Orders of the Day — Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill — [1st Allotted Day]

House of Commons, 11 June 2002.

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

I call on Mr. Blunkett to move new clause 1.

New Clause 1 — Accommodation centres: decisions and appeals

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

I should love to hear the arguments that the Home Secretary would make for my new clause, but I fear that he will not have that pleasure.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 164, in clause 15, page 9, line 5, after "accommodation", insert—

'for no more than six months (subject to the provisions in subsection ( ) below)'.

No. 2, in page 9, line 6, after "centre", insert—

'for a maximum period of 10 weeks'.

No. 31, in page 9, line 10, at end insert—

'( ) A person may only be accommodated in an accommodation centre for a maximum total of six months, except in exceptional circumstances when the Secretary of State may arrange for an extension of at most a further three months in total.'.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

As the Home Secretary knows, the Conservative party has welcomed the idea of accommodation centres, not least because the Conservative party originally made the suggestion. Indeed, it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) who earned such opprobrium from Labour Members for making that suggestion. She taught us the need to think hard about how the accommodation centres should be constructed.

We are thus in agreement with the Government on the fundamental principle that there should be accommodation centres as a way of beginning to bring again some order to the chaos of our asylum system. However, the world is unfortunately a more complicated place than administrators would like it to be. It is not the case that adopting the right idea in general will deliver the right results in general. If the right idea is adopted but the details are wrong, the results will be wrong. Alas, the accommodation centres as proposed by the Government—so far—are not structured in a way that leads us to believe they will achieve the admirable results that both the Home Secretary and I want to see: the rapid processing of claims by asylum seekers so that those who are refugees, who have in many cases fled from appalling persecution, quickly find a home in this country, and those who are misusing the asylum system as a way around the immigration rules are speedily dispatched from this country.

In order to achieve those admirable results, the accommodation centres need to be structured in a way that gives real hope that the processing can be quick. That is why I am moving new clause 1, tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends, and especially amendment No. 2, also tabled in our names. I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will be willing to allow us to vote separately on the new clause and amendment No. 2, as each is, in our view, of sufficient importance to deserve a separate vote.

New clause 1 has a simple purpose: to ensure that both the initial decision and the adjudication of any appeal are made in the accommodation centre itself. In a moment, the Home Secretary may—I hope that he will—explain to the House why, to date, the Home Office has resisted that suggestion. Perhaps there is some reason—some rational grounds—for that resistance, but I have to say that we have not yet heard those rational grounds.

I know that it is unfamiliar for those who are, in effect, judges to be told where to sit. I know that the Home Secretary—like previous Home Secretaries—has sometimes had some difficulty in dealing with the judiciary and with the Lord Chancellor's Department, and indeed with adjudicators, but I maintain my faith that if the Home Secretary and the Home Office work hard enough the adjudicators could be persuaded that it would be appropriate for them to sit in the accommodation centres.

Why would that be an advantage? At present we face an enormous paper chase. The Home Secretary will be much more vividly aware than I, considering the matter from a distance, can possibly be of the colossal amount of bureaucratic effort currently going into sending pieces of paper around the countryside in order that appeals can be heard at places that are often extremely distant from where the decisions were originally made and where the asylum seekers in question are resident. If the accommodation centre is to have its purpose fulfilled, it needs to be a place where that paper chase does not occur. Only if the adjudicator is on site will the paper chase be abolished.

Keith Vaz (Labour, Leicester East)

Is not the answer to the problem posed by the hon. Gentleman more efficient administration at the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department? In other words, if the paper chase that he describes is dealt with, it does not really matter where the adjudicators sit—the administrative problems would be solved.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

In principle, the hon. Gentleman is right, but the problem is that human beings are involved and they tend to behave in ways that we are all familiar with in our own case.

Let me try to illustrate for the hon. Gentleman the two pictures that I have in my mind. One—we shall come to the other as we proceed through the amendments and new clauses today—is of a smallish place in which asylum seekers largely from one location, and, I hope, in many cases, entirely from one location, are grouped. For example, let us consider a small centre, probably in a city, inhabited by asylum seekers from Somalia. It is occupied by decision makers equipped with an independent country risk assessment in which they can have real faith. They get to know about the intricacies of Somalia. No Member of the House could be expected to know much about Somalia unless they had visited it, read about it, and talked to people who really understand its current politics, tribal make-up and so forth. Similarly, decision makers cannot be expected to know those things unless they are dealing with those matters. An adjudicator on site, next door, who also understands the circumstances of that country, can make a judgment quickly about whether the applicant, given the information presented, is likely to be a refugee.

Those are genuinely difficult human decisions to make. If they are made on the basis of remote location and paper, no matter how hard the bureaucrats in the Home Office, the Lord Chancellor's Department and the court service work—I understand that they will strive hard—it is extraordinarily difficult for someone dealing with a range of different places and cases at a remote location to avoid sending back some of the papers for further verification and inquiry. Paper moves back and forth because human beings find it difficult to operate under circumstances in which they are dealing with a wide array of matters and are widely dispersed. We will not process these claims in a rational amount of time until we acknowledge that.

