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Lord Avebury: What if the passenger has been smuggled on to the plane by a corrupt official? He has paid a bribe to the official who may be the commander of the airport, for example, and who has got him on to the plane with an out-of-date or invalid document. What happens when the person arrives and presents it, clearly proving his identity, and has an explanation for why he produced that document rather than something valid?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I understand what the noble Lord says. Let us look at that particular example: did the person go through the proper channels to get on to the aeroplane? Was he part of the passenger list? When did he produce that document? All those issues would have to be answered before I could give noble Lords a proper answer in relation to each and every scenario, and each and every scenario changes. One scenario may be that the person had no proper documents; he was not properly listed on the flight documentation; and he arrived at the immigration desk with no document of any nature and said, "I am an asylum seeker". The fact that he does not have a document in those circumstances may assist him and not disprove what he says. All such cases turn on the particular facts, and we could debate a series of them.
In many cases, we have to accept that documents are destroyed to hinder consideration of claims and, ultimately, thwart removal. While a document may establish identity and nationality, if it is not in force it may not be sufficient for a country to allow an individual to be repatriated, and further resources may be required to obtain a valid passport, and that could delay removal.
We recognise that there are concerns about those who inadvertently travel to the United Kingdom on a slightly out-of-date passport, which is spotted only on their arrival here. Let me assure the Committee that in cases of a genuine oversight, we will not prosecute someone under this offence. A number of us rush off to places far afield with a passport that is in date and come back a day or two later when that may not be the case. So let me assure noble Lords that if that were to happen, it would not fall foul of the provisions.
Where someone can establish a reasonable excuse for not having a valid passport, no offence has been committed. For example, the person who arrives in the United Kingdom with a recently expired passport and who was able to board the plane with it would have a reasonable excuse for not having a valid passport on arrival.
I shall begin my comments on Amendment No. 4 with two general comments about Clause 2, which are relevant to the issues raised by the amendment. First, the offence is designed to catch those who have a passport or similar document when beginning their journey to the United Kingdom but do not have it when presenting themselves to IND authorities and have no reasonable excuse for not having it.
Secondly, we expect to use the offence most commonly for port cases, simply because it is in those cases that we are more likely to have evidence to show that a passport must have been destroyed or disposed of. However, we need to have the scope to prosecute those who dispose of passports without reasonable excuse and who make in-country claims.
The amendment is concerned with adults with dependent children with whom they claim to be living—in effect, those cases where the adult is already in the United Kingdom and is seeking leave to remain here. It would provide that an offence was committed in such cases only where an adult who failed to provide a passport for the dependent child was not only living with the child but had travelled to the United Kingdom with him or her.
Again, I understand the concern that we should not be prosecuting an adult where they cannot be held responsible for being unable to produce a passport on behalf of a child for whom they are now responsible. So where a child comes to live with an adult here and does not have a passport at that stage, it is very unlikely that we would prosecute the adult for failure to produce it when they apply for leave. Clause 2 contains a reasonable excuse defence and it would normally be a reasonable excuse to say that from the time the adult had been responsible for the child, there had been no passport. I can, I hope, therefore assure
the noble Baroness that the concern which the amendment understandably addresses will not materialise. The amendment, I respectfully suggest, is therefore unnecessary.There is also a reason why we would not want to accept the amendment. There will be some cases—albeit not necessarily that many—where a child travels separately to the United Kingdom and joins an adult here, where we can be satisfied that the child must have had a passport at that stage and where the adult subsequently applies for leave and is unable to furnish a passport for that child. In such cases, it is right that the adult should be expected to produce the child's passport and, if they do not, it is right that they should be required to explain why they are unable to do so. If they have no reasonable explanation, it is, again, right that we have the possibility to prosecute them.
On the basis of what I have said, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Earl Russell: On a point of clarification—
Lord Clinton-Davis: Before my noble friend sits down, let me say that her very welcome remarks put a great burden on immigration officers. I am by no means satisfied that that burden can be assumed safely. What training is to be available to immigration officers if the huge burdens on them are to be satisfactorily dealt with?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Significant training is already available. We will look at that in part, when we turn to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on the need for the DPP to give training as well as advice. A small cadre of immigration officers has specific specialist training. Those officers will be asked to discharge the ability to arrest. They are not only specially trained but are then designated to use the arrest powers. We absolutely understand that the immigration officers who will have to discharge these new skills will have to be appropriately trained to enable them to do so.
Lord Avebury: I did not agree to the grouping of Amendment No. 4 with this group—that happened late on Friday evening. I had a list of the groupings late on Friday evening, and Amendment No. 4 was grouped separately. Anyway, I am simply giving the Committee notification now that I propose to deal with Amendment No. 4 separately.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I think it is appropriate that I intervene at this stage. I will, in my winding-up speech, address the remarks made in his opening speech by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, with regard to the groupings. Let me make it clear that my name appears first on Amendment No. 4, and it always has. I tabled it as soon as I had met the Refugee Children's Consortium, at its request. I was most delighted when the Liberal Democrats added their names to it because I know that they are always very keen to work on these
subjects with me when it is possible to do so. Therefore, it was up to me to agree the grouping as soon as it was available.In my very first e-mail, which was not late on Friday night, I made it clear that the amendment was to be grouped with Amendment No. A1. Unfortunately, due to nothing more than human error, the Public Bill Office published my Amendment No. A1 after, instead of before, Clause 2 in the first Marshalled List. It apologised for that error and put it right. Therefore, any allegation about groupings would be completely incorrect, because the grouping of amendments is a matter between all noble Lords and the Bill team. The Bill team grouped the amendments as early as it possibly could, which is why I addressed my remarks to Amendment No. 4. I will be most disappointed if the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, decides not to speak on Amendment No. 4 now, but to take it later. Of course, he has every right to do that, because all noble Lords may speak to any amendment at any stage.
4 p.m.
Lord Avebury: I certainly would not like the noble Baroness to be disappointed. Therefore, I shall speak to Amendment No. 4 now. However, I must preface my remarks by repeating that the grouping of amendments is a real dog's dinner. Initially, the grouping was perfectly normal, with our Amendments Nos. 1, 3 and 6 in the first group, but then, all of a sudden, Amendment No. 13 was placed in front of ours without having anything to do with Clause 2. It was properly to be taken in connection with Clause 11. We now find that somebody has made a change in the groupings again, so that Amendment No. 4, which deals with an entirely discrete point, has been lumped with the amendments that we are now considering. However, as I understood it, Amendment No. 4 dealt with a completely separate point; namely, where a child becomes dependent on a person after the child had arrived in the UK, such a person is at no risk of being charged with an offence under the clause. As I understand the clause as it has been drafted, a person who has been appointed by the child's parents or guardian to look after him while he is in the UK would be so liable to prosecution. Where a country of origin is in a state of incipient genocide, and a child is put by his parents on a UK-bound plane without a document, it could well be that an adult sibling or an uncle, or even a more distant relation, has been nominated to look after the child in the UK. I acknowledge that unaccompanied children can be trafficked into the UK and that the person who is supposedly appointed to look after that child may be in league with the traffickers—we have seen examples of that—but those cases would attract far more serious criminal penalties than those described by the Bill. I agree that stringent checks should be made on any adult to whose care an unaccompanied child asylum seeker is committed, but where the authorities are satisfied that the child's best interests are served by allowing him to reside with a
relative who is living in the UK, that person should not be exposed to the potential risk of being prosecuted just because the child entered without documents.
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