Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560
- 579)
TUESDAY 17 JUNE 2003
THE RT
HON OLIVER
LETWIN MP
Q560 Mr Prosser: If you are quoting
£1.8 billion, you do agree that the asylum element is not
really a hugely significant proportion of it. In your earlier
evidence you made clear that your system would only be sustainable
if you maintain very strict and rigid border controls. That is
all part of the border control—immigration service, the
enforcement service and the detection service.
Mr Letwin: I would ask you to
bear in mind that the system as a whole, the asylum and immigration
system, only cost about £400 million some years ago in today's
money. So the gap between that and the £1.8 billion must
almost entirely be accounted for by what has happened to the asylum
system, because nothing much has changed in the immigration system
in the meanwhile. There is a little extra security at the ports
and so forth which will have a cost but it is not very great and
neither is the quantity very great, as you will be painfully aware,
nor is the cost very great. The big costs that have been incurred
are due to the very large numbers of people that are being processed
and getting social security and so forth. That is what I seek
to strip out of the system, that additional cost. I do not know
whether the result of moving back to that world—and I know
it depends on whether you accept my speculation about the numbers
who would be applying—would mean that the costs would ultimately
be £300 million, £400 million, £500 million or
even £600 million. In fact, what I have done, to be very
safe, is to assume that it could rise as high as £800 million.
I have speculated that over a period of four years of implementing
this scheme we could get to a level where we were saving £1
billion of the £1.8 billion. I have allowed, in other words,
vast extra room for manoeuvre because I am very conscious that
it is always easier to spend money than to save it. Of course,
it is also the case that a great part of the current expenditure
would go on being spent for some period because there is a stock
of people that are currently in this country who, in one way or
another, we are incurring cost on behalf of. I think it is implausible
to suppose that if the number of people seeking asylum were to
reduce from, say, over 100,000 to a tiny trickle because of this
scheme, and if the additional asylum applicants came in an orderly
system through the quota and selection, that the net result would
be vastly more expensive than the system was when we had a trickle
originally.
David Winnick: I can see this being the
subject of a good deal of controversy downstairs when the time
comes. There are a number of very important and relevant questions.
It is my wish, Mr Letwin, as I am sure it is yours, to finish
around 11.45, so I am going to ask my colleagues and, indeed,
yourself if you could keep matters relatively short. Mr Watson
on treaty obligations.
Q561 Mr Watson: If I can just refer
to my notes, you have admitted to Miss Widdecombe that you are
not sure if the proposals are legal under the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Mr Letwin: I am sorry, may I correct
you? Under the 1951 Convention there is no problem at all. There
are many questions of legality and almost all of them relate to
the application of the European Convention on Human Rights. There
are some serious issues.
Q562 Mr Watson: That has clarified
that. So you are not sure if your proposals are lawful under the
ECHR. You have said that you have not talked to the UNHCR about
your proposals until they are more fully formed. You have also
said you are not sure about quotas and you have admitted to Mr
Winnick that you have not worked out in any way the mechanics
to replace the exceptional leave to remain system. You gave Mr
Singh a "don't know and a don't know" on the specifications
for your resettlement package and you have just said that the
cost of your system could vary somewhere to a degree of £500
million. Do you think it might have been a little premature for
you to accept our invitation to take evidence?
Mr Letwin: No, that is entirely
up to you. I said in my memorandum that it is work in progress
and that we have two committees, one of lawyers and the other
a series of politicians and administrators, looking at these things.
I shall continue to involve them. I would be delighted to come
back to the Committee to discuss them in more detail in due course.
I have rather specialised in not pretending, in my political life,
to certainties that I do not have, nor do I have access to the
very large number of civil servants available to the Home Secretary.
If you want a fully developed and utterly brilliant exposition
of all details you should invite the Home Secretary who has such
people available. I am an opposition politician.
Q563 Mr Watson: We are fortunate
in having Miss Widdecombe for that.
