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Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend for giving way. Will the appellant have as much information before him and his representative as the person who represents the
Secretary of State and the court? I believe that that will not be so. However, I am prepared to consider what my noble friend has to say.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, no, the person will not. He will not have the intelligence evidence or the intercepts. He will not have the evidence that makes it necessary for the matter to be considered in a closed court. If we could prosecute on the basis of the available evidence in open court, we would do so. There are circumstances in which we simply cannot do that because we do not use intercept evidence in our courts. We believe that we have the best instrument that we can fashion. It was set up with the approval of this House—it was fully debated both here and in the other place—for this very purpose.
For many years the Home Secretary has had power to remove people under the Immigration Act 1971. The ability of the three wise men to look over his or her shoulder was not thought to be wholly satisfactory and SIAC was set up for that very purpose. This is an unusual set of circumstances but we live in unusual times. This is the best that we believe we can do to maintain a civilised approach to the arrangements without letting the country be taken to the bank, if you like, by international terrorists. We must have a weapon. SIAC will be a part of that.
The person detained will be free to leave the UK at any time he chooses, unless he is subject to other proceedings which require his presence in this country. If he can find a third country to accept him—there will be no secret deliveries to such states—he is free to leave at any time. It is probable that that will not occur many times, but to that extent we do not equate this measure with the former method of internment where there was no possibility of anyone leaving of his own choice. These powers would require derogation from Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is allowed under Article 15. This House and the other place have debated the derogation order.
There are three important changes in Part 4 in relation to asylum and immigration. There is a restriction on judicial review of the actions and decisions by SIAC in respect of the new powers of certification and detention. In our view, which we believe is shared by some noble Lords, SIAC is a fully competent appeal mechanism. There is a route of appeal on a point of law from SIAC to the Court of Appeal and, if necessary, to the House of Lords.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister. I tabled a Question for Written Answer on 18th October. I asked what previous attempts had been made by Parliament to restrict judicial review and what the consequences had been. May I hope for an answer to that question before we reach Committee stage?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I certainly hope so. I do not know whether the Question was directed to me. Perhaps the Question was directed to another
Minister. We are doing our best to answer these points as quickly as possible. I accept that outstanding matters of that kind should be answered by Committee stage; otherwise, noble Lords cannot have an informed debate.I turn to the second change in the area of immigration and asylum which relates to the Geneva Convention of 1951. That convention recognises that terrorists are undeserving of protection under it. Not all of us read the whole convention; most people know the first few words. But we need to take account of the fact that terrorists cannot claim protection under the 1951 convention. Even if notorious terrorists apply for asylum we must weigh the risk of persecution against their exclusion from protection. Therefore, the Bill provides that where the Secretary of State certifies that a person is excluded from the protection of the convention and his removal would be conducive to the public good, an appeal on the substance of any asylum claim will not need to be examined. The person has taken himself outside the protection of the convention. There are proper safeguards. There is an appeal to SIAC against the certificate.
Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, perhaps I may press my noble friend on SIAC which has been the subject of debate among many colleagues. Are the current arrangements for the construction of SIAC absolutely set in stone or may there be some reform in that area in future?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I know of no plans in that regard. The commission does not meet in open session and the names of those who sit are not on a published list. I believe that it has dealt with only three cases, so it does not have a massive amount of experience. We are asking SIAC to take on a slightly new role here. I have no doubt that the point which underlies my noble friend's question will be taken into account. If there are further cases of an unusual character which require changes to working practices and other arrangements, they will be considered. But the commission is set up under statute and that possibility always exists. I would never say Xnever" to anything in that regard because so far the commission has considered only a few cases.
The third change is that the Bill amends the Asylum and Immigration Act 1999 to allow for the retention for up to 10 years of certain fingerprints taken in immigration and asylum cases. This may appear stark, but fingerprints have been taken in asylum cases since 1993 and all asylum seekers have been fingerprinted. In more recent times, fingerprints have been digitalised and stored on computer, so there is now direct access into mobile fingerprint checkers around the country while people are going about their work. It is normal that where a person succeeds in making a claim for asylum—that is, where they are granted indefinite leave to remain—their fingerprints are destroyed. The only fingerprints retained are of those whose applications fail.
However, it is not unknown for people who have made successful claims for asylum and have been granted indefinite leave to remain, to leave this
country and to make another claim for asylum—or, as the case may be, to make another claim for asylum from within this country—using totally different identities in order to set up another character, another passport, another bank account, another set of benefit cards and so on. Their fingerprints are our defence against that.I can assure noble Lords that we do not do this lightly. We want to stop those people who are seeking to establish multiple identities in case they are involved in perpetuating terrorism.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but can he tell the House how many people have been involved in this kind of activity? It sounds very much like an urban rumour.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I can assure the noble Earl that it is not. When we debate the clause in question, I shall give whatever figures we have available. When I was first appointed a Home Office Minister, I visited our immigration and nationality department at Croydon. On the day of my visit there was an example of someone who had previously made a successful claim. I was gobsmacked. It had never crossed my mind that that would happen. But it has happened.
Not many people will be involved—I am not arguing that there will be hundreds of cases—but people do it. Last Friday, when I was at a passport office, I saw a photograph of someone who has made nine applications for British passports. All we have is his photograph, which covers nine different names and personalities. Those are the nine applications that we have stopped; we do not know whether there are any more. This kind of abuse does happen and the Bill is a modest addition to our armoury.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, have not the Government announced that it is their intention to issue all asylum seekers with cards containing biometric data as from January 2002, and to complete the process of issuing such cards to all existing asylum seekers by the end of the year? Would not that cope with the difficulty described by the noble Lord?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Lord has missed the point. It is not asylum seekers but refugees who have come into this country over the past few years whose fingerprints are still on file. They will not be issued with cards because they are not asylum seekers. They are citizens going about their business, getting a new career, getting a new life together. Their fingerprints are held on file and we will keep them for 10 years. They are not involved in our plans for the issue of biometric cards. The cards are for asylum seekers. If you are a refugee, you cease to be an asylum seeker.
Part 5 of the Bill deals with race and religion. People have used the current international situation to abuse, assault—
Lord Ackner: My Lords, before the Minister leaves Part 4, can he help me on what looks like a rather important point in regard to Clause 27, which is on page 14 of my copy of the statute? Subsection (9) states:
- XCancellation by the Commission of a certificate issued under section 21 shall not prevent the Secretary of State from issuing another certificate, whether on the grounds of a change of circumstance or otherwise".
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