Background
1. On 5th June this year the Lord Chancellor's Department
(now the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA)) issued a
consultation paper on proposed changes to publicly funded immigration
and asylum work.[1] The
consultation completed on 27 August and the Department received
260 responses. Once finalised, it was proposed that the new measures
would be introduced from January 2004.
2. This consultation came at a time when we were
already looking at certain issues connected with publicly funded
immigration and asylum work in the context of a broader inquiry
into the asylum and immigration appeals system.[2]
We were invited by the Lord Chancellor to examine the consultation
proposals. We therefore decided, before proceeding with the broader
inquiry, to conduct a brief inquiry into the particular proposals
contained in the consultation paper, with the intention of reporting
before the Government announced the results of its consultation.
3. We heard oral evidence at two meetings: firstly
from the Parliamentary Secretary at the Department for Constitutional
Affairs, David Lammy MP, and the Chief Executive of the Legal
Services Commission (LSC), Clare Dodgson; then from representatives
from the Law Society, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association
(ILPA), and the Refugee Legal Centre; and from the Chairman of
the Council on Tribunals and the Immigration Services Commissioner.
Following the conclusion of oral evidence, we received further
joint memoranda from the DCA and LSC. The first was submitted
on 23rd October and the second, which set out revised proposals,
on 24th October. Additionally, we were given access to all the
written submissions sent to the Department in response to the
consultation, and received a number of letters sent directly to
us by interested parties. We are very grateful to all our witnesses,
who gave evidence to us at very short notice. We also wish to
thank our specialist advisers, Chris Randall and Dr Robert Thomas.
4. Our specialist advisers have produced a memorandum
of detailed commentary on further aspects of the Department's
revised proposals. It has not been possible for us to consider
all these points in the one working day available to us since
we received the revised proposals, but we are printing it as an
appendix to our report so that it can be considered by the Department.
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