| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am in entire agreement with the point made by my noble friend Lord Goodhart, which I hope will be taken account of. Subject only to that proviso, I welcome the amendment. I have been wondering a great deal of the afternoon how people, who by definition are unable to meet essential living needs, are going to be in a position to contest refusals of support which may be extremely serious.
The amendment does not go all the way towards answering that question. But it makes a significant contribution to it, which I welcome. If that contribution could be combined with the point made
by my noble friend Lord Goodhart then we might have a good workable amendment for a later stage of the Bill.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, Clause 107 allows the Government to continue to provide discretionary grant in aid via the Home Office to voluntary organisations in the same way and for the same purposes as the existing arrangements under Section 80(1) of the 1999 Act. For example, there are three organisations currently funded to provide assistance—the Immigration Advisory Service, the Refugee Legal Centre and the Northern Ireland Law Centre.
Free legal advice and assistance is already available for applicants for support from solicitors or not-for-profit organisations funded by the Legal Services Commission. There is no reason to duplicate that.
Resources for the provision of legal representation, however, must be prioritised. It is not policy to seek to extend this to asylum support appeals. The provision of publicly funded representation for asylum support appellants would place them in a better position than welfare benefit appellants who do not qualify for such legal aid representation. We see no reason for making a distinction between the two.
Legal Services Commission funding already provides for legal advice and assistance but does not extend to representation before asylum support adjudicators. The proposed amendment would be inconsistent with this policy.
The issues involved in asylum support appeals are not sufficiently complex to justify publicly funded legal representation being provided. However, in exceptional cases where the issues are considered complex or particularly complex LSC funding representation can be made available. Clause 107 therefore is intended to maintain only the existing arrangements for the funding of appeals.
The Government sympathise with the sentiment behind Amendment No. 70. But we think it is unnecessary. Clause 107, like its predecessor Section 80(1), allows for the grants to remain subject to terms and conditions. One condition currently imposed under Section 80(1) is that money shall not be used to fund any party political activity; for example, the current conditions for granting aid to the Northern Ireland Law Centre. It states explicitly the grant in aid may not be used for any party political purposes. We think that that is right, but other conditions may be appropriate, such as the stipulation of an equal opportunities policy or a prohibition on funding a case that is already funded by grant-in-aid moneys by another organisation. We see no value in giving undue prominence to one condition by writing it into the Bill when the Bill already provides for a variety of conditions to be imposed.
Notwithstanding all that I have said, the views of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary are pretty clear on some of the more extreme forms of reported activity, but I do not think that we are discussing such activity with respect to those three responsible organisations. Of course, those organisations could be
seen to be engaging in political activity when they give advice to opposition parties on challenges to government legislation such as the Bill. Although there may be occasions when I wish that that were not the case, I should not for a second think it right to advance that as an argument against them.I shall have to write to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, on the point that he raised. I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I shall certainly do so in a few moments. I am grateful to the Minister for his response. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said about the limited application of my amendment. They made a valid point that I must consider between now and Third Reading.
I am grateful to the Minister for his clarity in explaining where the Government believe that legal assistance is properly available in various circumstances. I was a little concerned when he talked about circumstances in which the asylum seeker will be facing questioning that is insufficiently complex to warrant publicly funded legal assistance. From my experience of sitting for about 13 years on social security appeal tribunals—and child support tribunals when they were introduced later—there is always the worry that what appeared to be a simple issue for a layman such as myself who sits on such tribunals for week after week is extremely complex for someone for whom it is a once in a lifetime experience. I shall consider that carefully, but I am grateful to the Minister for providing greater clarity about the Government's expectation of the lack of grants for political activity. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Clause 112 [Special Immigration Appeals Commission: Community Legal Service]:
Lord Avebury moved Amendment No. 71:
- After Clause 112, insert the following new clause—
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in view of the Minister's last remarks, I am not optimistic in moving this amendment, but, with respect to him, I am not sure that he was right when he said that the Legal Services Commission has discretion to fund representation at asylum support adjudicator appeals. As I understand it, the Law Society, the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association and the Commission for Racial Equality have written to the LSC to ask for public funding for such representation, and have been told that that is a matter for the Government. So the discretion that the Minister claimed for the LSC to fund such appeals is not apparent to the agencies working on them.
With respect to the Minister, this is a complex area of the law, with a growing amount of case law and substantial precedents from the High Court. The issues that come before the High Court are those of destitution and starvation and breaches of the United Kingdom's obligations under the ECHR and other instruments, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I refer only to one case: that of Husain v. Asylum Support Adjudicators, in which the appellant appeared unrepresented and in handcuffs. Because his NASS accommodation had been withdrawn, he had no address for release on bail and was kept in custody. But the decision to withdraw NASS support and accommodation was later overturned by judicial review, and the High Court found that NASS was a civil right under Article 6 of the ECHR and that withdrawal of support could interfere with asylum seekers' Article 3 rights. That was noted by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and the Government acknowledged that the withdrawal of support could raise issues under Article 3 of the ECHR. People should be capable of representation. I beg to move.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, funding from the Community Legal Service—formerly legal aid—is not generally available for representation before a tribunal. However, funding has been made available for certain tribunals at which it is considered that legal representation is necessary. For example, the Bill extends public funding to representation before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission because the liberty of the appellant is at stake.
The constraints on the Community Legal Service's budget are such that we have had to order our priorities. We can extend public funding only if it is necessary to do so. Community Legal Service funding does not extend to representation before asylum support adjudicators, and it would not be appropriate to extend public funding to the provision of such representation.
The Community Legal Service provides free legal advice and assistance from solicitors or not-for- profit organisations funded by the Legal Services Commission to asylum support appellants, prior to the hearing of their case. Public funding for representation at asylum support appeals would put such appellants in a better position than those refused social security and other welfare benefits who do not qualify for free legal representation at their appeals to tribunals.
I hope that, with that explanation, the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the Minister has just made the same point as that made by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, about creating a situation for social security applicants that was different from that of asylum seekers. So far as it goes, the point has merit. However, applicants who are not from this country, are not familiar with our system and, often, do not speak our
"ASYLUM SUPPORT ADJUDICATORS
In paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 2 to the Access to Justice Act 1999 (c. 22) (Community Legal Service: courts and tribunals in which advocacy may be funded) the following shall be inserted after paragraph (ha) (and before the word "or" which appears immediately after that paragraph)—
"(hb) Asylum Support Adjudicators,"."
Midnight
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page