Examination of Witnesses (Questions 251-259)
10 FEBRUARY 2004
MR DAVID
LAMMY MP AND
MR JOHN
SCAMPION CBE
Chairman: Although people are still coming
in, if we might just get over the routine of declaring interests.
Keith Vaz: I am a non-practising barrister
and my wife holds a judicial appointment.
Ross Cranston: I am a barrister and recorder.
Q251 Chairman: Welcome, Mr Lammy and
Mr Scampion. We thought we would start today by looking at one
particular aspect of this which does not get sufficient notice,
and thereby perhaps signalling that it ought to get more notice
in the whole discussion of asylum and immigration appeals, and
that is family visitors. What has accounted for the remarkable
increase in refusals for family visitor visa applications?
Mr Lammy: You will understand
that there are varying patterns across the world in terms of populations
that are seeking family visitor visas. I know from my own constituency
that where in the past I might have had people from the former
Caribbean in this situation, increasingly there are people now
who are settled in this country from many, many African countries,
some Eastern European countries that are now accession states,
who are being turned down because they are not meeting the rules
in other things. Things flare up, for example, in Nigeria and
other places. I think that there are regional variations and from
my recollection the figures go up and down in this area.
Q252 Chairman: Family visitors are surely
less affected by situations like flare ups, as you describe, than
asylum applications? Presumably they are determined by the size
of the community already here and perhaps to some extent by economic
circumstances, whether people can afford to undertake family visits.
Mr Lammy: What I mean by that
is you will have communities, like Caribbean communities now,
that have been long settled in this country for over 20/25 years.
You will have people making decisions because they want to have
cousins, relatives, come and stay with them and those decisions,
all the sorts of determinations that the immigration authorities
will feel they need to make, are likely to be harder perhaps if
you are talking about a community that is more recently settled
or conditions in a country, some African countries, for example,
where immigration officials might take the determination that
someone is not likely to return. It will be a slightly different
standard, I think, from communities that are more settled. In
that sense that mirrors what is going on in the world. As you
see, Caribbean states are increasingly becoming more prosperous
and African states are still in the position that they were and
certainly that is a determinant that I can see on a constituency
level. I think that is borne out in the figures, these things
go up and down, and they are not that dissimilar from the asylum
figures. We have seen issues around Somalis with the asylum figures.
Certainly they are not decisions of fundamental differences of
policy being made in terms of family visitor visas that have changed
over the last period.
Q253 Keith Vaz: Minister, you have been
in office for a while now. How many times have you visited Taylor
House?
Mr Lammy: I have been to Taylor
House once. No, maybe twice. Once or twice.
Q254 Keith Vaz: During that time you
have sat through one of the hearings, have you?
Mr Lammy: Yes.
Q255 Keith Vaz: How do you account for
the difference in success rate of those who have oral appeals
and those who appeal in writing? Do you know what the differential
figures are?
Mr Lammy: I have not got the figures
in front of me.
Q256 Keith Vaz: It is a 70% success rate
for all cases and 40% for written cases. Why do you think there
is such a difference?
Mr Lammy: By definition, I think
if the adjudicators are able to have the evidence in front of
them, the applicant, the circumstances, the sponsor, there may
be different determinations than they might make if they have
just got the papers.
Q257 Keith Vaz: Better determinations?
Mr Lammy: I am not saying better;
different.
Q258 Keith Vaz: Do you know what the
current backlog of cases is at the IT or the IAT?
Mr Lammy: We are doing extremely
well on the backlog.
Q259 Keith Vaz: Do you know what those
figures are?
Mr Lammy: Again, I can write to
you with the precise figures but I know that the asylum backlog
has virtually gone. We always said that once we could deal with
the asylum backlog we would be able to move on to the immigration
backlog.
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