I do not have to speculate about whether I or the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) is in the right, as the Home Office has admitted that I am. It says that it will take about six months to process claims in the accommodation centres. That is why we wish to press amendment No. 2, which limits the processing to 10 weeks. I do not accept that 10 weeks is a proper time—it seems well beyond the proper time—but I think that it is a proper limit, because there will be exceptional cases that have to take longer than the main run. I think that I am right to say—my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald will correct me if I am wrong—that when she first put forward the idea of accommodation centres, she expressed the hope that claims might be processed in six weeks. I share that hope.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

You are living in fairyland.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

The Home Secretary—this is an interesting remark—says from a sedentary position, and I am sure that he does so sincerely, that we are living in fairyland if we hope for that. I fear, however, that that remark tells us everything we need to know about what has happened. The Home Secretary and his Ministers have been captured by a corporate culture within the bureaucracy, which has come to believe that 18 months is the norm, six months is a heroic achievement, and six weeks is fairyland. While that culture obtains, we will never have an orderly and effective asylum system in this country.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I do believe that six weeks, as the limit not the norm, is fairyland. In 1997, the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, inherited a time span of 20 months from entry into the country to final conclusion of appeal. That was under a Government in which the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) served as a Home Office Minister. With respect to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin)—with whom I have a lot of sympathy on his first proposition, to which I shall refer later—reducing the period from 20 months to six weeks is fairyland.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

I want to make three responses to the Home Secretary's remarks. First, I do not think that the proper limit can be six weeks—amendment No. 2 suggests a limit of 10 weeks, as I accept that there will be exceptional cases. Indeed, if the Home Secretary were to propose a mechanism for extreme exceptional circumstance, to be subject to a further extension, we would consider it. To establish a norm of six weeks, we need a general limit that is slightly longer. Were the Home Secretary to imagine that six weeks will be the norm in practice without setting a limit and by merely expressing a hope that everything will be achieved in six months, he will indeed be living in fairyland, because it will not happen.

Secondly, if the system is operated in its current form, three years from now I will have the great electoral advantage of being able to explain that the Home Secretary has failed to address the chaos of the system because he has not dealt with many applicants. If there are 3,000 people and a six-month processing period, it does not take more than simple arithmetic to demonstrate that the system will deal with only 6,000 applicants out of, perhaps, 100,000, including dependants. A six-month processing period will not solve the problem. The Home Secretary has as much incentive as I do—perhaps even more—to find a way to turn six weeks as a norm into something that is far from fairyland. I accept that six weeks would not be the absolute limit, but unless he turns it into a norm, we will not bring order out of chaos.

Thirdly, it is no part of my purpose to claim that previous systems or Governments were perfect. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor was not and the same is true of him so far. We all share the blame for the fact that the system is in chaos. We need to discuss how to put it right. However, if it is still in chaos in three years' time, it will not be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to claim that it is someone else's responsibility. I think he recognises that it will be his responsibility. I assure him that he will not fulfil that responsibility with a six-month processing period. I am delighted to hear that he might be sympathetic to the idea of having adjudicators on site because that is the single biggest step, although not the only one, that he could take towards achieving something like a six-week processing period. If we could reach agreement on that, it would be a major step forward.

I do not want to tarry much further because there is no point spinning out speeches once the point is made. However, one other matter is relevant. We propose that the centres are short-term items, through which people pass at great speed. They should be on a small scale and situated in the centre of cities. That model would avoid the problems created if they are structured as envisaged in the Bill. Our proposal would not require the measures that the Home Secretary is taking, which have proved so difficult for him to defend to his party. It is to the advantage of the Labour party itself that he should seek a model that conforms to our image of the centres. That is the way to avoid the problems. No one would worry about where a few children in a small centre were educated for six weeks. It is because human beings are to be in vast camps for six months that all the problems arise.

I use the term "vast camps" advisedly. It is not that I think the Home Secretary intends to create inhumane places. I am sure he will try be as nice as possible when he structures the centres, but he must think about how they will look and feel. Let him reflect on what happened at Yarl's Wood and on the security costs of vast accommodation centres when claims take months to process. Those are real and practical considerations. Let us have in our minds a different model of small, quick, specialised, one-stop shops, because on that basis we can make real progress.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

Although the debate will be relatively short, it is important because it deals with the sort of accommodation centres that we should have. There are grounds for consensus if the Government can be persuaded to move closer to the position advocated by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. It is interesting that all parties agree that it is worth trialling accommodation centres. The idea has been put forward, in different guises, by different people. Everybody agrees that we are talking only about trialling them; they are not meant suddenly to take all asylum seekers, because most of them will be dispersed through the current system.

This debate is about how big the centres will be and how long people will stay in them. It is about what will happen when people arrive at the centres and, in particular, whether adjudication should occur on-site. I take the view, and previous speeches by the Home Secretary are as good a basis for it as any, that people should spend no longer than six months in an accommodation centre. I think the Home Secretary used the phrase "God forbid" about the idea that anybody should be in a centre for more than six months. We want to tie him down to that objective, and we think that amendment No. 31 is a reasonable means of doing so. It provides that the six-month limit would apply other than in exceptional circumstances, when the Home Secretary would be able to grant a three-month extension.

We tried to respond to the debates in Committee, in which the Government understandably said they did not want legal action to be taken simply because a person's stay in a centre slipped over the limit by a day or a week. We hope that the second stage of looking after people and determining their needs could be achieved in six months in normal cases and in nine months in exceptional ones. After all, it is contemplated that there will be only a handful of places. According to the Government, if 3,000 asylum seekers are to be accommodated, there will be only three or four centres, and if the centres were of the size suggested by Opposition Members, there would be at most 12 of them. I hope, therefore, that the House will be sympathetic to the idea of a maximum stay in a centre of six months, even with a three-month extension in exceptional cases.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

There is a lot in what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Does he accept that there is an interesting parallel in criminal law with custody time limits? Those are absolutely fixed and rigidly adhered to, but they can be extended in particular cases by special permission from the judge.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

Not only that, but along with some of my Scottish colleagues behind me, I am aware also that Scotland has a much more rigorous tradition of fixed time limits, and cases must be dealt with within 110 days.

