The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Atkins,
Charlotte
(Staffordshire, Moorlands)
(Lab)
Burgon,
Colin
(Elmet) (Lab)
Burns,
Mr. Simon
(West Chelmsford)
(Con)
Green,
Damian
(Ashford)
(Con)
Hemming,
John
(Birmingham, Yardley)
(LD)
Hollobone,
Mr. Philip
(Kettering)
(Con)
Holloway,
Mr. Adam
(Gravesham)
(Con)
Huhne,
Chris
(Eastleigh)
(LD)
Jenkin,
Mr. Bernard
(North Essex)
(Con)
Ladyman,
Dr. Stephen
(South Thanet)
(Lab)
McCabe,
Steve
(Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)McGovern,
Mr. Jim
(Dundee, West)
(Lab)
Marsden,
Mr. Gordon
(Blackpool, South)
(Lab)
Osborne,
Sandra
(Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock)
(Lab)
Whitehead,
Dr. Alan
(Southampton, Test)
(Lab)
Woolas,
Mr. Phil
(Minister for Borders and
Immigration)Eliot Wilson,
Committee Clerk
attended
the Committee
Second
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Monday 25
January
2010
[Jim
Sheridan in the
Chair]
Draft Asylum (Designated States) Order 2010
4.30
pm
The
Minister for Borders and Immigration (Mr. Phil
Woolas): I beg to
move,
That
the Committee has considered the draft Asylum (Designated States) Order
2010.
The
order was laid in draft before the House on 6 January. It is
now the sixth order adding countries to the list of those to which the
non-suspensive appeal provisions under section 94 of the National,
Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 apply. At the moment, 24 countries are
on that list. The order would add a further two: the Republics of South
Korea and Kosovo. The latter is a technical amendment because Kosovo
was previously designated, it being a province of Serbia in 2003 when
the list was introduced. It is now being added separately in its own
right since it achieved independence on 17 February
2008.
I
wish to explain non-suspensive appeals provisions. The general position
is that unsuccessful asylum claims or, indeed, article 8 human rights
claims under immigration law have a right to appeal to the Asylum and
Immigration Tribunal. Until the appeal has been determined, all action
to enforce the removal of the claimant from the United Kingdom is
suspended. However, section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and
Asylum Act 2002 made provision for a certification process under which
removal action is not suspended, hence non-suspensive action when
asylum or such human rights claims are clearly unfounded. The
definition of clearly unfounded is based on a House of
Lords judgment in 2002. Such a claim is one that is so clearly without
substance that it is bound to fail, even if we accept all aspects of a
persons claim that they would not qualify as a
refugee.
Let
me turn to non-suspensive designation. In cases when the application is
clearly unfounded, we can deport someone and they are entitled to an
appeal from overseas. In the case of the designated country under the
NSA list, the legislation allows us to add a country to the list if we
are satisfied that there is, in general, no serious risk of persecution
of persons entitled to reside there and that removal to that country of
persons will not, in general, breach the UKs obligations under
the European convention on human rights. To reassure the Committee, I want
to say that each case is dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It is
possible to be granted asylum from a country that is on the
list.
In
assessing whether a particular country meets the test for designation,
we do not base our judgment on the number of applications received from
people of that country nor on the percentage of those applications that
are unsuccessful. We consider the general conditions for the population
of the country itself. Broadly speaking,
we would look to see what evidence there is of persecution of human
rights breaches within a country and how widespread such treatment is.
We are satisfied that the proposed designations in the draft order meet
the legal
test.
I
should have thought that the Committee would have been surprised that South
Korea was not on the list. It takes resources and capacity to go
through each country properly. We have now done that. The number of
asylum claims from South Korea is, in real terms, relatively low;
indeed, it is in two figures. None the less it is disproportionately
high, given what we know about the situation in South Korea. We have,
however, already made significant progress in reforming our systems,
and we are confident that we can put South Korea on the
list.
4.34
pm
Damian
Green (Ashford) (Con): I am grateful to the Minister for
his full and thorough explanation of the order. He is right. I suspect
that many of us were surprised that South Korea was not already on the
list. I am glad that the Government have added it to the list. He
should not take it as a precedent, but I have no objections to anything
in the order nor, indeed, to anything he has said. As it happens, I had
a meeting earlier today with refugee support organisations. They
spontaneously brought up Kosovo as the sort of place where they thought
it had once been very dangerous to return people, and where it now
clearly was not. So there is recognition in the refugee support
community that Kosovo is now in the sort of state where it can be added
to this list.