Mr Letwin: You have very great
resources within—indeed, you have got more resources than
I do. I have the role as an opposition politician of trying to
inaugurate a serious-minded and rational national debate about
the general lines of development and I have a responsibility,
over the years, towards our manifesto to try to get as much order
as I can into our policy making. I do not suffer from the illusion
that even then we would come, on the day on which—if we
do—we enter government, with all the answers nicely taped;
you then sit down with civil servants and start working through
things in awesome detail. I think what is important here, at this
stage, given where the Home Secretary is, given where I am and
given where the national debate is, is not to try to solve all
these things, because they are very complicated and they are going
to take time. I think it is important to decide the question of
whether this is the general direction in which we ought to be
proceeding or not. That is, of course, itself very much open to
question. If people became persuaded that in general this sort
of approach offers some prospect of helping us to resolve the
very knotty problems we are currently faced with and came to the
further conclusion we had not yet got all the details, I would
be overjoyed, and I think the Home Secretary would be overjoyed.
I am trying, so to speak, to conspire with him in one way or another
to push the debate in that general direction.
Q564 Mr Watson: I did have a number
of detailed questions, but I suspect that as we have just been
talking about generalities I should go back to one of my questions.
I think the thrust of your argument for the last couple of hours
has been that the system you want to put in place will essentially
provide a disincentive to people who are playing the system.
Mr Letwin: Yes. That is the crux.
Q565 Mr Watson: Those people will
be removed. It does strike me that if that is your one goal what
you have constructed is an incredibly complex and, perhaps, overly
burdensome system when there are other quite simple systems on
offer that could do just that. Miss Widdecombe's plan to provide
secure centres on the UK mainland reduces all the costs of shipping
people out to whatever island you manage to get in the Caribbean
or wherever you do this system. It is very simple, it is very
plain and it sends out a clear message. Surely, should that not
be a better line to be pursuing?
Mr Letwin: It is a huge motivation
but it is not my one goal because I face also constraints, as
we all do. Amongst those constraints is the desire to create an
arrangement which will have a settled existence and be acceptable,
broadly, across the political spectrum and to the country as a
whole. I think that the components of a lasting settlement are
that it be seen to answer to our international obligations to
be humane; that it not be seen to be too draconian, but that it
be nevertheless really effective as a deterrent to playing the
system. Those are the constraints. I have tried to meet those
constraints, and if the Committee takes the view that there is
some simpler way of meeting them then I am all ears.
Q566 Mr Watson: Let us suppose that
we do come up with a proposal to have secure centres in the UK.
What would be your problem with that?
Mr Letwin: I think the first issue
would be the legality of long-term, secure processing, and you
would need to investigate that. The second question is whether
you could persuade your own colleagues in your own party to accept
it. I seek here a settlement that in the long-run can be a matter
of consensus.
David Winnick: I think Miss Widdecombe
has been provoked.
Q567 Miss Widdecombe: I have certainly
been provoked. I am amazed that the determination of your policy
should rest upon the practicality of persuading Mr Watson's colleagues.
I would have thought that the determination of your policy, Mr
Letwin, would have rested on what was practical and what was going
to work and what was going to do the thing that I suggested earlier,
which is to deter abuse at the same time as discharging our treaty
obligations. I ask you, perhaps without any reference to Mr Watson's
colleagues but with reference to what used to be our official
policy, what is the biggest merit of your proposals for having
people in centres in overseas (which will be open under your proposals)
as opposed to having people in this country on the spot, able
to be dealt with, but in secure accommodation which, presumably,
also would not be a terribly attractive proposition to people
coming here without a claim?
Mr Letwin: I think the two merits
in those terms are, first, that I am optimistic that what I am
proposing can be made legally robust, and I entertain doubts about
whether the other can. Secondly, that because the centres would
be open it seems to me that the feeling on the part of many people
about our previous proposals—which do have the same advantage
of deterrent—would be much reduced. I think the serious
divergence, so to speak, of my commentary about Mr Watson and
his colleagues is that there are very large numbers of people
in the country who have some inhibitions about locking up people
for a long period, and one of the purposes of my proposal is to
avoid that.