Where there is a will, there is a way. People will go into a reception centre for a week or two when they first arrive, and then there will be a second phase of assessment. Again, we must not forget that the centres are to be trialled, so this is a matter of preparing for them. If we build into the process enough staff and facilities, surely it will be possible to deal with cases within a certain time. We are starting from scratch; we do not have to plan around any historical difficulties. I hope, therefore, that amendments Nos. 164 and 31 will find favour with the House.

We dissent from the Conservatives' view that the process can be completed in 10 weeks. That is near to being impossible, and I would rather start by setting a possible target. The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), who has legal experience, and others have made perfectly practical points. We have to be realistic because we are trying to find a working model, and I do not think that 10 weeks will be long enough. Whether or not the adjudication is done on-site, it is unlikely to be possible to do paperwork and translation, to check facts and to get evidence in one place. I flag up the fact, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that when the time comes we will seek to persuade you to allow us to vote on amendment No. 164 or amendment No. 31, according to the convenience of the House.

I turn now to new clause 1. I listened to the debate in Committee, and I listened to the hon. Member for West Dorset today. I have been persuaded that it would be possible, on a trial basis, to bring the adjudicator to the asylum seekers rather than take the asylum seekers to the adjudicator. I say that because a maximum of 12 and a minimum of four places around the country would be involved, because there would be a regular flow of casework and decisions, and because there will inevitably be a regular flow of people who want to exercise their right of appeal from the initial decision, which may be no, and go to adjudication, which might result in a yes.

Although I am sure that most hon. Members remember this, I remind the House that a significant number of cases succeed on appeal. If 20 per cent. succeed in round one, the initial decision, one in five cases—a further fifth—succeed on appeal. If one is going to win in round two, it is important that round two happens soon after round one so that one does not have to endure the trauma of thinking that one's case has failed. It is also important that someone who is not a civil servant or a member of the Government or the Executive should make the decision, which will hold for a long time. An independent adjudicator, who is nothing to do with the Executive and who is seen to be independent, should come. So long as the process is clearly arranged so that the people whose cases are to be determined understand that the people who are to adjudicate are independent and not part of the decision-making process, and so long as the tribunal or court, as one might call it, comes to the place where the people whose cases are to be determined are, it is worth trying.

There are many points on which we might disagree more fundamentally, but I hope that the House agrees that the proposal is worth trying. I hope, too, that the Home Secretary will agree that a six-month maximum, with an extra three-month period if that is really needed, comprise a reasonable middle way that can be adopted for the first accommodation centres. In that way, we might get a principle on which we all agree working in practice.

I end with a warning: if we take the wrong road, if we create accommodation centres that are far too big, if we put them in the wrong place, if we do not provide facilities in them, the centres will not succeed. They will be unpopular, unsuccessful and inhumane. We have a duty to try to get the system right. Not all the wisdom is found on the Government Benches or in Government offices; it lies in the experience of those throughout the country who know what they are talking about and who want to share it so that the House can reach the right decisions.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I will attempt to be brief, but I want—and I think the House expects it of me—to use this initial debate to set out our position in the general debate on accommodation centres, so that hon. Members know where the Government stand and what we will ask them to vote on at 7 o'clock.

First, let me say in response to the opening remarks made by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) that there is not as much distance between us as might first appear. I accept that there should be a presumption that adjudicators should be on site, rather than that those on site should go to the adjudicators. I am prepared to consider how the House of Lords think such a provision might be phrased on the face of the Bill, and to talk to the Lord Chancellor and the chief adjudicator about the best way to organise it.

The arguments that the hon. Gentleman put today and that have been rehearsed previously lead us to a desire to ensure that we do not have to take asylum seekers out of a centre when it is not necessary to do so. One of the clear justifications for having accommodation centres and trialling them is the ability to create a fast-track, simple, administratively manageable process that cuts through the sheer mind-blowing bureaucracy that has bedevilled the immigration and nationality directorate since its inception. If we can do that, the morale of those working in the service at every level, including the adjudicators, will be improved. Furthermore, those who want their case to be dealt with speedily and expeditiously, and Members of Parliament who have to deal with enormous case loads because they have substantial dispersal centres in their constituency—I am one of those Members—would experience great relief. It is therefore in everyone's best interests to get the system right.

The first thing to do may well be to pick up the suggestion that one centre trials the programme, but I accept that, given scepticism about the process of dealing with nationality and asylum, Members want a provision to be included in the Bill. I hope that that helps the House and assists the main Opposition on what they feel they need to press to a vote, given the time pressures of debate for three quarters of an hour, followed by a vote.

Keith Vaz (Labour, Leicester East)

I, too, am persuaded by the comments of the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). It is not a matter of where the adjudicators sit; what matters is the quality of justice and the administrative support that is given. The Home Secretary may recall that when visitor appeals were first introduced, Labour Members suggested that adjudicators should travel to Mumbai and New Delhi to deal with those cases much more swiftly. I welcome what he has said and hope that we can pursue the matter.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I am not giving way on the amendment as tabled because there will be cases in which it is appropriate for someone to be transported to another place for adjudication if that makes the process easier.

