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The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I agree with noble Lords on the Conservative Benches. Not only are we being denied the right to discuss matters properly, as we can in Committee; we have been denied the right to a Second Reading debate on them. That practice has previously been unheard of unless there has been an emergency. Those matters should be carefully considered. I declare my interest as a member of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal, which at present is in a shambles because no one knows what will happen. We are extremely concerned about the process and I should be most grateful if the Minister would reconsider.

Lord Dubs: My Lords, I, too, am concerned about some aspects of the Government's policy on the matter but, in at least one respect, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has not got it right. We as a country have in the past had schemes under the United Nations High Commission for Refugees for people to come here as asylum seekers or refugees—in particular, the Bosnians, who came under a scheme agreed with the UNHCR. So that suggestion is not new; it is simply another instalment of the policy that was sensibly introduced some years ago by the government supported by the noble Baroness.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken to the Motion. I especially regret not having had the pleasure of meeting the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on Friday, as we had planned, but at that point I was not able to give her a definitive answer and I did not want to waste her time. That is why I had hoped that we could speak on the telephone today, but that was not possible, for reasons that I fully understand.

With regard to the question of whether Report will take three or four days, as the noble Baroness implied, that is clearly a matter for the usual channels. She is right to say that changes are proposed. Some of those are the result of the Government listening to what was said from the Opposition Benches in Committee; no doubt those will become apparent later. In other respects, the changes are proposed because the Government think that the situation demands them.

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No one with any sense wants to introduce late amendments to a Bill, but neither would any Government with any sense who believed that circumstances required it avoid trying to get a Bill that is before Parliament into a form that they thought right and appropriate. That is what we are doing.

With regard to the good question of when the amendments will be tabled, as ever, I should be happier if I had a copper-bottomed guarantee, but I am told that we shall do our utmost to table them tomorrow. If we cannot, we expect to table them on Wednesday.

With regard to the debate about the UNHCR, as those who participated in Committee will recall, the Bill already gives power to open up such a resettlement programme. We debated that. What my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announced was when he would introduce the first live part of such a resettlement programme—a more rational and sensible measure towards which we believe it is extremely important to start to move.

With regard to our meetings with the French, they have been extremely co-operative about working with us to implement a system of juxtaposed control—which is why there is a measure in the Bill to that effect—which will make it increasingly possible to obtain their support and co-operation to stem the flow of illegal migration. I noted with interest what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, mentioned to me at the beginning of last week about the Conservative proposal for a safe country list; we look forward to discovering to what extent we are at one on that issue.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for his generous comment recognising the amount of time that the Government spent in discussion with opposition Peers over the summer. It was a pleasure to do so, because we are obliged to try to answer all questions raised in Committee. We sought to do that both face to face and by sending more than 100 letters to Members of the House about the queries raised during Committee.

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I simply want to ask a question of fact. Is it impossible at this stage to revert to Committee to deal with the new business and to defer Report?

Lord Filkin: My Lords, the House will know its procedures as well, if not better, than I in that respect. Such a process would in practice destroy the Bill, and that is not in the interest of good government or of the proper consideration of the House.

Earl Russell: My Lords, what the noble Baroness proposes was done in the case of the recommittal of the Jobseekers Bill and did not destroy that Bill.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I suggest that such matters are normally discussed between the usual channels.

I stress that the Government are not acting lightly, flippantly or frivolously. Events over the summer have revealed significant abuses of our asylum system. In

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addition, the Government believe that we must—and have been working extremely hard over the summer to do so—bring before the House on Report the Bill that we think right. That is why, on this Bill as on many previous Bills, the Government have tabled amendments on Report. We have a duty to democracy and to the public to act in that way.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, why cannot the amendments to the Bill be introduced early in the new Session, rather than now?

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I should have thought that my noble friend would know the answer to that question. That would delay action that is urgently needed now for about nine months.

As an illustration—although I regret being in danger of being drawn into the substance of the issue rather than the process—during the summer we received a considerable number of asylum applications from people from countries which on all the evidence we believe to be perfectly safe. The number of such applications has been a considerable source of embarrassment to the source countries, but we are obliged to deal with those applicants in the system and, if they demand it, give them support. The Bill sets out what we consider to be balanced and reasonable proposals to deal with that. We think that the House should have an adequate opportunity—hence the proposal to change the order of consideration—to consider those proposals.

Turning, if I may, to other questions that were raised, it is clearly not every year that we have a Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill—at least, one hopes not. It is therefore important to use the measure while it is before the House. Clearly, the House, or Parliament, is sovereign in those respects. While we intend to and will table amendments, Parliament will decide what it thinks is right. I clearly expect and hope that Parliament will lend its support to what we think are good and right actions.

To address the remarks of the noble Countess, Lady Mar—as, in a sense, I already have—about issues on Second Reading, Bills change as they proceed and governments therefore introduce amendments at this stage.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, that is precisely why I asked that if entirely new clauses are to be inserted into the Bill we should be allowed to take them through the whole process. It is unfair to people outside for us to be bulldozed into having a Report stage only on entirely new amendments.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, although these are issues for the usual channels, I should hope that the House will have adequate time—and, I hope, not at too unseasonal an hour—to consider the new government amendments.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, can the Minister give an assurance here and now that the new

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amendments are consistent with the principle of the Bill? Surely, that is the point that the noble Countess, Lady Mar, was making.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, I can give that assurance strongly and clearly. The amendments are consistent with the principle that we set out at the beginning in the White Paper published in January. We shall continue to give four-square commitment to meeting our responsibilities under the Geneva Convention to defend people who are subject to political persecution. At the same time, we shall balance that by trying to develop economic migration, while recognising that many people, for understandable reasons, seek to use asylum as a means of economic migration.

The aim of the Government, the aim of the White Paper and the aim of the amendments is to ensure that we stand four-square with those issues and do not confuse them. We shall be resolute in their achievement.

Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, I must, first of all, say to the Minister that he did not answer the question about whether the Select Committee on Human Rights would have the opportunity to consider the new clauses. Secondly, I must say that, when we see the amendments—tomorrow or whenever it turns out to be—we shall need to consider whether to press for recommitment in respect of the new clauses that are being inserted into the Bill. It is being described—I say this provisionally, as none of us knows exactly what is in the new clauses—as a wholly new Bill.

We do not wish to hold up the existing Bill; we are suggesting that the House should examine properly the new clauses and new principles that are being inserted into the Bill. That is all the more important when we consider that, were the clauses to be inserted after any process or set of processes in this House, the only opportunity for the other place to examine them would be when it came to consider Lords amendments—that is to say, one brief debate. Under that House's new timetable arrangements, that represents an extremely brief opportunity to consider the new principles that are being inserted.

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