Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 26 OCTOBER 2005
HOME OFFICE
AND IMMIGRATION
AND NATIONALITY
DIRECTORATE
Q60 Stephen Williams: What sort of
monitoring takes place within the timescale to make sure that
they are taking steps to voluntarily leave the country?
Mr Clark: Nobody is working with
them to monitor those steps. That letter has been sent and it
is intended to give the final decision in respect of their claim
and is inviting them now to leave the country.
Q61 Stephen Williams: When somebody
gets this letter that is effectively the last contact they will
have from you unless, at some point in the future, enforcement
action is taken. To quote what you just said, no-one is actually
taking steps to help them out of the country voluntarily.
Mr Clark: In many cases there
may be reporting centre arrangements in place and those reporting
centre arrangements will have some ongoing contact with the people
in that situation.
Q62 Stephen Williams: Can I refer
to paragraph 3.5 of the detailed report which is on page 21, and
I believe the process is these reports and figures are agreed
with the National Audit Office. Sir John is nodding so I assume
you accept this figure. It says about a third of the way down
that paragraph: "For every 1,000 additional voluntary removals
our estimates suggest an additional £9.9 million of resources
could be freed up . . . " within your Department. Do you
not think, purely from a value for money exercise and making all
our lives easier, those of us who have to deal with immigration
cases, these resources could be freed up and investing a bit more
in helping people to voluntarily leave the country would pay off?
Sir John Gieve: That is why we
are trying to ramp up the number of voluntary returns and we have,
as this Report points out, introduced some new incentives, for
example for Afghanistan, in order to move those up. So obviously,
yes, these are the cheapest returns that are the least problematic
and we will have as many of them as we can.
Q63 Stephen Williams: What practical
help is being given to encourage people to voluntarily return?
I understand the maximum level of the integration support offered
at the moment is £1,000. Is that right?
Sir John Gieve: That is right.
Yes, generally that is right.
Q64 Stephen Williams: Do you think
that is enough to encourage someone to voluntarily return?
Sir John Gieve: It does encourage
quite a lot of people to return voluntarily as you can see. Of
course, we keep that under review, we could put it up to £2,000
and perhaps that would swing the balance with some more but then,
on the other hand, you would be paying extra to people who do
not need £2,000 to persuade them to go and there are nice
trade-offs here. In a sense, if the worse thing that is going
to happen to you if you come and claim asylum when you are not
due asylum in Britain is that someone gives you a few thousand
pounds to send you home, that may not look like a very big downside.
Q65 Stephen Williams: Granted, but
in some of the cases that I have in my office people were told
to leave the country. The one I quoted was in August 2004. I have
come across others that might be as far, I think the furthest
back I can remember is April 2003, where they have not volunteered
to leave the country at all in that period. Something is going
badly wrong.
Sir John Gieve: This is not a
system where you ever get 100% success. On the whole, people who
have claimed asylum in Britain want to stay here and many of them
will use all the means available to them to prolong their stay.
So, we are never going to be in a position where everyone gets
a letter from the Home Office and off they go. That would be marvellous
but that is not the world we live in. Even in the case of Somalians,
Somalia is a lawless place in many respects but life goes on there
and many of the people who come and claim asylum here, we go through
their cases and find they are not political refugees, probably
could go back and live in Somalia if they wanted to.
Q66 Stephen Williams: Going back
to these examples of correspondence that I have pointed out. They
are just typical of many that I have in my office. Do you not
feel that letter simply is not good enough to tell someone they
can phone this number between 9 am and 5 pm on weekdays to ask
for advice? Do you not think the process could be much more active
than that? The letter itself could be improved in specifying what
advice and support there is, what financial support there is,
what personal advice might be available and how they can access
it, rather than asking them to phone a number so they can volunteer
to leave the country.
Mr Oppenheim: The new asylum model
is very much taking that process on board and having a unified
case ownership, one member of staff who keeps an eye on a group
of asylum claimants from point of claim to point of removal so
we actually develop more than just a letter relationship, we develop
a personal relationship to ensure that people do what we are asking
them to do.
Q67 Stephen Williams: Just to clarify
what you said, was that for new cases from now on? The backlog
is not being addressed in that way?
Mr Oppenheim: It is not being
addressed in that way at present. Certainly we are looking at
the same model. One of things we are examining is whether we can
learn those lessons of segmentation that Sarah McCarthy-Fry mentioned
earlier and whether we can use that segmentation and the associated
contact management for some of our legacy cases, those longer
standing cases coming to your surgeries.
Q68 Chairman: Sir John, what was
the date of the last compulsory returns to Somalia?
Sir John Gieve: I do not know.[3]
Q69 Chairman: Does anyone know, a
rough idea?
Sir John Gieve: 2004.
Q70 Chairman: 2004. We will have
a note as well, thank you.
Sir John Gieve: Okay.
Q71 Mr Bacon: Mr Clark, Sir John
is shortly going off to the Bank of England and his successor
will be Sir David Normington, who I understand starts in January.
Is that right?
Sir John Gieve: Yes.
Q72 Mr Bacon: You, therefore, as
senior official responsible for this area will have to brief Sir
David, who has been worrying about the nation's education until
now, about these matters. What would be the single most important
piece of advice you would stress to him for action in relation
to the area of removing failed asylum seekers?
Mr Clark: I think in terms of
delivering our business, in terms of removals and enforcement,
the single biggest issue lies around the late and last minute
barriers to removal.
Q73 Mr Bacon: In terms of physically
getting people from where they are to the airport or the port?
Mr Clark: It could comprise last
minute legal process through judicial review. It could comprise
last minute representations or MPs' letters. It could comprise
disruptive behaviour by individuals themselves to avoid removal
at the last set of processes.
Q74 Mr Bacon: There have been several
Immigration and Asylum Acts since 1999 and Sir John referred earlier
to legislation going through Parliament now. Does the Home Office,
Sir John, have plans for further legislation or have you discussed
internally the possibility of other legislation, or is what is
currently on the books thought to be enough?
Sir John Gieve: We have discussed
a number of options which are not on the statue book yet and are
not in the Bill but so far we have rejected them. Whether or not
ministers continue to reject them depends on how the world develops.
Q75 Mr Bacon: On page 14 in paragraph
2.7, the Report refers in the last sentence of paragraph 2.7 to
the failure so far to put in place procedures to flag up cases
where limited leave to remain has expired without extension and
where the individual would be removable. Why can you not identify
people whose limited leave to remain has expired?
Mr Oppenheim: Well, I think we
can and we are working very hard on doing precisely that.
Q76 Mr Bacon: Are you doing it at
the moment?
Mr Oppenheim: We do it at the
moment.
Q77 Mr Bacon: How do you do it without
procedure?
Mr Oppenheim: We do it with certain
procedures, to be crystal clear about this. We do have some procedures
to be able to flag up cases—
Q78 Stephen Williams: Is this then
inaccurate?
Mr Oppenheim: It was not inaccurate
when it was written. We have taken on board some of those issues
and we have been developing both procedures and the systems to
be able to flag up those very cases. That is very much part of
both the New Asylum Model and looking at those legacy cases I
mentioned earlier.
Q79 Mr Bacon: Could I ask you to
turn to page 22 where it refers to the position of failed applicants
who have been released from prison. How many failed applicants
have been released from prison because their removal could not
be arranged?
Mr Clark: We would think around
500.
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