That brings me to the substantive issue on which so much else rests. If I am right, the disquiet of people who are concerned about families in particular and the nature of services, including education, to be provided on the premises is based primarily on the length of time that people are likely to be in an accommodation centre. That has to be the case, I suggest to the House and colleagues whose views I respect and understand, because there are many disruptions to the lives of children and families as they go through the existing process, including dispersal.

It is worth rehearsing the argument that the dispersal system was put in place because enormous pressures on London and the south-east resulted in great difficulty in providing services and disruption to social cohesion and community well-being. My predecessor therefore established a dispersal system which has been gradually improved, but still leaves a great deal to be desired. There were pressures in certain parts of the country, often in areas with the highest proportion of empty accommodation and where services were more readily available—for instance, there were places in schools which had not been taken up locally—so we ended up with major clusters of dispersal.

It is worth reminding ourselves that we are talking about asylum seekers who are seeking leave to remain or refugee status, not immigration per se. The way in which articles are written, interviews undertaken and speeches made—I exonerate entirely Front Benchers from the two main parties and, indeed, my colleagues—shows that some people, either by misunderstanding or mischief, have mixed the concept of immigration and the social, economic and cultural value that immigrants bring to our community, with the issue of dealing with those who enter the country on the premise that they risk life and limb if they remain at home or, in other words, are seeking refugee status.

I make that point because we are debating how long someone should be in an accommodation centre on a trial basis before going through the whole process if they press their claim to final appeal; there is layer on layer of appeals, as we debated on Second Reading and have discussed elsewhere.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

As the Home Secretary knows, I share his view on that. I also share his view that there has been witting or unwitting confusion by commentators, which is unhelpful. May I repeat a practical suggestion that I made in Committee? When we have dealt with the Bill in the House, we should try to separate the provisions on asylum from those on immigration, as different rights and processes are involved. This major Bill would be much clearer if one part dealt with one issue and another dealt with the other.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I understand what the hon. Gentleman says. I think that it was important to include the issues in the same Bill, just as I put the proposition that it was crucial that they were dealt with in the same White Paper. That is the case for reasons that most people accepted on 7 February as being part of an attempt to achieve a coherent nationality, immigration and asylum policy, instead of merely an asylum policy, which is what people have often accused Governments of different persuasions of having.

We are all desperately trying to move towards such a policy. Those who attempt to inflame the debate outside—some of them know better and should be devoting their charitable work to children and families who are at risk in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere—do not do anyone a service when they denigrate the efforts of some of us to put on to this country's agenda a positive migration policy that welcomes people from throughout the world.

That involves welcoming people who are making a contribution to our communities, doubling the number who can receive work permits, establishing new migration routes and ensuring with the UN that we can provide gateways for refugees so that they can apply for asylum from outside the country instead of having to seek entry clandestinely in order to make an asylum claim.

If we can have a debate of the sort that we had on Second Reading and in Committee, between people with a genuine intention to see off racism and prejudice and put in place a trusted system that builds confidence in our communities and deals with those who flee from persecution, we will be doing everyone a favour.

It is in that spirit that I want to address the issue of time limits. I have already made it clear that we do not believe that a 10-week provision is feasible. I believe that a six-week provision is fairyland. The shadow Home Secretary was right to say that the history of the issue under discussion is bedevilled by good intentions that are followed by complete failure. Having praised the enormous efforts of the immigration staff and people working for the support service for having reduced from 20 months to the current average of 11 months the process of taking people from induction to final appeal, it is unusual for a Home Secretary to say that there is so much further to go that it is breathtaking that people have put up with the system for so long.

It is true that that process is better than those in other European countries. Our removal record is better, but it is still abysmal. Everyone who has ever dealt with a constituency case on asylum—for reasons that I have given, two thirds of my constituency cases relate to asylum in one form or another—knows that we have to get to grips with the matter once and for all. I have responsibility for policy and my officials have responsibility for administration and competent delivery. However, in the end, I accept that, as the shadow Home Secretary rightly said, I will carry the can if I am still in the job. Indeed, I suppose that I will also carry the can if I am put out of the job, so one way or the other, I will carry it.

Let me explain what I hope we will be able to do. If we can achieve adjudication on site after immediate induction, we will be seeking to break the current cycle in which people come into the country, make themselves available and are usually put into temporary accommodation, where, regrettably, they usually live for some time while dispersal arrangements are made. It is unusual, but not impossible, for the children of families who are seeking asylum to be found an educational place, but it is difficult to envisage that happening in the first week or two. I remember my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) saying on Second Reading that the process takes time, so the issue is about time. Other hon. Members, including the two previous speakers, have pointed out that we are talking not about the principle of trialling accommodation centres, but about how long people will stay inside them.

Under the current system, when people are dispersed, the relevant authorities find them the services that they need. They find accommodation, often by working with the voluntary sector, and a GP, and also a school if they have children. It therefore takes time to complete the second round of assessment following the dispersal, having already utilised temporary accommodation. If we could cut that out, and move people from induction straight into accommodation, we would be able to provide those services almost immediately, providing an initial assessment of people's needs, including, in the case of those with children, the needs of the child.

I guarantee that we will consider how best to ensure that children's educational needs, having been assessed when they first enter, can be renewed at a certain point in their stay in the accommodation centre, which most hon. Members believe should be as short as possible and should not be more than six months, as the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey said. There will, of course, be exceptions. People extend the appeals process in all sorts of ingenious ways, helped by ingenious lawyers. That is their right. They try to extend the process for as long as possible, having not succeeded initially.

