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Ms Abbott: I listened with interest to what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence). I understand that he is a lawyer; if he is, I feel genuinely sorry for anyone whom he seeks to represent in court, because he managed completely to ignore the real legal point about the benefit cuts.
Perhaps I can help the hon. and learned Gentleman by reminding him of what Lord Justice Waite said in his judgment. He said that cutting benefits for asylum seekers and refugees would
The substance of Ministers' arguments for the benefit cut is that anyone who claims refugee status in country is more likely to be bogus than someone who claims it at the port. Over and over, hon. Members on both sides of the House have put it to Ministers that there is not a shred of statistical evidence to demonstrate that people who claim in country are more likely to be bogus than those
who claim at the port; over and over, Ministers have refused to deal with that fact. In my view, however, that fact blows away the whole basis of their case.
As hon. Members have said, this is a modest amendment. It will rule out the very small number of people who may have been here for six months, a year or longer, and then claim refugee status gratuitously, while giving confused and frightened people a few days in which to collect their thoughts, obtain advice and put in a claim. It will do a good deal to help genuine refugees.
I have listened to the debate with interest. I have been struck both by Conservative Members' unwillingness to face the truth about their case--which I believe has no basis in fact--and by the number of hon. Members who have jumped up to complain that the great British public do not want to give benefits to foreigners and "tinted people". Those hon. Members--some of whom are not present now--are the same hon. Members who, year after year, rose to denounce Nelson Mandela as a terrorist and to say that he should be hanged. History has shown that their position was both morally and politically bankrupt, and I believe that history will show that those who vote against this modest amendment are just as morally and politically bankrupt as the Conservative Members who, year after year, denounced Nelson Mandela as a terrorist who was beneath contempt.
Ms Roseanna Cunningham (Perth and Kinross):
I, too, am disgusted by some of the squalid sentiments that have been expressed tonight. I am sure that I speak for many other hon. Members when I dissociate myself from those sentiments, and state categorically that what the Government say is not being said in my name. If their proposal is passed tonight, it will not be passed with any agreement from my party.
As I listened to the speeches, some simple maxims ran through my mind. Two of them form the basis of our entire system of justice. One is the belief in innocence until proof of guilt; the second, deriving from that, is that it is better for one guilty person to go free than for 10 innocent people to be convicted.
We are discussing a fairly straightforward issue of natural justice, which the Government are ignoring. The implication of everything that is being said--particularly by the Secretary of State--is that in-country applicants are not genuine asylum seekers but, by definition, bogus applicants. Yet most applicants have applied on an in-country basis and they have greater success than those who apply at the port of entry.
I understand that the Refugee Council's figures for 1993 show that some 12.8 per cent. of in-country applications were successful, compared with 4.3 per cent. of port applications, so, in 1993 at least, people were three times more likely to be successful if they applied in country. I would have made that point if the Secretary of State had allowed me to intervene in his speech because it seemed to run counter to his figures.
It is not hard to come up with reasons why there should be that differential. We have discussed them tonight, but many Conservative Members appear not to accept the reality of disorientation and distress. It does not take much imagination to put oneself into the shoes of someone who comes to this country from regimes that we are able to
read, hear and know about. Their disorientation and distress could be enormous, amounting, in some cases, to outright trauma, which again the Government do not appear to want to recognise.
In many cases, people will be completely ignorant of the need to apply immediately for refugee status. In many cases, that ignorance would be understandable. The Government have not dealt with that, other than to make spurious points, for example, about interpreters somehow magically metamorphosing themselves into advisers. In my experience in court, interpreters simply interpret the words. They are not there to give advice--it is not their job to do so. In any case, the Nuffield interpreter project, set up in 1991, highlighted what in its view were serious miscarriages of justice as a result of shoddy interpreting in other sectors of the public service. That project was set up with Home Office funding, so I assume that the Government are aware of that, yet they want to rely entirely on interpreting services available at the port of entry for people who do not speak English. I understand that that involves some 90 per cent. of those seeking asylum.
The hon. Members for Torridge and West Devon (Miss Nicholson) and for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) spoke about the enormous difficulty that many people have--and, in the example that I wish to raise, that many women have--about talking about some of the things that have happened to them. That should not be underestimated. Women who have been raped or have been subject to other forms of sexual torture will find--[Interruption.] I see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department shaking his head. I wonder if he has considered this matter. It is extraordinary that it can be dismissed in such a fashion.
Women, particularly those from cultures where expressing themselves about such matters is extremely difficult at the best of times, have enormous difficulty in talking about some of the things that have happened to them. To have to do so in front of strangers at the time of greatest distress, and about issues that, even in their own culture, would cause enormous distress--not to mention the extra problems of talking about rape or torture--is difficult, yet they are somehow expected magically to do so in a calm and rational manner on arrival at Heathrow or other ports of entry. I am sorry, but I just do not accept that they can do so. Ministers know very well that such women cannot do so. The truth is that Ministers simply do not care. That is what appals me most and should appal most people in this country. In many cases, that absolute lack of compassion is explicit in many Conservative Members' speeches.
As I have said, this is a simple issue of natural justice, but, if that concept is too difficult for people to understand, how about simple humanity?
Mr. Gerrard:
I want to make some brief points because we are obviously short of time. First, what will happen to people as a result of the Government's wish to reject the Lords amendment? We do not have to guess because the benefit regulations were introduced in February and the court judgment has meant that the Government must try to put them into the Bill.
"have the effect of rendering their ostensible statutory right to a proper consideration of their claims in this country valueless in practice by making it not merely difficult but totally impossible for them to remain here to pursue those claims."
I am struck by the fact that a lawyer of the hon. and learned Gentleman's experience has missed the central legal point that it is no use having a right to appeal if the person concerned is made destitute while exercising that right: the right becomes valueless. Either the hon. and learned Gentleman missed that point, or he did not care to comment on it.
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