I merely
observe, in a historical context, that it took about four years to get
from suspending the white list of safe countries to passing a law that
found a new way of getting us back to a condition where this country
can acknowledge that there are certain countries that are essentially
safe and people can be returned. Although I take the Ministers
point that every case is taken individually, it is clear that we now
have a list of 24 countries to which the British Government officially
send a signal that it is safe to return
applicants.
Mr.
Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): I am listening to my
hon. Friends comments closely. I do not know the answer to my
question, but presumably there are quite a large number of Kosovans who
have claimed asylum and who are in the United Kingdom. Is it my hon.
Friends understanding that those individuals will be invited to
return to their country of origin now that it is designated a safe
place?
Damian
Green: As the Minister said, every case needs to be taken
on its merits. There may be individuals who are genuinely under the
threat of persecution as defined by the various international
conventions to which this country is signed up. I know that my hon.
Friend, like me, would feel disturbed at the prospect of retrospective
legislation changing the conditions affecting any individual. If an
individual had a well-founded fear of persecution, the fact that the
British Government are passing an order making it explicitly clear to
everyone that we as a country now regard their home country as a safe
one may affect their view on the likelihood of danger in returning to
their home country. One would hope that would have an effect on some
individuals. However, as I said, the Conservatives do not oppose the
order.
4.37
pm
John
Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): Similarly, we have
deliberated whether to support this approach and we have it in mind to
support it as long as each case is considered on its individual merits
and has had such consideration. I personally have had the unusual
experience of dealing with people who leave this country because they
are persecuted by the family courts here. Normally, they do not claim
asylum, because they are in European economic area countries, although
one has gone off to the Philippines. There was an interesting case once
in which someone claimed asylum from America in Holland, and got it on
the basis that they had a well-founded fear of persecution, so it is
important to understand that even in established democracies there can
be situations where individual cases need individual
attention.
South
Korea is generally accepted to be a very good country from the human
rights point of view. In 2009, the Freedom House report noted
that
the constitution
allows for freedom of religion and the government did not enforce any
state religion; academic freedom is not restricted (bar statements in
support of the North Korean government); there is freedom of
association...members of civil society and Non Government
Organisations are active and able to operate freely; the judiciary is
considered generally independent; and the police though occasionally
culpable of verbally and physically abusing detainees are considered
well disciplined and
un-corrupt.
To
that extent, we have no objection to the addition of South Korea to the
white
list.
The
advantage of having an external body to consider which country should
be on the list is that countries such as Kosovo can be considered in
detail. In 2008, Human Rights Watch highlighted its concerns
that:
Violence,
impunity for common and political crimes, intimidation and
discrimination are
commonplace.
It
cited four areas of
concern:
The
criminal justice systempolitical and ethnic violence continued
to go
unpunished.
Roma,
Ashkali and Egyptian communities remain marginalised and vulnerable to
violence and
discrimination.
Kosovo's
leadership's failure to adequately investigate 400 plus missing
Serbs.
Domestic
violence and trafficking of
women.
However,
our principle is that there needs to be proper individual consideration
of any case; obviously, retrospectivity should not apply. I do not
think that there is a major disagreement
here.
4.40
pm
Mr.
Hollobone: I am always alarmed when I see the
Government introduce proposals on immigration, because they are usually
ill thought out and seem to open rather than close the door. I am
pleased that the order appears to be an exception to that rule. My only
disappointment is that only two extra countries are being added to the
list. The question that my constituents would ask me is,
Philip, you were at this exciting Committee on Monday. What
were they discussing? I would say, Immigration.
They would say, How many countries around the world would fall
under this category? Listening to the
Ministers remarks and trying to make sense of the explanatory
notes, it seems that the answer is 24out of, I believe, 192
nations listed at the United Nations. I am not sure if I have got that
correct, but it seems to be
an extraordinarily low number of countries where the rule would apply. I
would have thought that it should be the other way roundthat
there are only 24 countries in the world that are so dangerous, to
which we do not dare send people back. I am rather alarmed by the low
number of countries on the
list.