Let me pause for a moment to give a picture of the length of time for which people will be in accommodation centres. Over the past two months, we have got the initial decision down to less than eight weeks for 70 per cent. of applicants. That is still not good enough; it is still not reaching the target for a year, but it is getting there very rapidly. Given that I have been quite robust about the nature of bureaucracy in the system, I pay tribute to those in the immigration and nationality directorate who have worked really hard to make that possible.

We know that by granting either exceptional leave or refugee status we can get a quarter of those who initially apply through the system very quickly indeed. We are therefore left with those who go into the adjudication system and beyond. I believe that within the six-month period we should be able to, and in fact must, get through the adjudication system and at least the early part of the new revised second appeal procedure, which was discussed in Committee and will undoubtedly be debated in another place at great length if we do not get to it tonight.

We are therefore talking about the small number who reach the six-month point. I am prepared to provide for that in the Bill where it occurs in relation to families. It is not a major problem for singles, who are often single young men. Occupying them, however, is a problem. Anyone who walks about the centre of Sheffield, Birmingham or townships around the country this summer will soon find that out. Young men from Kosovo, Romania or Poland—you name it—will be hanging about. I would rather that they were occupied properly. There is still much to be done on providing and facilitating volunteering. I should like them to be occupied meaningfully in accommodation centres. All those who go in will have a language facility for their own mother tongue and the ability to start learning English, which, if they do not stay, will be of help to them when they return.

Ultimately, of course, the majority do not stay, so here is the nub of the question. What favour will we have done to families and children, when we come to remove them, if we have put their integration into neighbourhood schools at the top of the agenda? It is virtually impossible to drag a family away from a neighbourhood school.

On removal policies, I inherited the most enormous target that hon. Members on both sides of the House pleaded with me not to fulfil—when it happened to affect people in their own constituencies. Local papers run local campaigns to stop people being removed. But if the Government do not have a removal policy, we have no borders and no asylum or immigration policy. We might as well just say, "Invite everyone in." That is pretty near to what one or two people have written—until, of course, those whom they represent lose their jobs or are unable to maintain the minimum wage because they are undercut by the flow of people.

On a lighter note, the blessed name of Nicholas Ridley comes to mind. When he was Secretary of State for Transport, he devised the most brilliant solution for traffic jams: he suggested doing away with traffic lights. Market forces would have come into play, and no one would have been able to get the car out of the drive, let alone down the road. People would have had to leave their cars at home, and traffic jams would have been a thing of the past. The same circumstances would apply to mass immigration to Britain if we had no border controls and no semblance of an asylum policy. The real world tells me that we must take cognisance of what happens in practice when we try to effect our end-to-end policy, including removals.

In the House of Lords, I hope that we can include the educational interests of the child in the Bill so that the children of families who have been in an accommodation centre for six months can be assessed by the education service before the time has elapsed. Unless the family wishes to stay, it will be presumed that they will move out of the centre. I pick up the Liberal Democrat suggestion that there will be a maximum of a further 12 weeks for people to remain. It is right to provide for that, not least because it puts the onus on the immigration service to get its act together and ensure that people's cases are heard.

Given that the majority do not qualify for refugee status, it would help us to be able to remove them to removal centres, which also detain. An article in a newspaper this morning wrongly used the term "detention centre" for accommodation centres. It would be helpful if those who did not qualify for refugee status could be put in a removal centre and removed.

We are establishing new economic migration gateways and offering people alternative routes into the country. I therefore hope that vast numbers of people will not claim asylum when they are not at risk of life and limb but try to come here legitimately and openly as economic migrants. Agreement across Europe, which I shall endeavour to kickstart properly on Thursday in Luxembourg, will facilitate that. We will thus lessen the pressure on the system, including dispersal, which will continue for some years if the trial centres are a success. We must get dispersal right. We must provide support for schools, housing and GP practices that have to take the challenge of large numbers. I am deeply grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills for being present.

I understand why hon. Members say that we should not put accommodation centres outside urban areas, but we cannot have an asylum and immigration policy that provides that only deprived, inner-city areas take those who are transient because they are seeking the right to remain in the country. We cannot have that; it is not right in principle or morally or for race and community relations.

Michael Spicer (Conservative, West Worcestershire)

Why does every organisation across the political spectrum, except the Government, oppose large accommodation units in rural areas?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I am not sure that that applies to everyone of every political persuasion. It does not apply to people in my constituency. They already welcome transient people and will do that for the foreseeable future, through, for example, 130 units of accommodation, usually for approximately 250 people, but without facilities such as on-site language provision in the mother tongue or adult education. The children are found places in schools that are not oversubscribed. In my city, that applies to schools that are not in the south-west of Sheffield; schools in that area are massively oversubscribed because they have the best educational outcomes.

Of course, when people find that they are under pressure in an area, as happens in many parts of London, they go private in large numbers. I am not just talking about Kensington and Chelsea, where more than 50 per cent. of residents send their children to private schools. In Hackney, one of the most deprived boroughs in the country, 16 per cent. of residents send their children to private school at secondary level. So, there are opt-out facilities for some, but not for others.

I am not advocating that all accommodation centres should be in rural areas. I am simply saying that there should not be a presumption, such as the one put forward earlier. I am not seeking to pick on the shadow Home Secretary—as hon. Members know, I like him, and we are getting on far too well for that—but he did mention that it would be a good idea if the accommodation centres were in urban areas. I am merely saying, for balance, that there is a case for having a rational distribution.

