Examination of Witnesses (Questions 840-859)
BEVERLEY HUGHES
MP, MR BILL
JEFFREY AND
MR KEN
SUTTON
19 NOVEMBER 2003
Q840 Mr Prosser: But you would expect
the finder of the documents, whoever that might be, to declare
them to Immigration?
Beverley Hughes: Yes.
Mr Jeffrey: I would certainly
expect that if such a thing came to the attention of our immigration
staff at the airport, they would follow it up and attempt to link
the documents with people with whom they may otherwise have had
dealings.
Q841 Mr Singh: Minister, have you
given any thought to the scope of this idea of photocopying identity
documents? For example, would it only apply to people travelling
from certain countries? Would it apply to every passenger on that
plane or boat? If it applied to every passenger, the genuine passengers,
British tourists coming from abroad on their British passports,
might get very annoyed if they have to go through this process,
yet I cannot see it working unless it did apply to everybody.
Have you given any thought to that practical side?
Beverley Hughes: Yes, and you
are quite right. It would be a waste of resources to simply have
a blanket requirement, and we are not proposing a blanket requirement;
we are proposing the idea of an enabling power in the Bill that
would allow us to make that request of carriers on selected and
very targeted routes. Also, for specific periods of time. The
risk from certain routes actually changes quite a lot, and we
monitor that very closely, and we have the intelligence to be
able to ask a carrier for a specific period of time to photocopy
documents on a particular route, to help with bearing down on
what we think is an increased risk.
Q842 Mr Singh: Would that involve
everybody travelling on that route?
Beverley Hughes: It would involve
everybody on that plane, yes, but probably for a limited duration
and, as I say, on selected routes.
Q843 Miss Widdecombe: Can I put to
you another possibility? We know the scene very well: people have
to have documents in order to get on the plane in the first place.
They arrive without them. They have lost them. They stay air side
for hours on end, they present to the desks, and the immigration
officers have no idea where they have come from. This is the whole
point of the exercise. Why not have immigration officers meeting
the planes from those countries which produce precisely this sort
of problem, so that when people come off the planes, you check
immediately there and then? If they do not have documents, you
know exactly where they have come from.
Beverley Hughes: We have certainly
discussed that as a possibility. One of the difficulties is the
logistics of doing that and having the capacity, the resources,
to do that on the number of flights required. We felt that this
would be a secure way if we actually had copy documents, as I
say, on a targeted basis, to have a really secure link between
the individual and the document.
Q844 Chairman: Can I tease that out
a bit further? Over a period of six hours or so there must be
a significant number of flights coming in, for example, from east
Africa. You might be targeting flights from, say, Ethiopia, but
not from Kenya, but actually, given the evidence we had last time,
if the Immigration Services find it difficult to distinguish between
a Somalian refugee, an Ethiopian national and somebody from Kenya,
how on earth can you, by the time they get to the desk, match
the individual up with the documentation that they gave the airline
at the point of departure? That is the issue we do not quite understand.
Beverley Hughes: If we had a copy
of the document, even if it were a false document, there would
be a photographic record on that photocopy, and it would be of
the person standing before us, even if, as I say, that was a photograph
that had been inserted into a document belonging to another person.
That would help us to identify at least where that person had
come from. If you can imagine some of the logistics around the
possibility that you raise, Miss Widdecombe, I am sure you in
your previous role will have been at some of our busiest airports
when large numbers of planes holding large numbers of passengers
are all arriving at the same time. If you just imagine what it
would involve to have immigration staff standing at the steps
of a number of planes, all of whom you wanted to target, and somehow
shepherding those people through the system and keeping a hold
on them in some way, you can see it is logistically very difficult.
Q845 Miss Widdecombe: It might show
them we are serious.
Beverley Hughes: Potentially,
depending on how it were done, it would also inconvenience a large
number of straightforward, bona fide passengers, who would
need to be shepherded through as well, whereas photocopying the
documents does not have an impact on the passengers. I accept
it is an issue for the carriers, and that is why we are talking
to them about it, but it seemed to us a mechanism that had least
impact on the vast majority of genuine travellers.
