Dear All,

I thought I should give you an update as to where we stand in regard to the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill currently passing through the Lords.

As I mentioned in my last email, the government has decided to split the new legislation into two, with the current Bill dealing with a relatively small area of policy, and a second, much more wide-ranging Bill probably following in around October.

The current BCI Bill has just gone through the Committee stage in the House of Lords, where various amendments have been discussed. The listof Amendments most relevant to MJ's work can be found here

The Amendments most relevant for our purposes were Amendment 117, 117A and 117B proposed by Lord Avebury which aimed (i) to put a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to maintain and regularly publish statistics on detained children, individuals in detention separated from their children and age-disputed detainees; and (ii) to put on a statutory footing the requirement for ministerial authorisation for all children detained beyond 28 days.

Sadly, neither of these Amendments were passed, with the Minister basically arguing that current statistical measures are sufficient and that any statutory duty would be too inflexible. He made a similar argument about flexibility in relation 117A and the requirement for ministerial authorisation. But it's well worth looking at the debate in detail - both Lord Avebury's forceful arguments and the Minister'sreponses here

There were other relevant Amendments made too. Amendment 111 sought to amend clause 48 of the Bill which would give the Secretary of State the power automatically to take fingerprints from foreign criminals liable to deportation. Another debate was conducted in relation to the removal Clause 49 from the Bill. This Clause extends the power of immigration officers to detain at ports to Scotland. Amendment 111BA sought to remove Clause 50 which allows the new Upper Tribunal rather than the High Court to hear immigration judicial reviews.

These three also had to be withdrawn. You can see the debates on these, here

Medical Justice did not provide briefings on these Amendments, and I must apologise for being partly responsible for not having been proactive enough in ensuring MJ did participate. Although I did ask for suggestions for our responses to the Bill before it went through Committee, I was not clear enough about the precise topics on which we should focus and I wasn't able gather information on the relevant subjects in time.

However, I have been in touch with Lord Avebury who is happy to receive input from MJ for the next, Report, stage of the Bill, which takes place on 23 March. In particular, it is notable that Lord Avebury has said that he may well re-visit Amendment 117 in the Report stage (see Column 1155 of the debate).

I am due to attend a meeting which I hope is taking place next week in relation to the Report stage, so I expect to be able to feed back more info as to what kind of input would be useful from MJ in relation to this legislative stage.

In the meantime, I would be extremely grateful if anyone has responses to particular Amendments or Clauses of the Bill and / or suggestionsas to what sort of information / data / legislative proposals, MJ should contribute to the Report stage.

All the best,

Ben Silverstone
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