I also accept the rational approaches that have been made to us by the Refugee Council, for which I have the most enormous respect, regarding experimentation with smaller centres. I only have so many resources, I have to achieve economies of scale, and I have the ability to put the centres in place and to see whether they work, but I am not dogmatic about their size or their location. We are also about to embark on evaluating the private and voluntary sector proposals. If people can come forward with alternative sites, I ask them please to do so. I do not think that we have handled the detailed consultation and the initial proposals as well as we might have done, and I think that my hon. Friends who have also been dealing with this matter accept that as well.

So, here we are this afternoon, with all the hype outside, and with general agreement that we should have a trial, and that the people in accommodation centres should be there as briefly as possible. There is also general agreement that it is not evil or discriminatory to educate children in an accommodation centre, where they will receive mother tongue and English support as well as a broader education, inspected by Ofsted and supported by the local education authority, without placing an undue burden on local schools, and that they should be there for as short a time as possible—with a maximum of six months for families in terms of their educational interests being assessed. That seems to be a reasonable compromise, and I am prepared for us to encapsulate it in an appropriate amendment in the House of Lords.

Iain Coleman (Labour, Hammersmith and Fulham)

May I push my right hon. Friend a little on that point? I do not think that anyone on this side of the Chamber who has major concerns regarding the proposal to take children out of mainstream education is saying that that proposal is intrinsically evil. Bearing in mind the number of children involved, which would, as I understand it, be between 100 and 120 in any one accommodation centre, I think that my right hon. Friend is being slightly disingenuous—unwittingly, I am sure—when he says that those children could place a huge burden on local schools. In my local education authority area, more than 10 per cent. of primary school children and more than 8 per cent. of secondary school children are asylum seekers or refugees. The people who run the local education authority—the people at the coal face—have expressed sincerely and genuinely their belief that they are not being overburdened. So, how could such a tiny number of children—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is now growing into a speech.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I shall return to my initial distinction. The facts that are put to Members need to be investigated. I am happy to do so in terms of determining whether we are talking about those who are in transit as seekers of the right to remain as refugees, or those who are seeking asylum, plus those who have gained refugee status, plus those who have come in through other migration routes. I accept that that can often be a major plus to a locality and to a school—I have said so already.

The issue is which school or schools close to an accommodation centre could take 120 children, bearing it in mind that we have accepted that, with few exceptions, people are in principle in favour of trialling the accommodation centres.

Karen Buck (Labour, Regent's Park and Kensington North)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

Let me finish. I received some acclaim from my hon. Friends behind me for which I am eternally grateful, as the Home Secretary does not often get it, when I said that the centres should not simply be in the most deprived areas of the country. However, places available and deprivation regrettably go together, because parental preference often leads, from those who are on the edge—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. I have allowed the Home Secretary a certain discretion, but he is gently wandering over amendments that we have yet to discuss. I would be grateful, as would the House, if he confined his remarks to the amendments that we are dealing with.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I stand corrected, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think I have made the point.

Lynne Jones (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

A moment ago, my right hon. Friend said that people are in favour in principle of accommodation centres. Can he give me the name of any organisation or group of people that is in favour of centres that accommodate 750 people?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

People's contributions to the debate have varied. In fact, the organisations that made representations often made different ones. When the Immigration Advisory Service and Refugee Action responded to the White Paper, they were quite willing, so long as there was no lengthy stay in accommodation centres, for them to have different volumes. The Refugee Council did not like the idea of 750 places. I have agreed that we shall experiment with a smaller centre, and we shall work with the Refugee Council on achieving that.

There is an argument about size as well as duration of stay and what should go on in the centres, but the case that I am making is that those matters can be resolved through trialling and a bit of give and take. Broader services, including education, provided on the premises, so long as too long a stay is not involved, can be a plus, not a minus, for those who would otherwise be in transit from one place to another as they pursue their claim, as they are supported through the National Asylum Support Service system and as they eventually reach the point when integration becomes a reality for some and we need to support them better, but also when for the majority—more than 50 per cent.—removal has to be the final conclusion.

In that spirit—within the overall context of the White Paper, with a drive for new routes for immigration and with a welcome for the diversity and the culture that it brings in respect of entirely new views here and, I hope, across Europe on the value of inward migration and an understanding of the worldwide movement that is taking place—I ask the House to reject the amendments and to accept the assurances that I am giving after listening and responding to Members on both sides who have put a rational case.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I support my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, particularly on amendment No. 2. The Home Secretary must know that not a single organisation concerned with the welfare of asylum seekers supports the combination of an accommodation centre for up to 750 people and a remote rural location, and he will recall that on 3 May a number of organisations ranging from the Refugee Council to Amnesty International wrote to him to express their concern about that combination.

Michael Spicer (Conservative, West Worcestershire)

To add to that list, the Transport and General Workers Union has come out today in support of that position.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

Yes. We probably all heard Bill Morris on the "Today" programme saying that the policy—the combination of scale and location—was fundamentally flawed. The Government's White Paper, published in February, said that asylum accommodation centres would be judged on other things, including reduced decision times and tighter management of the interview and decision-making process.

The Home Secretary said this afternoon that he was content that people should stay up to six months in accommodation centres. We know from answers given in Committee that up to 80 per cent. of asylum seekers are single young men. We are told that accommodation centres will contain up to 750 people. If the accommodation centres reflect the asylum-seeking population as a whole, at any one time up to 600 single young men will be in such centres; the impression is given that they will be there for six months.