Mr Jeffrey: Can I just add that
we do occasionally meet flights where there is a specific reason
for doing so, but for the logistical reasons the Minister has
mentioned, and also manpower reasons, it is not done on a very
large scale. The other thing we are keen on is looking at more
covert ways of ensuring that we can in fact link people back to
the flights that they arrived on. We are having more success than
we were in the past, even when the kind of subterfuge that Miss
Widdecombe mentions is resorted to. We are having more success
in linking people who present themselves without documents with
the flight we believe they originally came in on. Even so, this
provision which we are discussing with the industry now, if it
were carefully targeted and intelligence-led, so that it did not
disrupt the industry's ordinary business too much, it would bring
significant benefits for us.
Q846 Chairman: I can understand why
you would not say it in Committee, but on the usual confidential
basis, if there is information about those covert measures, we
would appreciate if we could receive it by letter.
Beverley Hughes: Certainly.[2]
Q847 David Winnick: The Government
intends, Minister, as I understand it, to reduce the right of
lodging an appeal against the decision of the executive. Is that
correct?
Beverley Hughes: What we are consulting
on is reducing the number of layers of appeal that are currently
still in the process.
Q848 David Winnick: Can I interrupt
you? You say "consulting"; do you mean you have not
made a firm decision?
Beverley Hughes: We have issued
a consultation document on the major provisions that we want to
introduce when we can, and one of the main provisions in relation
to appeals is to reduce the current system to a single tier of
appeals, not just for asylum but also for immigration appeals.
Whilst we have greatly simplified the appeals process with previous
legislation, requiring people, as Members will know, to put all
their reasons for appeal at the same time in a one-stop approach,
there are still a number of layers left which we feel, on the
basis of the information that we have, we can safely reduce. That
will mean, if our proposals go forward, that the current two-layer
process, in which an appeal decision is made by an adjudicator,
the person can then appeal to the Immigration Tribunal. If granted
a hearing, obviously that would be heard there. If they are not
granted a hearing at the Tribunal, they can then appeal to higher
courts, and if that is refused, they can appeal to the Administrative
Court for a statutory review. We think, because of the fact that
97% of adjudicators' initial decisions are actually ultimately
upheld, that there is a strong argument for reducing the number
of opportunities for further judicial scrutiny, and obviously
the further delays in the system. So we are proposing to collapse
the first two of those into a single tier and to look at a means
by which we can reduce access to the higher courts.
Q849 David Winnick: You gave the
impression—I am sure not deliberately—that if an appellant
has lost a case before an adjudicator, the next stage, automatically,
if that is the wish of the appellant and the adviser, is to go
to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal. Is it not a fact that only
if permission is given by the Tribunal or by the adjudicator,
as the case may be, on a point of law, could the case be taken
to the second tier?
Beverley Hughes: Yes. About 40%
of people who are refused by the adjudicator whose appeals are
dismissed actually apply to go to the Tribunal.
Q850 David Winnick: Presumably the
tribunal would not allow the case to be heard by then unless there
was a point of law involved?
Beverley Hughes: That is probably
so, but if you actually track what then happens to those cases,
as they then go through, the 40% of refusals who apply, of those,
just over 30% are granted a substantive hearing, and of those,
when get to the end of the day, of the original number of appeals
in the first place, only 3% of the original adjudicator's decisions
are actually overturned at some point in that process. In other
words, there is a strong argument that the adjudicators are making
very sound decisions, and that the various points that we have
in the system at the moment for people to ask for further scrutiny
of that are not necessary, and are introducing delay to the system,
which is largely what I think those devices are used for, and
so we can safely simplify the process.
Q851 David Winnick: It does not look
like consultation; it looks like a firm decision has been made.
Beverley Hughes: I was explaining
before you came in, Mr Winnick, that a firm policy decision has
been made that we need to simplify the process. We are consulting
on the mechanics of how we achieve that, because it is very technical
and it is very detailed.