Q568 Miss Widdecombe: Why would it
be for long if, under your scenario, the deterrent effect was
such that people with false claims did not come here, and that
we were therefore reduced almost to the numbers of people with
genuine claims, who are very much easier to deal with? If we would
be concentrating our resources on them we would, presumably, be
able to deal with them much more quickly.
Mr Letwin: I think that is true,
and indeed it was a point that I suspect both you and I made about
the proposals—and I think it will continue to be true. Once
the deterrence of those playing the system comes into play a great
many of the administrative problems reduce, whichever of the two
systems one envisages. I think my system replicates that effect,
I do not think that is lost. I do not argue for my system as the
only way in which the deterrent effect can be generated, I argue
for it as a way in which as well as generating the deterrent effect
and as well as meeting our international obligations—and,
indeed, going beyond the mere meeting of them—we can have
a system which, I hope, can be found to be legally watertight
so that it is not challenged in a way that destroys it and which
accords with some pretty deep sentiments on the part of very large
numbers of people in this country. That is what I aim at, but
I do not say it is the only system that can do it.
David Winnick: It seems there will be
quite an interesting and continuing debate inside your party over
the various systems.
Q569 Bob Russell: Mr Letwin, I suspect
that my questions will be a lot easier to answer than the last
few. Having ruled out Skegness we will now go to the overseas
processing centres. Will the British flag fly over those centres?
Mr Letwin: I have not the slightest
idea. Why is this a matter of concern? Are you talking about literally
the flag, or will they be part of the UK?
Q570 Bob Russell: Literally and figuratively,
you are talking, as I understand it, about establishing centres
in overseas countries which, to all intents and purposes, will
be British operations, so the question is: will the British flag
fly over those centres?
Mr Letwin: I have to say it is
not an issue that I have thought of. I shall go away and contemplate
it and happily write to the Committee about it. There is a very
serious issue about their extra-territorial status or otherwise,
which is one of the issues that I have asked the legal group to
look at, which is related to the question of the ability of those
who inhabit them for a time to seek judicial review and have access
to the British courts, which it is very important that they should.
I have not come to a settled opinion about whether we would seek
or not seek that they should be extra-territorially British. That
is quite a difficult legal question which we have begun to penetrate
but have not yet come to a final conclusion on.
Q571 Bob Russell: Perhaps you can
clarify the next point then. Would these centres be outside Europe
or just outside the borders of the European Union?
Mr Letwin: I do not have a view
at present about the best location. Evidently a government which
seeks to implement these proposals would need to negotiate with
possible governments. I think the Home Secretary is rumoured to
be thinking about Albania as a possibility. The Australians have
used an island—indeed two. I do not think that it is critical
where the centre is as long as it is somewhere which is not economically
attractive, because of course if it is economically attractive
and it is an open processing system then it defeats the purpose
that one started with. So it needs to be somewhere that is quite
a long way from Britain and which is not somewhere which an economic
migrant, as opposed to a political refugee, would particularly
want to be in.
Q572 Bob Russell: So it rules out
the entire European Union.
Mr Letwin: On those grounds, probably.
Q573 Bob Russell: Also Switzerland
and Gibraltar.
Mr Letwin: And, no doubt, many
other places.
Q574 Bob Russell: Can we have a list
of those countries which you feel would qualify under the Letwin
plan?
Mr Letwin: No, not yet but, in
due course, yes.
Q575 Bob Russell: This is a very
interesting one, Mr Letwin, because we seem to be going round
in circles. You have come up with a proposal which does not seem
to have that much detail to it. Is not the whole object of the
exercise that there is a human rights issue here, but also, a
public consumption one? Is not your whole objective to get these
people out of sight, out of mind and out of the tabloids?
