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Publication of correspondence: Letter to Home Secretary following David Neal session

29 February 2024: Home Affairs Select Committee: The Home Affairs Committee has written to the Home Secretary, James Cleverly, with questions following its evidence session with former Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI), David Neal.

The letter highlights key concerns raised in the session and request further information on an number of issues, including the role of ICIBI and the impact of the post remaining vacant; outstanding ICIBI reports and their publication; the situation at Wethersfield asylum accommodation centre; and UK border operations.

Chair’s comment

Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson said:

“We were deeply troubled by what we heard at yesterday’s session with David Neal. Irrespective of the whys and wherefores of his dismissal, we are left with yet another Home Office mess. The ICIBI is a vital part of scrutinising border operations but it is left without leadership for months. 15 reports remain unpublished by the Home Office and we have to wonder how far the Home Office will have taken on board their findings to improve border operations. We have asked them to set out how they intend to restore the authority and effectiveness of this vital role.

“We are also concerned about the conditions at Wethersfield and have asked the Home Office to allow us to see for ourselves what is going on here.”

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/83/home-affairs-committee/news/200152/

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New reports from ICIBI and Home Office responses

Dave Neal, who has been ICIBI was sacked – see this report: https://qarn.org.uk/its-scandalous/. He has complained throughout his time as ICIBI that the Home Office was slow, sometimes very slow to publish his Department’s reports. They have now published 13 of them all at once. In his absence the ICIBI team will be unable to act until there is a new appointee.

The role of the Independent Chief Inspector is to help improve the efficiency, effectiveness and consistency of the Home Office’s border and immigration functions through unfettered, impartial and evidence-based inspection.

His findings and recommendations for improvement to the Home Office are captured in inspection reports. They are submitted to the Home Secretary and laid before Parliament before publication.

The Independent Chief Inspector has developed a set of expectations against which his staff conduct inspections.

The Home Office publishes official responses to the ICIBI reports.

29 Feb 2024: Inspection reports by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) 12 long-awaited reports have now been released by the Home Office. The publication of some of these reports has been delayed by the Home Secretary for many months past the agreed time scales.

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ICIBI: How a sacked official blew the whistle on new lows in the asylum system

28 February 2024: Guardian: Wednesday briefing: How a sacked official blew the whistle on new lows in the asylum system

In today’s newsletter: Why David Neal lost his job, and what he had to say about the faltering immigration system

Good morning. When then-home secretary Priti Patel appointed David Neal as the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration in 2021, the Commons home affairs committee refused to endorse the decision. They were worried that the recruitment process had been inadequate and said they had seen no evidence that he was “confident to challenge performance publicly”. Well, they’ve seen it now.

Last week, David Neal was sacked from his job by James Cleverly, now the home secretary, just a month before he was due to stand down. Neal’s crime was to disclose unauthorised information to the media – a tactic that he appears to have resorted to after 15 reports he wrote uncovering problems with the immigration system went unpublished, instead gathering dust on a Home Office shelf. Now Neal has told the same parliamentary committee of “shocking leadership” at the Home Office and said he was “sacked for doing my job” – and his testimony paints a grim picture of the state of the accommodation centres where the government houses asylum seekers.

Continue reading “ICIBI: How a sacked official blew the whistle on new lows in the asylum system”
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The Rwanda Bill must not succeed

22 February 2024: Think-Film: Oscar-nominated film “Io Capitano”

Oscar-nominated film “Io Capitano” is a vital story that shows why the Rwanda Bill must not succeed! People who risk everything for a better life deserve safety and human rights protection. We urge Parliament to exercise compassion and vote against the Bill.

Watch this impactful and urgent film in UK cinemas on April 5th!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rioxz4qag6wqkawkvq33i/h?rlkey=mg3ahcb7pyc68o0w5y2stc390&dl=0

Think-Film: https://tfip.org/

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It’s scandalous

Updated 20 February 2024: The Government is really angry with Dave Neal for speaking out: BBC: Immigration watchdog sacked after critical news stories

Mr Neal, whose tenure was due to end on 21 March, told the Times on Tuesday that he had not made the decision to speak to the media “lightly”. He added: “But I’ve been forced into this because my reports aren’t being published.”

“I’ve spent all my working life protecting this country, I’ve identified a security failing and I’ve brought it back to the Home Office,” he is quoted as saying.

“There’s a strong public interest here and that’s why I’ve done what I’ve done. The border is there to keep us safe, it’s critical that there are clear auditable risk decisions made to protect every one of us in the country.”