I would like to invite every hon. Member of this House to come and visit the site chosen for the accommodation centre in my constituency. The Home Secretary was candid enough to say that he thought that the consultation up to now had not been as good as it might have been. I say to him that there has not been any consultation up to now. There has been minimal consultation between the Government office for the south-east and the local planning authority on simple planning grounds, but there has not been any consultation with local people.

It is a pity that no Minister has come to visit the proposed site. I wish I could say that the most exciting thing that can happen in the neighbourhood is seeing the traffic lights change. The only problem is that there are no traffic lights. The proposed site is between two villages. There is a pub in one of them, and a village shop in one of them. The nearest town is five miles away. There is no cinema in the town, and no college of further education. Facilities are fairly limited. What will these young men do for up to six months in that centre? They are going to get bored out of their minds. The Home Secretary made some comments earlier about people getting bored in the summer; six months is a very long time.

We were told in Committee that only 8 per cent. of applications actually succeed. That means that a large majority of applications to remain as refugees under the UN convention fail. If people are to remain in remote rural accommodation for up to six months, I predict that a number will just drift away to where communities of their own nationalities live. That will not be to the benefit of the Home Secretary, who wishes to see these accommodation centres succeed.

If we are to have accommodation centres, we require a much greater sense of applications being dealt with as expeditiously as possible. If the impression is simply given that large numbers of people are to be housed in remote locations for up to six months, asylum seekers will find that incredibly frustrating. There is a likelihood that we will start to see a significant number of those asylum seekers, particularly those who predict that their claims may fail, simply fading away because they know that their chances of being deported, even if they are discovered, are fairly remote.

The Home Secretary is determined to have these large accommodation centres in remote rural locations, and no hon. Member need doubt the remoteness of the locations selected. We all know why that is; as he acknowledged this afternoon, the Home Secretary was tight for funds and had to make a deal with the Treasury. The only way in which he could do that was by using existing MOD or other Government land, some way away from London and the south-east. If he wants this to succeed, there needs to be a much greater sense that applications will be dealt with expeditiously, as opposed to the impression of drift that he gave this afternoon.

The idea of 750 people, 600 of whom are single young men, being bored and frustrated in remote rural locations for up to six months suggests that this is a trial destined for failure.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

This has been an extremely constructive and conciliatory debate on a controversial subject, and I am grateful to the Home Secretary for that, as he calls the shots by virtue of his office. Let me say to him mischievously that he may have led us into trespassing on the next group of amendments, and indeed the two groups following that, but I understand the reasons: clearly, what he said on the issue of size will determine the views that we take on other matters. I hope that he will offer a similar response when we discuss location, for example.

If I interpret the Home Secretary correctly, he has accepted the Conservative proposal on the siting of the adjudication process, which is welcome, as well as accepting in principle, if not in the absolute detail of the wording, the Liberal Democrat proposal for a six-month provision with a three-month extra opportunity in suitable cases. I understand that that is in relation to families only. I appreciate that that is a priority, and it deals with the issue of children. The Home Secretary and I are more closely associated with each other in our ideas on that than we are with some others of our colleagues in our respective parties.

There remains a big issue in relation to single male asylum seekers. I have experience in my constituency of a centre in which 750 of them were housed for a long time, and I do not think that an indefinite period is an adequate outcome for any centre. I hope that we will discuss that constructively again, and I will be happy to take part in any such discussions. We welcome the Home Secretary's openness to consultation, and we will not press amendments Nos. 164 or 31 to a vote.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking the Home Secretary for making significant constructive moves towards achieving consensus. I accept entirely that it will be better to see what the Government can come up with in the House of Lords on the question of adjudicators than to press the motion to a vote. I hope, however, that we will have an opportunity—at 7 o'clock, I think—to vote on amendment No. 2, because I persist in believing that the six-month period, although it might seem rational to those immured in the current culture, is likely to generate all sorts of problems. I want to insist on the 10-week limit.

It is no part of my intention to suggest that the centres should all be located in areas of deprivation. In fact, there is a strong case for their not being located there, for just the same reason as there is a strong case for their not being located in remote rural areas. In each case there are particular difficulties, for both the inhabitants and the local populace. That is why we should try to use the 80 per cent. or so of the country, by habitation, that is neither very deprived nor very remote and rural.

I persist in believing, with the Refugee Council, Amnesty International and others, that city and suburban sites would be better. What really distresses me is that the Home Secretary is not even talking about trialling that proposition. A small number of trials in this domain will not satisfy the urgent requirement for order in a chaotic system, but if we are to have trials—as opposed to a fully fledged, fully working system—they should at least encompass all possibilities, so that we can revisit the argument two or three years from now on the basis of full information. I hope that the Home Secretary will make a concession on that point in due course, but in the meantime I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 3 — Visiting committee

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 30, in clause 14, page 9, line 2, at end insert—

'( ) For a period of no less than ten years from the commencement of this Act all such accommodation centres shall be publicly owned and their management and employees directly employed by the Home Office or relevant local authority.'.

No. 3, in clause 26, page 12, line 36, leave out—

'The Secretary of State may'

and insert—

'It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to'.

No. 40, in page 12, line 36, leave out "may" and insert "shall".

No. 166, in page 13, line 6, at end insert—

'( ) independent legal advice and representation'.

No. 167, in page 13, line 7, leave out paragraphs (i) and (j).

No. 4, in page 13, line 11, at end insert—

'(k) such legal representation and advice as is reasonably required by an asylum applicant in connection with an application for asylum or any appeal resulting therefrom'.

