A suitable bail address is an essential requirement for immigration detainees applying to the First-tier Tribunal for release on bail. Any detainee, whether or not they have made an asylum claim, is free to apply to the Home Office for a bail address under Section 4(1)(c) of the Immigration & Asylum Act 1999 if they have no address to go to on release with family or friends. Without a bail address detainees cannot normally lodge an application for release on bail and must simply wait in detention until the Home Office grants them a bail address. Yet too many detainees struggle for weeks or months to obtain a Section 4 bail address from the Home Office, especially those with a criminal conviction.
Just a few years ago it was unusual for a detainee to wait more than a week or two for a Section 4 bail address from the UK Border Agency. Now, delays of weeks, months, or more than one year for a Section 4 bail address are not uncommon. BID believes this level and prevalence of delay can never be acceptable, and renders the bail process meaningless both as an independent safeguard and as an alternative to detention.
BID became so concerned by the increasingly lengthy delays in provision by the Home Office of Section 4 bail accommodation that in January 2014 we embarked on research to quantify the length and prevalence of such delays in the processing, decision-making, and allocation of Section 4 (1)(c) bail accommodation.
BID’s Accommodation & Release Project aims to analyse the factors contributing to delays in the provision of bail addresses which are incurred at each stage of an application to the Home Office for Section 4 (1)(c) support.
Findings to date indicate that there are serious and systemic failings in the provision by the Home Office of Section 4 (1)(c) bail addresses. It appears that applications for bail accommodation by detainees are routinely subject to delays at each stage of the application process. These delays unreasonably extend the time spent in detention by those detainees who are wholly reliant on the Home Office for bail addresses, some for periods approaching one year. The management by the Home Office of applications for Section 4 (1)(c) bail addresses appears to be characterised by a worrying lack of urgency considering that loss of liberty is at stake. On the basis of our interim findings BID also has concerns about the effective and timely management of applications for Section 4 bail addresses from people with criminal convictions.
Of BID’s represented cases, around two out of three people seeking release on bail rely on Home Office bail accommodation granted under Section 4 (1)(c) of the Immigration & Asylum Act 1999. Typically BID’s represented cases are people who have already been detained without removal for over one year in an IRC, or in the prison estate post-sentence, who have no family and friends in the UK to provide bail accommodation, or who have lost contact with those people who could provide them with private accommodation on release.
They may also be people not currently removable from the UK, but whom the Home Office has not released from detention despite these barriers to their removal. They may be unremovable because they have a pending court hearing, or because attempts to secure a travel document from their embassy or high commission have not concluded or have become prolonged. It is essential that such detainees have prompt and regular access to the First-tier Tribunal for independent consideration of their ongoing detention and their application for release, but where each application to the Home Office for a Section 4 (1)(c) bail address takes months to conclude, prompt and regular access to independent scrutiny is not possible.
BID’s final research report on Section 4 (1)(c) bail support is in preparation.
