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Miss Widdecombe: We would consider whether an Ahmadi in that situation faced persecution, whether he could go to a centre such as Rabwah where he would be safe, or whether he could go elsewhere in the country where he would be safe. If he could not, we would consider the circumstances that constituted a genuine and well-founded fear of persecution. Each individual who applies to us, on whatever basis, will have such questions asked.
I want now to make progress, because I am getting a series of questions about the individual Governments of the countries concerned. They are all answered by one point which I cannot stress enough--that every individual case will be fully considered. The creation of a designated list is not the creation of a blanket ban, or even the creation of a presumption of refusal: it is straightforwardly an accelerated procedure. Designation is not a new concept unique to the--
Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn):
Will the Minister give way?
Miss Widdecombe:
I normally give way to Opposition Front-Bench Members, but I did say that the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) was the last Member to whom I would give way.
Mr. Straw:
I should be very grateful.
Miss Widdecombe:
All right, but then the hon. Gentleman has had his chance.
Mr. Straw:
Will the Minister reflect on the statement that she has just made? She said that the white list did not lead to a rebuttable presumption that an application was unfounded. But the background paper published by her own Department said exactly the opposite.
Miss Widdecombe:
What I said--as the hon. Member for Blackburn will see if he consults Hansard--is that there would be "no presumption of refusal". If somebody puts in an application, it will be considered on its merits. We shall not start with the idea that we are turning down an application, regardless of its merits. That is what I said, and if Opposition Members listen to the debate, they will learn what the designated list is all about. It is not a new concept and it is not unique to the United Kingdom. Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Finland already operate similar arrangements.
We have stressed on many occasions the safeguards built into the designation principle. There will be no blanket ban on claims from designated countries. Each claim will be considered on its merits, and an applicant will still have an appeal to an independent adjudicator. Last year, at least 97 per cent. of claims from nationals of the seven countries were refused--more than 6,750 applications. Those claims that are refused will attract the accelerated appeal procedure. Moreover, if the adjudicator agrees that the application is unfounded, that will be the end of the matter. There will be no further avenue of appeal to the immigration tribunal.
In short, designation will allow the asylum process to deal quickly with the large number of unfounded applications that we currently receive from countries which are, in general, safe, while recognising the small number of applicants from such countries who may have genuine claims.
In determining which countries should be designated, we are required to make a judgment about whether the general level of risk to people living in a country is sufficiently low to warrant designation. The words
Ms Liz Lynne (Rochdale):
Will the Minister give way?
Miss Widdecombe:
No, I wish to make some progress.
The list of countries that we have proposed for designation excludes a number of countries which generate large numbers of unfounded asylum claims but in which there are nevertheless sufficient concerns about human rights that the requirement of the Act is not met. An obvious example would be Nigeria.
I now refer to the second part of the order and the designation of safe third countries. The Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 provided that, in cases where the safe third country concerned is a member state of the European Union, applicants may exercise their right of appeal only after they have left the UK. Hon. Members may recall that we proposed this change because we were finding that delays caused by the appeals process were making it difficult to effect removals in many cases where it was clear that the third country was perfectly safe for the applicant.
We stated during parliamentary discussions on the Act that we were considering using the power provided in section 2(3) of the 1996 Act to extend this procedure to certain selected non-EU states. The United States, Canada and Switzerland were mentioned in the debate. To these, the asylum order adds Norway. Taken together, those states constitute the majority of present non-EU third country cases. I do not intend to describe in any detail why we consider each of the countries to be suitable for designation. They are all states with long-established and respected human rights records. A detailed description of the countries' asylum laws and procedures, together with an explanation of why we are satisfied that returned asylum seekers would be treated in accordance with the UN convention, is set out in the individual appraisals for each country that we have made available to Parliament.
I commend the order to the House.
Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn):
We oppose the order, and we shall vote against it. Anyone who was in any doubt about the merits of the order need only have listened to the disingenuous sophistry that we heard from the Minister of State a moment ago.
By international conventions, the United Kingdom is bound to consider each asylum application on its merits, but the so-called white list of designated countries will in practice prevent that from happening. Under this system, all applicants from countries on the list will be presumed to be bogus--without foundation--unless they can prove otherwise.
Miss Widdecombe
indicated dissent.
Mr. Straw:
The Minister disagrees, but she is damned out of her own mouth. She says that there is no presumption of refusal. In that case I ask her why the Home Office--she has endorsed the words time and again--said that the white list would set up a rebuttable presumption that asylum applications from designated countries were unfounded. If they are unfounded, they will be refused.
The truth is the reverse of what the Minister has said: there is a presumption of refusal. That is exactly what the House was told by the Home Office when the white list was introduced. If there is no presumption of refusal, what purpose is served by a white list? The Minister tried to weave her way through the contortions of her argument by implying that there would be no difference between the treatment of an applicant from a white list country and an applicant from a country that is not on the list. If so, I repeat: what purpose is served by the white list?
Miss Widdecombe:
If the hon. Gentleman were a genuine applicant wanting his asylum application considered, would he not be grateful for any measure that speeded up the processing of unfounded claims?
Mr. Straw:
I would be grateful, whatever country I came from, if that were so, but the Government are not taking genuine steps to speed up the process and ensure that each application is considered on its merits. They are cobbling together an arrangement that suggests that people from the designated countries are at no general risk of persecution. Thereafter, those applicants will most certainly be treated as second-class applicants, and their applications stand to be refused unless they can rebut the presumption of refusal.
Mr. Michael Stephen (Shoreham)
rose--
Mr. Straw:
I want to quote the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir J. Critchley), who got it exactly right in a letter to The Times of July this year. We are all sorry that the hon. Member cannot be here tonight. Writing about this system, he said:
The white list's only purpose is to put applicants from the designated countries at a disadvantage. Its operation, in our judgment, conflicts with the spirit of our international obligations.
Mr. Stephen:
The hon. Gentleman says that there is a rebuttable presumption. If the presumption is rebuttable,
Mr. Straw:
It is always delightful to give way to the hon. Gentleman because he is always so badly informed. It was not I who maintained that there was a rebuttable presumption: it was the Government. It was a Home Office background paper published just over a year ago which said it. The hon. Gentleman should think about this and perhaps write a submission to the Secretary of State about it--
"in general no serious risk of persecution"
in the fifth paragraph of schedule 2 to the Asylum and Immigration Act 1993 make that quite clear. Designation does not mean that a country should be universally "safe" or that its institutions should function in every respect to western standards. The wording of the Act clearly rules out the designation of any country where there is a significant level of persecution, even if it is targeted only at minorities.
10.33 pm
"It is of course impossible to distinguish the genuine from the fraudulent until a case has been thoroughly examined".
The result, he added, is that the system will
"affect the genuine refugee as well"
as the bogus refugee. We oppose the principle behind the white list and, in government, we shall not operate it.
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