I
may have slightly confused my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford with
my question earlier, but it seems that most people in this country
would feel it to be perfectly reasonable that if someone who sought
asylum in this country was from a country such as Kosovo, which we now
deem to be safe, and if in the meantime they had not been granted
permanent leave to remain, they should be invited to return to that
country. After all, British soldiers have fought and died for the right
of their country to have proper governance. I do not see why people
should enjoy a permanent stay in this country if we have done our level
best as a nation to sort out their domestic affairs. I think most
people in this country would support a far more robust stance along
those lines. Likewise, that should apply to countries such as
Iraq.
Mr.
Simon Burns (West Chelmsford) (Con): I have had a
constituent from Kosovo who was given temporary leave to remain here
because of the situation there. It may reassure my hon. Friend to hear
that when the situation improved, he was asked to return to
Kosovo.
Mr.
Hollobone: No doubt he sent my hon. Friend a letter to
thank this country for doing its best to sort out Kosovo, because our
armed forces have spent a great deal of time and effort, blood and
treasure to put that country back on its feet. I am delighted for my
hon. Friends constituent that he was able to return to a
peaceful nation once
again.
Mr.
Burns: I do not want to upset my hon. Friend, but
he did not want to
return.
Mr.
Hollobone: Well, that is exactly my point, is it not? Many
people come to this country, claiming asylum. They claim that they are
fleeing persecution and that they would rather not be here, only that
circumstances meant that this was the only country in the world to
which they could find their way that would offer them asylum.
I am not aware
of direct flights between Kosovo and Heathrowthere may be some,
but I would be surprised if there were. Therefore, my hon.
Friends constituent would have had to make his way to this
country via some other western European nation. I think most people in
this country would ask, Why did he not claim asylum at his
first port of call? Why is he claiming asylum in this country?
The answer is, because we are a soft touch; we have an open door to
asylum seekers from all over the world. Potential asylum seekers know
that, which is why the UK, particularly London, is at the top of
everyones list to get to to claim asylum. Of course, one of the
reasons for that is that London is the largest city in Europe and the
most cosmopolitan city in the world. We are creating a perpetual cycle
where we have asylum-seeking
communities
The
Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is beginning to drift
away from the issue that is being debated. Perhaps he would sum
up.
Mr.
Hollobone: I am most grateful for your helpful advice in
bringing me back on track, Mr. Sheridan. My point is, in
looking at the order, we have two countries added to a pathetically
short list, which the Government should be extending by quite some way.
By not extending that list, we are creating asylum-seeker communities
in this country, which encourage asylum seeking from perfectly safe
countries. Most people in this country think it is time that we became
far tougher with bogus asylum seekers. They might be having a hard time
in their country of origin; I am not saying that that is not the case,
but given the size of our present population and the projections for
the next 10 or 20 years, we cannot carry on in such a way. Yes, let us
be a genuine safe haven for genuine refugees, but not for everyone who
is having a hard time at
home.
4.45
pm
Mr.
Woolas: Let me try to answer the questions that have been
asked. I shall do so in reverse order. The hon. Member for Kettering
expressed his concerns. There is no country in the world to which we
cannot return a claim that is clearly unfounded. All countries are on
that list, and we return regularly to Afghanistan and Iraq. For the
past few years, we always have done to Kosovo. We are even allowed to
return to Zimbabwe, and a number have been going back. I hope that I
have reassured the hon. Gentleman that there is a difference between
those countries that we feel it necessary to designate, such as the 24
that I have talked about, and many others where the problem is so small
that it almost non-existent. It is possible, of course, that asylum
would be claimed in any country in the world, but the numbers from,
say, New Zealand, tend to be
small.
I
can reassure the hon. Gentleman about Kosovo. The latest figures that I
have available in anticipation of that question cover January to
September 2009. There were 20 applications from Kosovo. There were 20
refusals. For the sake of accuracy, that does not mean necessarily that
they were the same 20 people because of the time delay over the
calendar year, but that is the sort of number we are dealing with. We
have a return flight to Kosovo every month, and our experience is that
most people stay on the plane and go to Albania because, in some cases,
they turn out not to be Kosovan, but Albanian. The numbers are coming
down. Indeed, the asylum claims on the latest figures are at their
lowest since 1993. I would not claim wholly, but that is in significant
part because of getting on top of the system with the measures that we
have.
Mr.
Hollobone: Will the Minister clarify the situation with
regard to other European Union countries? My understanding is that if
someone from Kosovo were to claim asylum in, say, Greece and that
individual were to end up in London, we would not be able to return
that person to Greece because the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees does not regard the asylum procedures in Greecean EU
countryas sufficiently robust for us to return people
there.
