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Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Earl may have misheard me; I did not say that legal advice might be the cause of delay.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am extremely glad to hear it, and I am sorry if I misheard the Minister.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we do not think that there would be anything to gain by including the proposed requirement in the Bill. This point was raised in an earlier debate.
Lord Judd: My Lords, what is so often the problem, as those of us who work with people in these types of situation realise, is that there is a very long line between the policy and the intention of Ministers who head up that policy and what actually happens at the point of action. Consequently, if people feel that they need independent advice because the system is not operating as it should, they should be able to have access to that advice.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, as I said, it is not our intention to deprive, to deny or to obstruct the provision of independent legal advice. I quite understand my noble friend's point.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, the Minister keeps using the phrase "legal advice", but we are talking about independent advice. The word "legal" appears nowhere in our amendment.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I accept that; I may have been thinking back to the first time that we discussed the issue, when the words "legal advice" were, I think, used. I understand exactly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has made, but other noble Lords have mentioned the need to ensure that legal advice is available at this stage. We are saying that access to advice—legal advice and other forms of advice such as healthcare advice—will be made available through the induction programme process. This amendment is the wrong way to achieve that objective. We are arguing quite firmly that it is unnecessary to impose this obligation at this stage.
The induction programme is very much separate from that process. The induction programme is meant to open up and provide access to all the other services, including advice, that we feel that asylum seekers will need, so that they can be assisted as they go towards the decision-making process. I hope that I have persuaded your Lordships that it is unnecessary to pursue the amendment at this stage.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, as I am sure the Minister remembers, the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights drew particular attention to the importance of access to legal advice for very
vulnerable people who are under the control of the state. In our 17th report, we said that it was particularly important not only that the Government tell Parliament exactly how the advice will be provided, but that they carefully monitor whether access to advice is available. I appreciate that it may not be necessary to encumber the Bill with specific duties, but can the Minister give the House an assurance that this will be very carefully monitored, and that we will be able to get information from the Government about how access to advice is being given in practice to this highly vulnerable group of people?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the point is that this is a highly vulnerable group of people. Consequently, we want to have a thorough and rigorous induction programme so that asylum seekers have access not only to legal advice but to healthcare advice and support and so on. We recognise that those are a fundamental part of human rights, and I am sure that that view is shared on all sides of the House. I am therefore happy to give an assurance that we will monitor and keep under very careful scrutiny the issue of access to legal advice. Our stated aim in the White Paper, as I read out earlier, is to ensure that that happens.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked how many centres will carry out the induction programme. Our best estimate is that we may eventually need approximately 10 centres across the UK. It is to be a thorough and national programme. We will be providing very good facilities at the induction centres and programmes that will enable people to understand exactly how the process will work, their part in it, and how they will be able to access advice and services such as healthcare.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, will the induction centres be separate from the accommodation centres?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: Yes, my Lords, they will be separate from the induction centres; very much so.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I am very conscious of the time. The Minister was unable to convince either side of the Chamber in Committee, and he has been unable to convince either side today. I should have hoped that he would be able to accept this very straightforward amendment. As he has not done so, I think that he can take it from me that we shall return to the issue at Third Reading, when we might seek the opinion of the House. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Filkin moved Amendment No. 50:
- Page 35, line 37, at end insert—
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Kingsland moved Amendment No. 51:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 51 and 52 arise from the debate on this clause in Committee on 17th July. Under the terms of Article 33 of the refugee convention, a person who is defined as a "serious criminal" may be returned to another country even where he is at risk of persecution on the ground that he constitutes a danger to the community of the country which is hosting him.
Clause 64 seeks to introduce a statutory presumption into the United Kingdom's domestic law that a person is a serious criminal for the purposes of the refugee convention if he has been sentenced, either in the United Kingdom or abroad, to a period of two years' unsuspended imprisonment. The presumption can be rebutted; but the burden of proof would be reversed.
I shall not detain your Lordships by repeating the detail of the arguments that I advanced in Committee on 17th July, at col. 1297 of the Official Report, as to why the approach taken by the Government in Clause 64 may be flawed. In brief, what I said on that occasion was, first, that the Government's approach differs from the text of the refugee convention in that the presumption in the clause arises in relation to the punishment imposed rather than the crime committed; secondly, that the inflexible criterion of two years' imprisonment would not cover a situation where someone was convicted of a particularly serious crime, such as dealing in child pornography or drugs, but was sentenced to perhaps 14 or 18 months, perhaps with a substantial discount for an early plea of guilty; and, thirdly, that the proposal in the clause that relates to the sentences imposed for crimes committed abroad takes no account of the sentencing policies or the applicability of the rule of law in foreign countries.
Under the clause as it stands, someone sentenced to two years or more in Iraq or North Korea, for example, would be considered a serious criminal for the purposes of our domestic law irrespective of the crime they had committed, even if it was merely speaking out against the regime.
This was a point, as I recall, supported by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who raised the interesting question of whether the definition of "serious criminal" would have applied to several past Commonwealth Prime Ministers who had been imprisoned by British colonial governments. I see that the noble Earl's Question for Written Answer on this issue was answered by the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, on 24th September with the noble Baroness saying that the information was not available and that the necessary research would involve disproportionate cost. I look forward to hearing what the noble Earl has to say on the point a little later on today.
These amendments, which are identical to the ones that I tabled in Committee, would change the test so that a person would be presumed to be a serious criminal if he had been convicted of a crime which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment or more—rather than using the criterion of the length of sentence imposed. This would include such offences as trafficking in child pornography, robbery, homicide offences and serious sexual offences. As I explained in Committee, this is also by no means a perfect solution. It would not, for example, cover crimes such as the possession of child pornography, dealing in Class C drugs or racially aggravated assault.
The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, undertook to reflect on the points that were made in that debate. In particular, I remember inviting the noble Lord to consider whether it would be more appropriate to list the specific offences to which the definition of "serious criminal" would apply in a schedule to the Bill, as the Government did in the Criminal Justice and Courts Services Act 2000, for the definition of "offences against a child".
I see from the Marshalled List that no government amendments have been forthcoming as a result of that reflection. I have, therefore, tabled these amendments in order to allow the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, the opportunity to explain to your Lordships why the Government have decided to reject the arguments advanced in the Committee debate. I beg to move.
"(5) Subsection (6) applies where the Secretary of State arranges for the provision of a programme of induction (whether or not he also provides other facilities to persons attending the programme and whether or not all the persons attending the programme are subject to residence restrictions).
(6) A local authority may arrange for or participate in the provision of the programme or other facilities.
(7) In particular, a local authority may—
(a) incur reasonable expenditure;
(b) provide services outside its area;
(c) provide services jointly with another body;
(d) form a company;
(e) tender for or enter into a contract;
(f) do anything (including anything listed in paragraphs (a) to (e)) for a preparatory purpose.
(8) In this section "local authority" means—
(a) a local authority within the meaning of section 94 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (c. 33), and
(b) a Northern Ireland authority within the meaning of section 110 of that Act."
Page 36, line 31, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
"(b) the offence is one for which the maximum period of imprisonment is ten years or more"
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