Mr Jeffrey: Mr Winnick is absolutely
right to say, obviously, that access to the Tribunal is by means
of a leave procedure, but if leave is refused, there is then,
under the legislation which was passed in the last session, an
opportunity to seek statutory review of that decision in the Administrative
Court. So arguably, what we have now, with a proportion of the
cases actually reaching the Tribunal for hearing, is a three-tier
system rather than a two-tier system.
Q852 David Winnick: On Legal Aid,
the intention is to introduce limits. Am I right?
Beverley Hughes: Again, the Department
for Constitutional Affairs has had a wide consultation on its
original proposals, which were initially to set a maximum amount
of hours of Legal Aid, to have an accreditation system, and to
give people a number so that that maximum could not be compromised,
and they are still considering the responses that they received
from that consultation. I am afraid I am not in a position to
give the Committee any further advice as to what those considerations
will be.
Q853 David Winnick: The Constitutional
Affairs Committee suggested there should be a moratorium on the
plans to introduce such limits.
Beverley Hughes: I think it made
a number of proposals, and it is those proposals in particular
that the Constitutional Affairs Ministers are considering at the
moment.
Q854 Mr Clappison: On the appeals,
is it your intention that the Immigration Appeals Tribunal which
people go to if they want to appeal from the adjudicator, should
be a tribunal which can deal with all the issues and all the appeals
at one and the same time?
Beverley Hughes: What we are considering
is having one body. Instead of having the appellate authority
and a separate body at the moment, as you rightly say, the Tribunal,
we would have a single body, which we would refer to as "the
Tribunal," and they would deal with both the initial decision
and, subject to decisions we have yet to take on whether internally
there might be a review of certain cases at that level as well,
but it would be done within the confines of a single judicial
body.
Q855 Mr Clappison: Are there cases
which are taken on human rights grounds besides the system which
you describe? Does somebody have a right to appeal on human rights
grounds in addition to the appeal on asylum?
Beverley Hughes: At the moment,
under the one-stop process, no; they have to put all grounds in
at the same time. They cannot appeal on Convention grounds, have
that determined, and then come again on human rights grounds.
That was the case, and that is what our previous legislation actually
stopped. That has helped a great deal, but we think we can go
further.
Q856 Mr Clappison: When you refer
to "statutory review," is that the same as judicial
review?
Beverley Hughes: No, it is not.
It is something that was introduced in the last Act that went
through last year as a mechanism for, I suppose, in a way, an
alternative, faster process, similar to the judicial review but
one in which the judiciary undertook to progress in a certain
way so as not to result in the kind of delays that we have with
judicial review through the normal High Court process.
Q857 Mr Singh: Minister, you said
that 3% of appellants to the second stage succeeded in their appeals.
That is a significant number of people. Even if it were only 1%,
it would be important. I am worried that the simplification will
take away the rights of the obviously genuine 3% of appellants
from the figure you have mentioned. How would their rights be
protected in the reforms that you are going to undertake?
Beverley Hughes: That is an important
question. In a sense, you have struck the core of the really difficult
issue and the difficult balance that we have to try and strike
here. It is not the case that we do not want to protect the certainty
that people who are fleeing persecution, who have a good claim,
come through that system with that claim recognised. On the other
hand, as all of us know, there are many claims that are not well-founded,
where people are using the asylum system as a means of regularising
their stay here for a while for economic reasons. As I said before,
I am not pejorative about people, but it is a misuse of the system,
and that is the difficult balance we have to strike.
Q858 Mr Singh: What you are saying
is you are looking at the abuse of the many and it will undermine
the rights of the few.
Beverley Hughes: No, I am not
saying that. I am saying we have to try and develop a system which
in the detail of its operation protects the few for whom this
system was actually established, but make sure that people who
want to use the system and delay their progress through the system
so that they actually remain here longer and get more difficult
to remove cannot do so.
Q859 Mr Taylor: I accept that this
is a slightly mathematical, even a pedantic question, and if you
would like to take notice and tell me later, I do not mind. If
I understand you correctly, of the original body of people who
bring their cases for adjudication—shall we call that the
100%—I think you said 40% of those appeal.
Beverley Hughes: 40% apply to
the Tribunal for a hearing.
2 See Ev 18. Back
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