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The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 7 creates a new office of Deputy Regional Adjudicator. Amendment No. 8 sets out the duties and functions of a deputy regional adjudicator. It may help the House if I briefly provide some background to the amendment. The Immigration Appellate Authority (IAA) has been working steadily to expand its capacity for asylum appeals since October last year. The organisation will begin receiving 6,000 cases each month from
We are taking this measure as a result of the considerable productivity demands being placed upon adjudicators and the need for greater judicial management in the new network of hearing centres. Currently judicial management is provided through regional adjudicators, with the chief adjudicator and his deputy having an overview of the system. These offices are all provided for in statute. The judicial management requirement for a deputy regional adjudicator will be considerable, with day-to-day involvement in case management, mentoring and performance monitoring. The new arrangements would have salary implications which will be borne from funds agreed for IAA expansion. I beg to move.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: It has been explained to me by the Minister's department that the adjudicators will be appointed by the Lord Chancellor in Scotland. Will Scotland be considered a region under these amendments? I do not believe that that will go down well.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I do not have a specific answer to that. My gut reaction is that it will not. Perhaps I can write to the noble Baroness to let her know whether I am correct. I fully understand that there may be certain sensitivities if the matter is not dealt with appropriately.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 8:
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 75, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 88 [Appeal from within United Kingdom: unfounded human rights or asylum claim]:
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Falconer of Thoroton) moved Amendment No. 9:
The noble and learned Lord said: On a previous occasion we debated the arguments for introducing non-suspensive appeals where an asylum or a human
The United Kingdom has a long tradition of considering every asylum claim individually to see whether a person would face persecution in his own country. That tradition will continue: it is not affected either by the existing terms of Clause 88 or by the introduction of a list of safe countries. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that in assessing an asylum claim a crucial consideration is the conditions in the country in which a person is claiming they fear persecution. Individual factors must be considered, because there will always be some cases that depart from the norm. But clearly individuals, such as those present in this House, who are fortunate enough to live in a stable democracy, with an effective criminal justice system and a respect for human rights, will be far less likely to have a genuine fear of persecution than counterparts in a war-ravaged country run by a despot.
We do not rule out the possibility that a person from a generally safe country can be a refugee. But we do rule out the possibility that many of them will be refugees. This statement is surely true when considering the 10 countries which are first in the queue to join an enlarged European Union: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. They have all had to pass a series of rigorous tests in order to satisfy the European Union that they are ready to join. Those countries are all democracies, with functioning criminal justice systems, a respect for human rights and a commitment to deal with elements of their society who seek to pick on minority groups.
Those are the kind of countries in which a person will be very unlikely to face persecution. That expectation is borne out in a number of ways: the fact that in the first half of 2002 there were only one or two decisions to grant asylum out of over 1,000 decisions taken; the fact that of those who appealed those decisions over 90 per cent had their appeals dismissed; and the fact that the independent Immigration Appeal Tribunal has said in several judgments on those countries how unlikely it will be for a person to show a well-founded fear of persecution.
It is therefore no surprise that earlier this week at the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg a declaration was adopted to the effect that member states should start from the presumption that any asylum application from a national of one of the 10 EU accession state countries listed in the Government's amendment is manifestly unfounded.
All the indicators are that those 10 countries are safe. Yet, despite that, the United Kingdom still receives a significant number of asylum applications from nationals of those countries. There were over 1,500 applications in the first half of 2002, with the rate rising between the first and second quarters; for example, figures from the Czech Republic rose from 80 to 595 between those two quarters, and the high figures were maintained over the summer months. And these figures just cover principal applicants: the numbers are considerably higher once dependants are added.
It would be wrong just to sit back and accept this situation. Dealing with all these clearly unfounded claims is not cost neutral. Far from it: there are considerable resource implications from processing these applications, and providing support, often for months, while we await the appeal hearing. At over £200 per family per week the costs soon mount up. Furthermore, if we do not act now the problems will just get worse as our EU partners take a firm stance reflecting the Justice and Home Affairs Council, to which I referred earlier, and as a result the UK would become an even more attractive destination.
It should not be forgotten that in dealing with all these cases we are diverting resources which could more usefully be employed processing more genuine claims. So other asylum applicants also lose out if we leave matters as they are.
The Government therefore consider that something must be done to ensure that these applications are dealt with rapidly. We have concluded that the sensible way to do this is to make clear on the face of the Bill that all asylum claims or human rights claims from people entitled to reside in one of these 10 countries will be certified as being clearly unfounded unless the Secretary of State in an individual case is satisfied that the claim is not clearly unfounded.
This measure does not, as I mentioned earlier, take away the right for a person to have his case considered on its merits. He will still be given a substantive interview. He will have the safeguards enjoyed by others who have made asylum or human rights claims which might be subject to a non-suspensive appeals certificate; for example, early access to legal advice and a second pair of eyes checking the decision of the first officer. But the measure will also make clear—as I think all fair observers would agree—that few applicants from these countries will have a valid claim.
In short, this is a common-sense provision which will improve the credibility of the asylum process in a manner consistent with our international obligations.
Some Members of the Committee may feel relatively comfortable about the 10 listed countries but uneasy about the scope for extending the list. This is an important point because the merits of having a list of
First, the order-making power to add countries to the list is subject to the affirmative procedure. Whereas the safe country list measures inserted into the 1993 Act by the 1996 Act provided for the affirmative procedure only in respect of the first order, under these amendments any order which seeks to add to the list of countries will be subject to such a procedure. So no countries will be added without Parliament having debated and agreed to the inclusion of those countries.
Secondly, the Secretary of State will have to be satisfied of two things before making an order. The first is that the state, or part of a state, being added is one where there is in general no serious risk of persecution of persons entitled to reside in that country. That test mirrors the 1993 Act provision.
( ) may appoint one or more adjudicators as Deputy Regional Adjudicator."
Page 45, line 6, at end insert—
"( ) A Deputy Regional Adjudicator—
(a) may act for the Regional Adjudicator whose deputy he is if the Regional Adjudicator is unable to act or unavailable, and
(b) shall perform such other functions as may be delegated or assigned to him by the Regional Adjudicator whose deputy he is or assigned to him by the Chief Adjudicator."
Page 50, line 11, leave out from "76(1)" to end of line 13 and insert "where the appellant has made an asylum claim or a human rights claim (or both)."
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