since.

  Q9  Chairman: But a woman getting hospital treatment in Cardiff being removed from the hospital, whose health, I have just heard her tell me, has deteriorated since she arrived in Ghana because a lot of the doctors in the hospital have actually ended up working the United Kingdom, is not one of those exceptional cases?

  Ms Homer: No, it is not, and there have been a number of cases. The House of Lords in the case of N set out a number of important principles, in particular that Article 3 does not give a right to remain in the UK to those who receive medical treatment, and an improvement in a claimant's medical condition resulting from the interim treatment, together with a prospect of serious or fatal relapse on expulsion, will not render expulsion inhuman treatment contrary to Article 3. These are incredibly difficult cases. As I say, there are many hundreds each year. If we were to try and differentiate and vary our policy on a case by case basis, there are many thousands of cases throughout the world where access to treatment in their own country is much less good than it is in this country. I think it is a very good reminder to us of how effective our health service is.

  Q10  Chairman: Indeed, but in this particular case was the decision taken at official level or ministerial level?

  Ms Homer: All of these cases are carefully considered by a caseworker and in the majority of them, including this one, there will be an appeal before an independent judicial hearing, as there was in this case.

  Q11  Chairman: So, no minister has considered this case. The issue of discretion has not come into it.

  Ms Homer: What the minister has confirmed and what has been my experience with a number of ministers is that they do not believe it is appropriate to substitute their personal choice when there has been a careful case consideration and an independent judicial decision. Their view is that that would weaken, rather than strengthen, consistency.

  Q12  Chairman: That is very helpful indeed, but just to get this right: no minister has considered this case?

  Ms Homer: This case was not considered by the Minister, no.

  Q13  Chairman: Would you be prepared to look at it again in view of the representation that have been made by so many individuals?

  Ms Homer: I think it is very difficult to see the circumstances in which this case stands out from the many very difficult cases we consider, and I cannot see the value in trying to substitute a one-off decision for the very carefully considered conclusions, not only of our own courts, all the way up to the House of Lords, but of the Strasbourg judgment.

  Q14  Chairman: Thank you for that. Let us move on to a group of individuals who are not being removed, unlike Mrs Sumani. These are those whose sentences have not been in excess of 12 months. Why are you not removing foreign prisoners who have not served more than 12 months?

  Ms Homer: It just is not true that we are not removing prisoners who have served less than 12 months. What I have tried to make clear in the explanations about this is that what we are doing is significantly ramping up the number of criminals that we deport. When I first sat in front of this Committee the figure for 2005 was about 1,500. For 2006, our first full year of looking at it with our new procedures, we increased that to 2,600 and I think, as you will have heard from ministers in the last few days, we have just confirmed that the figure for 2007 was 4,200, another uplift of 60%. Whilst we, rightly I think, focus on the most serious criminals first—again, that was the commitment we made to you and to the House of Commons—we are already deporting a significant number of criminals whose sentences are either less than six months, for instance where a court recommends deportation, or where they have had a number of sentences of less than 12 months but those aggregate to 12 months overall. This year, when the provisions of the new Act come into effect, we will move into automatic consideration of deportation and the consideration of a wider range of offences. The sheer fact that we are ramping up those numbers illustrates that we are already taking those lesser sentences very seriously indeed. I personally sign the deportation orders. I, therefore, see what the background of each criminal we deport is, and there are many. In fact I signed one last night where the sentence was one month and 11 days but where the judge had considered that deportation was right and, therefore, that person will be deported.

  Q15  Mr Clappison: Are there prisoners who are sentenced to sentences of custody of less than 12 months who are not deported?

  Ms Homer: Yes, there are, and there will be a number of categories where that is so. There will be cases where we seek a deportation order but the court overturns us (although we have had a pretty good success rating in challenging appeals but, nonetheless, some appeals are successful), there will be some that do not meet our current criteria, and that is why, under the Act, we are tightening up the criteria, and there will be some where the overall circumstances of the case, including the type of crime and when the individual arrived, where we will consider that deportation is not the appropriate action.

  Q16  Mr Clappison: So, apart from the cases where the court will not order one but you are seeking one, there are cases where you simply decide not to seek a deportation?

  Ms Homer: Under the current procedures there are circumstances where we consider and do not pursue. That will change under the new Act and we will automatically consider deportation unless that is appealed against.

  Q17  Mr Clappison: So the leaked memo had a bit of truth in it?

  Ms Homer: I tried to explain at the time, I think the leaked memo, if you read it fully, was a very straightforward account of what is effectively a tiered system. For instance, if I were to give you an example of a case involving quite a serious offence of criminality, actually not in relation to a sentence criminal but taking into account settlement (where we also look at the same criteria), a young woman who was sentenced for the death of her child many years ago and with medical evidence to support that that was whilst suffering post natal depression was one case, where her criminality was set aside in allowing her to progress to settlement.

  Q18  Mr Clappison: Are there cases where a foreign individual is sentenced to more than 12 months' imprisonment where you do not seek deportation?

  Ms Homer: Only where we lose those cases in front of the court or where we know there is an absolutely clear court precedent that means we would not be able to succeed.

  Q19  Mr Clappison: What about people who have committed offences but receive, say, a community sentence: they narrowly avoid prison by the skin of their teeth? Do you ever deport people like that?

  Ms Homer: We have the power to deport what are regarded as non-conducive cases. I would have to say that, in most cases, we are probably using administrative removal in cases like that rather than deportation.