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Lord Judd: My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, in asking the Minister to clarify the situation. In the context of our deliberations here, we must never lose sight of the fact that we may literally be dealing with life and death situations.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I shall make a very brief speech in support of the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Dholakia and Lord Judd. Common sense obviously suggests that the Home Office would not do the things against which the amendment warns. However, the circumstances of the last Parliament, to which I have alluded on previous occasions and which I shall certainly not rehearse again except to state them, create a situation where silence on the part of the Home Office worries one. One is concerned as to whether actions of which a constituent and, indeed, his Member of Parliament are totally in ignorance may be going awry. I allude to the period when Ministers asked Members of Parliament to communicate with officials rather than with themselves. We then had very long periods of silence when we heard nothing at all from officials.

I mention one particular case because it involved the noble Lord, Lord Filkin. He may conceivably just remember it. On 4th September last year—in other words, 13 months ago—I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, the then Minister, about 19 cases which had been outstanding when I left the House of Commons on 14th May and on which I had heard nothing from the Home Office between 14th May and 4th September. I give credit to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for the replies that I received over a period of months thereafter. One of the 19—I have not checked whether any others are outstanding—was from the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, in August, during the Recess, in which he courteously apologised for the time that it had taken the Home Office to reply. By then, it was 11 months since I had written, which is an example of how files get lost and are not dealt with or followed up.

If a constituent is worried about just the things that are contained in the amendments, his anxieties and those of the Member of Parliament representing him are dramatically enhanced when nothing comes out of

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the Home Office. Since those circumstances can be repeated, the discipline that is inherent in the amendment is an extremely good safeguard.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I would not take issue with the spirit behind the amendment. In Committee, I said that the Government were unable to accept the amendment—something that I have to repeat this evening.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, gave a good example of how failures sometime occur in the Home Office letters system. For my sins, I was once the better letters Minister. I do not know whether or not I improved them but I certainly tried hard. But one should not necessarily read across from that.

I want to give the assurance, and have it clearly on the record, that the spirit of the Home Office—for all its, errors and ills at different times—would never seek to do anything that jeopardised the safety of an asylum seeker or, perhaps more importantly in the context of some of the cases to which some noble Lords have referred, any family member in the country of origin.

We cannot accept a complete prohibition on making any inquiries of the authorities in the country concerned where that can be done in such a way that does not place the applicant or their family at risk. In Committee, I gave the example of someone who submitted a birth certificate as evidence of identity and of alleged arrest warrants or police reports submitted by applicants from the Indian sub-continent. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, suggested that it would be sufficient to check the format of the document to establish its authenticity—a very proper point. Sometimes we do exactly that but some forgeries are of a high standard. I know from the evidence of my own eyes that passports can be forged to a very high standard. The only way that one can authenticate, or otherwise, the story told to officials and whether or not a document is genuine is to make some inquiries locally.

Clearly that has to be done with great care. Experience has shown that inquiries can be made without endangering an applicant or their family because such has been the practice in the past and it has worked well. I have to concede that many documents prove not to be genuine—a police report's serial number does not exist or turns out to relate to someone other than the applicant. In circumstances where there is nothing to link the applicant to a genuine police report or warrant, our inquiries cannot pose any risk to the applicant or their family.

Even in cases where we have found a warrant to be genuine, we are not aware of instances where harm has resulted from our inquiries. If it had, it is by the nature of things inconceivable that we would not have been made aware. It is precisely because forged documents are so realistic that we need to preserve the right to check information, to preserve the integrity of the asylum system.

I know that this is a serious subject. I should like, therefore, to give noble Lords a few further examples. Let us take the case where an asylum applicant claims

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to have been detained and ill-treated, and to have received medical treatment from a particular hospital. We make inquiries of the authorities and establish that, at the time that the applicant says he was being treated, the hospital was either closed or, perhaps, had not even been built.

Alternatively, we could take the case of an asylum applicant who has deserted from the armed forces and claims that the law in his country allows deserters to be sentenced to a lengthy spell of imprisonment. Deserters are not normally entitled to the protection of the refugee convention, but they may be if any penalty is disproportionately severe. The only way to establish the truth of what has been claimed is to make inquiries of the authorities in the country in question.

As I say, we recognise the need to exercise extreme caution when making inquiries of a delicate nature like those that I have described. If we do not believe that it can be done in a way that does not put the applicant, or his family, at risk, we will not do it. But we cannot accept that we should never make inquiries of the authorities in the country concerned.

Provided that the applicant or appellant concerned is not removed, which is the effect of the clauses as presently drafted, there is no good reason why preparatory measures should not be taken; indeed, if that reduces delays at a later stage, it seems to us to be entirely reasonable to do so. The wording of the clauses is clear; namely, that removal under the immigration Acts is not permitted while an asylum application, or appeal, is pending. In our view, that is, and should be, a sufficient safeguard.

We accept that we have an absolute duty not to endanger the applicant or his relatives. I have already said that we would never knowingly do so. But the prohibition on any contact with the authorities of the country concerned is an unacceptable impediment to establishing the truth. The prohibition on asking an applicant to complete a travel document application is an unnecessary delay to removal if the application is subsequently refused. For those reasons, which I have spelt out as plainly as I can, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

9.45 p.m.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I thank the Minister. I believe that he used the same argument when he spoke on the matter in Committee. One of the difficulties that we always have in such a situation is the extent to which the Home Office requires documentation. In many cases, such documentation is not available and people will go to all sorts of lengths to try to produce something that may not necessarily be relevant to its authenticity. I do not dispute that, but it is the extent to which people are put under pressure because of these requirements.

I had expected the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, to give some assurance that people would at least be informed before inquiries are made, so that they can contest that particular decision. Alternatively, as a fall-back position, individuals should be notified that full inquiries have been made so that they are aware of the

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danger that they may face. This is not actually about authenticating documentation; it is about taking preparatory action for removal before the case has been decided.

I have a suggestion that I should like the Minister to take into account. Rather than being so negative about the whole issue, perhaps he would consider the fact that there are other agencies available in countries abroad that can be sympathetic to an individual's case. They can actually authenticate documentation, or at least assist in the identification process of the documentation about which inquiries are being made. Therefore, instead of consulting some of the governments who can be very hostile, some of these agencies could assist the Home Office while not putting the individuals concerned in any particular danger.

It does not seem to me that we shall make any further progress at this late hour. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 70 [No removal while appeal pending]:

[Amendment No. 56 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

[Amendment No. 56A not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 56B:

After Clause 70, insert the following new clause—

"DEPORTATION ORDER: APPEAL
(1) A deportation order made in respect of a person shall not have effect while an appeal under section 73(1) against the decision to make the order—
(a) could be brought (ignoring any possibility of an appeal out of time with permission), or
(b) is pending.
(2) In this section "pending" has the meaning given by section 95."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this clause follows previous legislation in providing that where an appeal may be lodged in the United Kingdom against the making of a deportation order, as set out in Clause 70(3), the appellant cannot be deported while that appeal is pending. Unlike removal directions, a deportation order specifically requires a person to leave the United Kingdom immediately.

This amendment suspends that requirement during the period of time when an appeal can be brought against it, or while an appeal is pending. An appeal remains pending from the time when it is instituted until it is finally determined, withdrawn or abandoned. That is set out in Clause 95. That clause also prevents deportation during the statutory time limit for lodging an appeal for leave to appeal against the making of the deportation order. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Clause 71 [Removal of asylum-seeker to third country]:

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