Mr Letwin: No. Let me refer first
to your previous remark. We may disagree about this, but my view
about the evolution of politics is that it cannot responsibly
proceed, when you are dealing with very difficult issues, by trying
to produce fully detailed solutions and then battling for them
as a life-or-death matter in a sort of partisan fashion. My view
is that the way in which politics can responsibly proceed in these
sorts of areas only is by successive approximation. I think we
have, as a nation, to come to a general view about how we would
like to deal with these sorts of things and then try and work
together somehow or other to make the general direction we have
chosen work in practice. Therefore, I resist the idea that it
is not worth talking about general ideas unless you have every
last jot and tittle worked out and you then fight to keep it in
exactly that shape. The purpose is, therefore, very important.
It is important that at this level of approximation even we are
clear about what the motive is, and my motive is not to keep people
out of sight or out of mind, it is to try to ensure that people
who come to this country as refugees are refugees and that we
do an appropriate amount as our share of the international effort
to look after refugees. I think that is actually—although
we may very well differ about the general direction of the solution—common
ground between the various political parties at the moment.
Q576 Bob Russell: A simple, general
question does not need a long-winded lawyer's answer. Your whole
proposal is dependent on a foreign country—at least one—agreeing
to accept on its soil a British processing centre. Without that
agreement the only way that your processing centres could possibly
work is to revert back to Miss Widdecombe's proposal to have them
in this country.
Mr Letwin: My proposal does indeed
depend on some foreign country being willing to accept them.
Bob Russell: Thank you.
Q577 Mrs Dean: Mr Letwin, under your
proposals what provision would be made for child protection, for
dealing with unaccompanied minors, people with special needs and
torture survivors?
Mr Letwin: Torture survivors are
a central case of refugees and a very large number of those who
are refugees under the 1951 Convention have experienced torture.
So there is no special part of the idea that relates to them.
I fear that many of those that form part of the quota, either
through our positive efforts to bring them here or through their
having applied and having been processed offshore, would be torture
survivors. It is clearly of the essence that the processing centres
for those who have applied offshore and the choice of those for
the top-up quota should have appropriate medical facilities, which
is a common feature of all of the schemes which have been developed
under the Home Secretary's current plans for accommodation centres,
for example. Many of us have talked at great length downstairs
about the need for appropriate medical facilities; that is not
a new feature of the scene. The unaccompanied minors is a very
serious issue. The Home Secretary has made quite significant progress
on this recently. It is one of the few areas in which, over the
past few years, things have got rather better, in the sense that
the trafficking of minors has, I think, diminished. I think it
does need to be looked at very carefully how we deal with remaining
cases of minors on whose behalf an application is made, and it
is one of the areas I have asked to be looked at because I am
not yet confident how that is to be handled. I think that is a
very serious issue. I hope that it can be incorporated within
the rest of the scheme without significant amendment, but I would
like to be sure of that before I offer a final view on it.
Q578 Mrs Dean: If those categories
of people actually arrived on our shores, would they be subject
to automatic deportation to the processing camps?
Mr Letwin: I hope that we can
find ways of arranging things so that they were immediately transported
to those centres, if they did make application. That, of course,
necessitates thinking through educational provision, and so on,
yes.
Q579 Mrs Dean: Would it be right
for people who have been victims of torture and who are children,
who have found their way to this country, then to be flown to
the processing camp, wherever that should happen to be? Or would
you envisage an initial screening? If so, what would happen to
those people if they were proved, within a day or so, to have
suffered torture, etc?
Mr Letwin: Clearly these are the
sorts of things that are worth thinking through, but I think once
you start going down the line of an initial screening onshore,
you start unravelling the whole process. My instinct is that if
a scheme of this sort is to be made to work it has to be regular,
it has to be fairly absolute in its operation. Therefore, what
we need to make sure of is that the facilities are there to ensure
that people who are in those sorts of conditions are treated with
respect and with all the facilities that are necessary to ensure
they do not suffer, but are part of the scheme.
| 