Mr.
Woolas: I can reassure the hon. Gentleman on that point,
too. He said that we have become a soft touch. France has more asylum
claims than the United Kingdom. Per capita, the United Kingdom is
13th within the European Union of the 27 countries. Of
course, we
are a bigger country than most so there are greater numbers, but there
are more in France owing to historic links with French colonies and for
other
reasons.
I
agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is a huge difference between
the right to flee persecution and the right to settle in the United
Kingdom. The two issues are often confused. That is why the Dublin
agreement within the European Union does indeed allow a person to be
returned to their first port of call. If people claimed asylum in
Greece but ended up in London, we return people to Greece and all other
European Union countries. We, indeed, are the major beneficiary of the
Dublin II agreement because we are, along with Sweden, a final
destination on those
routes.
The
hon. Gentleman is referring to the reports of a challenge to the
ability to return, in particular, to Greece, which have not been
founded. In answer to his political point, if the hon.
Gentlemans views on the European Union were to be implemented,
we would not be allowed to return to Greece, because it would not
recognise the mutual agreement. Given that 17 per cent. of EU asylum
claims turned out to be duplicate before the Dublin agreement, the
problem in this country would be
greater.
Mr.
Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con): A few years ago, I lived
in Sangatte refugee camp in Calais to make a television documentary.
Since then, the thinking has gone on, albeit not under that roof. On
the basis of the Ministers comments, why has virtually no one
who has ever come into Britain through Sangatte been at least sent back
to
France?
Mr.
Woolas: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we work with the
French. The French, thankfully because of the agreement, now detain
people and have started to remove them. We have joint returns with
France now, following the agreement. Of course, the assumption is that
the person has claimed asylum in France. The fact that they have not
tells me that they are not genuine asylum seekers, because if they were
fleeing persecution, they would claim asylum in Francethe last
time I looked, France was quite a nice place, and is a signatory to the
European convention. His point shows that in generalone has to
be careful, because there are children involved in Calaispeople
seeking to get into the UK through Calais are not asylum seekers. Those
people are economic migrants, often duped by people
traffickersand sometimes not duped. However, the hon. Gentleman
makes a good point.
Finally, the
hon. Member for Kettering said that the order was not ill thought out.
I am grateful to him for saying that, and I anticipated that if there
was a criticism from the Committee, it would be that we have taken too
long. My answer was that it shows that we are thorough. I reject the
accusation that our other measures are ill thought
out.
I
am pleased that the Liberal Democrats are supporting the measure. There
were reservations when it was introduced in 2007, the last time the
matter was debated in Committee.
John
Hemming: We remain concerned that each case has an
opportunity to be looked at on its own, as I cited examples of people
getting refugee status and asylum in Holland from America because they
were persecuted. It was an individual case, which we need to look at,
but obviously, having a more accelerated case process for countries
such as South Korea is sensible.
Mr.
Woolas: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I can give an
assurance that whatever the designation of the nationality or country
of origin, each individual claim for asylum is judged on that
individuals merit. There are cases where the officer, as I say,
determines that the case is clearly unfounded. The definition of that
comes from a High Court judgment in 2002, where it was deemed that even
if all the claims that a person had made were true, it would not be
sufficient to grant asylum status. Recently we had the case of a
gentleman from China who said that he was seeking asylum because he
could not get a job there. Even if that were true, it would not be a
reason for granting asylum. In those cases we can deport, and we do so
in record numbers. If there is an appeal, they have to do so from
overseas, and of course, they currently do
not.
However,
where it is not a clearly unfounded case, even if it turns out to be
untrue, we have to look at those cases again on a case-by-case basis.
Then we can deport people, and they have the right to appeal from
overseas. To fully answer the point made by the hon. Member for
Kettering, the vast majority of the countries of the world are not on
the list because the problem does not arise, not because ofif
the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley will excuse meany undue
liberalism on our part. Presentationally, incidentally, the hon. Member
for Kettering has a
point.
On
that basis, I think that I have answered all the questions. I am
grateful to the hon. Member for Ashford for reiterating his support for
the principle and the practicality of the order. I perhaps should have
mentioned for the record that if someone is coming from North Korea, we
have arrangements with the South Koreans, given the particular
circumstances.
Question
put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That
the Committee has considered the draft Asylum (Designated States) Order
2010.
4.55
pm
Committee
rose.