Continue reading “It’s scandalous”
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Concerns about the use of barges, army barracks, hotels, offshoring etc etc. continued 2023

This post follows on from the initial post which became very long, but can be found here: https://qarn.org.uk/concerns-about-the-use-of-army-barracks-etc/. Here we update the post with reports of atrocities around the army camp accommodation and hotels, and other Home Office plans to accommodate people in new sites. These are the consequences of the hostile system that leaves people languishing without a decision for long periods of time.

See also posts regarding ‘Detention Centres‘ such as such as Hassockfield/Derwentside and also the post regarding plans to export people seeking asylum to Rwanda 

Re: children: https://qarn.org.uk/article-39-seeks-legal-protection-for-highly-vulnerable-children-housed-in-home-office-hotels/

9 February 2024: BBC: Bibby Stockholm: Government to investigate migrants’ baptisms

The home secretary is investigating how the asylum system deals with migrants who have converted to Christianity.

It follows claims from a Weymouth church that Muslim men living on board the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is moored off Portland in Dorset, were preparing for Christian baptism.

Sussex MP Tim Loughton raised the issue in Parliament on Wednesday.

Weymouth Baptist Church insisted the requests for baptism were genuine.

People can apply for UK asylum based on religion if you have a well-founded fear of persecution in your home country because of your religious beliefs.

Continue reading “Concerns about the use of barges, army barracks, hotels, offshoring etc etc. continued 2023”
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Together with Refugees – show your support

QARN is a signatory to Together With Refugees: please get involved in their campaigns.

30 January 2024: Fair Begins Here Valentine’s Day action – campaign toolkit

With the government pushing its inhumane Rwanda scheme back through Parliament, our new campaign Fair Begins Here couldn’t be more urgent or important. Fair Begins Here puts the theme of fairness at its heart – because now is the moment for a fairer and more compassionate approach towards refugees in the UK. To learn more about the context and aims of the campaign, you can watch back our online briefing session here. 

This Valentine’s Day on February 14th we invite you to stand up for fairness for refugees by launching Fair Begins Here in your community and joining thousands of people sending messages of kindness to refugees across the country. The Valentine’s Day action will kickstart the biggest ever call for political leaders of all parties to introduce a fair new plan for refugees in the UK. 

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Court, Parliament and Rwanda

29 January 2024: Joint statement on Rwanda Bill for Lords 2nd reading 

Joint civil society statement on the Rwanda Bill for Second Reading in the House of Lords

The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill is a constitutionally extraordinary and deeply harmful piece of legislation.

It threatens the universality of human rights and is likely in breach of international law, striking a serious blow to the UK’s commitment to the rule of law.

It was not a Government manifesto commitment – on the contrary, it will hinder the UK’s ability to “continue to grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution”.

As a coalition of more than 260 organisations working in and across the UK, we call on Peers to reject the Bill at Second Reading.

The Rwanda Bill undermines the principle that human rights are universal – that they apply to all of us, regardless of where we are from.

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Age assessments of children

23 January 2024: Written jointly by the Refugee Council, the Helen Bamber Foundation and Humans for Rights Network ‘Forced Adulthood -The Home Office’s incorrect determination of age and how this leaves child refugees at risk.’

It was written jointly by the Refugee Council, the Helen Bamber Foundation and Humans for Rights Network. It found that at least 1,300 refugee children were placed in unsupervised adult accommodation and detention in an 18-month period (January 2022 to June 2023), after being wrongly age-assessed on arrival in the UK. We think that real numbers are likely to be much higher as data was not received from all local authorities. 

This data paints a bleak picture of separated children‘s experiences on arrival in the UK. Behind each case there is a child who has been failed by the system, experienced abuse, exploitation, distress, or harm. All of these traumas are entirely preventable, children are subjected to these harms as a direct result of being wrongly placed in adult accommodation due to the Home Office age assessment policy at the point of entry.

This is a safeguarding crisis on an unprecedented scale which we like to bring to your attention in the hope it will be possible for us to work together to address system failures and ensure that all children are protected from the moment they arrive in the UK.

Additional findings reveal that:

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Ending Immigration Detention

Updated 19 January 2024: Detention Forum: The changes we want to see

We want to end immigration detention because it is unjust and inhumane, and as the steps on that journey, here are the key changes that we want to see happen.

All of these issues are supported by our policy papers that have been endorsed by our membership – they reflect the changes that we want to see.

And this is the over-arching narrative of the changes that we want to see on immigration detention.

Continue reading “Ending Immigration Detention”