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Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow): With regard to bail, can my right hon. Friend clarify what the presumptions will be? Will the presumption of the Bail Act 1976 apply, so that it will be presumed that bail will be granted unless there is good reason not to grant it? Furthermore, will it be possible in a judicial hearing to raise the question not only whether someone should be released, but whether that person should legally have been detained in the first place?
Mr. Straw: It will not be possible in the bail proceedings to raise the issue of the lawfulness or otherwise of the detention. That is a matter that must be dealt with under process for habeas corpus. We do not intend to change that, for good reasons.
I am sorry that I cannot give my hon. Friend comfort on his first point, either. Because of the special circumstances of immigration detention, which is used in only a relatively small number of cases and as a last resort, I did not judge it appropriate that there should be the same assumptions about the availability of bail as there are in the Bail Act 1976. However, what we are doing is consistent with the discussions that my hon. Friend and I and many other colleagues had in opposition. We are laying down, for the first time, that all detainees will have a right to apply for bail.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the asylum to be granted to people who applied for asylum in this country before the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 came into force will not extend to those who have since committed a serious criminal offence in this country? That is not a matter to which the Bill addresses itself.
Mr. Straw:
Yes. For practical reasons, the emphasis must be on the word "serious". Where such people have committed serious criminal offences, we do not intend to make the arrangements for dealing with that backlog in the manner otherwise described in the White Paper.
Part IV deals with immigration and asylum appeals. Reform of the appeals system is fundamental to the Government's long-term strategy for a fair, fast and firm immigration and asylum system. The current system is complex, and the existing multiple rights of appeal delay the final resolution of cases. They enable those who have no legitimate basis to remain in the United Kingdom to manipulate the system and prolong their stay here. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House have had long experience of the way in which people with no basis to remain in this country have been able to string out their stay, sometimes for years, by multiple and successive appeals.
The existing structure of successive rights of appeal will therefore be replaced by a one-stop comprehensive appeal that will cover all appealable aspects of a case at one go. When an application is refused, the applicant will be invited to set out all the grounds on which he wishes to remain in the United Kingdom, including asylum, the European convention on human rights or compassionate grounds.
The subsequent appeal will then consider all the factors in the case on which an appeal may be brought. Unless a ground for staying in the United Kingdom has been set out at this stage, it cannot form the basis for an appeal by the applicant unless he had reasonable excuse for not mentioning it when invited to do so; or, in asylum and ECHR cases, provided the claim is not being made to frustrate removal.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey):
I welcome a much more streamlined appeal system but I ask the Home Secretary whether he can do something else to reduce the pressure on the system, namely, to allow those who are applying to come to this country as visitors or students, and who have no previous record or family record of ever having breached any rules, to come here on the presumption that they will behave themselves, rather than the presumption that they will not. I have many constituents who are absolutely law abiding who have families wishing to come to this country for weddings, funerals or to study. They are applying to come here and being turned down. They are then applying again, being turned down and appealing. The system is clogged up hugely by them when there is no reason why they should be treated so badly by our people at their points of application.
Mr. Straw:
They are very lucky if they are family visitors and they appeal, because the right of appeal was abolished by the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993. Our complaint, which I shall come to, has been the absence of a right of appeal for family visitors, and that we intend to put right.
In future, in-country rights of appeal will be restricted to persons who are lawfully present at the time when they apply for further permission to remain and where an adverse decision would be required for their departure. Those here unlawfully, such as overstayers, will be subject to removal under clause 6 of part I rather than deportation, just as illegal entrants are now. However, in accordance with our international obligations, applicants claiming asylum or ECHR rights will have a right of appeal, even if they are not lawfully present when they make their claim. Someone who is refused asylum, but granted limited leave, will have a right of appeal against his asylum refusal.
We also think that modernisation of the immigration appellate authorities is needed. We want the immigration adjudicators to be able to deal with cases quickly and fairly, and we want the Immigration Appeal Tribunal to continue to develop as the central authoritative guide to immigration and asylum law. I pay tribute to all that Judge Pearl, formerly the chief adjudicator and now the president of the tribunal, and Judge Dunn QC, his successor as chief adjudicator, and their colleagues have done to improve decision making and reduce waiting times.
At adjudicator level, waiting times are now down to about 16 weeks, from delays of more than a year, which we inherited in May 1997. There are still delays at tribunal level, which are not the fault of the tribunal itself. However, the Lord Chancellor is in the process of appointing new members and these delays should reduce sharply when the appointments are made.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam):
Will the Home Secretary give the logic behind the recently reported
Mr. Straw:
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will bear with me until I deal with support arrangements. If I do not satisfy him then, I shall take an intervention from him.
Part of the purpose of our streamlining the appeal system and making the appellate tribunal more authoritative is to reduce the grounds for judicial review, which I happen to think is very important. There has been--this view is held by immigration officers and, for example, by judges of the High Court who have to operate the Crown Office list--something of an abuse of the option of applying for judicial review, simply as another means of spinning out someone's stay when it is not otherwise justified.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough):
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for saying that at an appeal, where the opportunity for one exists, there will be an opportunity to argue compassionate circumstances. Will my right hon. Friend clarify that in every appeal that is envisaged within the Government's proposals for people who are in the United Kingdom, the compassionate circumstances of their case as are currently set out in the immigration rules that relate to deportation appeals will be able to be considered?
Mr. Straw:
I am sorry to tell my hon. Friend that I cannot give the guarantee that she seeks. I understand her point, which we have discussed outside the House. I suggest that she has raised one of those important but detailed issues which should sensibly be pursued in the Special Standing Committee, if the House decides to establish it at the end of today's debate.
The Bill will give adjudicators clear and effective powers to deal summarily with appeals that are not being seriously pursued, so that they can concentrate on the cases of substance. The Bill will make the tribunal more of an effective and professionally expert appellate body. The reforms that the Government are proposing to the legal aid system should help to put an end to the waste of public money on poor legal advice to asylum seekers and to the pursuit of unmeritorious cases at public expense.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington):
The Home Secretary will find that I am a critic of some parts of the Bill, but I see hundreds of applications for judicial review every month and most of them--[Interruption.] Yes, I see hundreds every month. Most of the applications that I see are wholly spurious and I have begun to go back to some solicitors to ask them why they are giving such poor advice to my constituents.
Mr. Straw:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that on the record--it is absolutely true. What she describes brings the law into disrepute, is a waste of public money and, above all, harms those of our constituents with genuine and justifiable cases for going for judicial review, but they are few and far between. As my hon. Friend will know, the Lord Chancellor is making extensive reforms to the legal aid system, better to ensure
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