No. 168, in page 13, line 11, at end insert—

'(1A) The Secretary of State may arrange for the following to be provided to a resident of an accommodation centre—

(a) anything which the Secretary of State thinks ought to be provided for the purpose of providing a resident with proper occupation and for the purpose of maintaining good order,

(b) anything which the Secretary of State thinks ought to be provided for a person because of his exceptional circumstances.'.

No. 42, in page 13, line 15, leave out paragraph (b).

No. 43, in clause 27, page 13, line 28, at end insert—

'which shall not be more than 15 hours per day'.

No. 133, in page 13, line 34, leave out "any dependant" and insert "a spouse".

No. 136, in page 13, line 35, leave out—

'and any dependant of his'.

No. 137, in page 13, line 39, leave out—

'resident and any dependant of his'

and insert "dependant".

No. 138, in page 13, line 40, leave out—

'resident and any dependant of his'

and insert "dependant".

No. 44, in page 14, line 1, leave out subsection (7).

No. 131, in page 14, line 10, at end insert—

'(10) a resident who is required to leave the centre under subsections (4) or (5) may appeal to an adjudicator under Part 5 of this Act.'.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

We move on to a group of amendments relating to the operation of, and conditions and facilities—other than education—at, accommodation centres. I feel sure that new clause 3 will find favour on both sides of the House, for two reasons. First, it would not cost the Government any money; and, secondly, although I cannot be sure, I think that it was my idea.

The House will be interested to know that not one of the amendments that we tabled in Committee was accepted by the Government, save for the triumph achieved by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson)—she is in her place—who discovered that a particular clause referred to a seventh subsection of the previous clause, even though it had only six subsections. In that regard, she achieved a notable scalp.

Amendment No. 3 would impose a duty on the Government to provide services at accommodation centres, amendment No. 4 would impose a duty on them to provide legal advice, and amendment No. 133 and subsequent amendments deal with dependants. I hope that they and new clause 3 will find favour with the Government.

The establishment of visiting committees is surely a non-controversial issue. Over the years, many of us have been struck by the high quality of the various visiting bodies and committees involved with prisons. I discovered as much in my career as a lawyer, and on my more recent travels as a member of the Home Affairs Committee I have seen the excellent work that visiting committees undertake at prisons. They talk to inmates, hear grievances and make positive suggestions; they are an important safety valve.

Of course, such committees operate in the asylum world to equally good effect. Two months ago, I visited Oakington, as several hon. Members have doubtless done. It is a very well run and orderly establishment; indeed, it struck me in many ways as a contented establishment, in terms both of its staff and of those who stay there. One reason for that is the presence of an active visiting committee. I met Penny Lambert, the chairman of the visiting committee, and several of her colleagues. They are very involved with Oakington. They have made several helpful suggestions to the staff about how life there could be improved, and they have heard from residents at Oakington. They have contributed a great deal to making it a better place, simply through their presence and sympathy, and the safety valve that they offer. I know that there is a difference between a detention centre such as Oakington and an accommodation centre, but I see no reason why something that works well for Oakington could not be set up for the accommodation centres.

We are broadly supportive of the accommodation centre concept. We understand from the Bill that the Government propose to put several important facilities and services in the centres, and we think that that is right. In one or two respects, the Government perhaps do not go far enough. In our opinion, the Government should be delighted to accept new clause 3, which sets up a visiting committee for each accommodation centre, because it has no implications for the Treasury. Nobody has to ask the Treasury for money, because our communities contain well motivated, good people with an interest in various institutions—asylum institutions, prisons and the like—who would be only too keen to start up visiting committees. The longer people will stay at the accommodation centres, the more compelling becomes the argument for the visiting committees, although people stay only briefly at Oakington and the visiting committee works well there. I am sure that the Government will not oppose new clause 3.

The hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle) was the Minister in Committee, and I pay personal tribute to her for her kindness throughout our debates and for her dedication and commitment. She is a loss to the Government, although we welcome her replacement, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Beverley Hughes), to the high post that she has achieved. The hon. Lady and I have had happy dealings before on the Home Affairs Committee. I hope that the atmosphere prevalent in Committee will be replicated today, and it is on that basis that I invite the House to support new clause 3.

Amendment No. 3 was discussed in Committee. It relates to the services that the Home Secretary is to provide at accommodation centres. In Committee, many of us were slightly alarmed that the first line of clause 26, as it is now, provides that the Secretary of State

"may arrange for the following to be provided to a resident of an accommodation centre".

The amendment would change those words to read:

"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to arrange".

We had a long debate on the issue in Committee. However well intentioned this Home Secretary and Government are, the fact is that the Bill would allow them to choose not to provide the services in question. If the Home Secretary is determined to provide various services, we see no reason why he should not have the duty to do so imposed on him. After all, the facilities, assistance and services provided for in clause 26 will be vital to the well-being of the asylum seekers during their stay. The people who will stay at the accommodation centres may have had terrible journeys and a grim time. They are vulnerable people, and some of them are shattered. Often they need a lot of care and attention when they go to the centres, and many are very young.

I see no reason why the Government should not accept that they have a duty to provide the various services needed at accommodation centres. If the Government insist that the clause should use only the word "may", I believe that that will be because they want to reserve the right not to provide the services if they do not want to. I therefore hope that the amendment will be accepted.

Amendment No. 4 deals with legal advice, another matter debated in Standing Committee. Many of us believe, along with respected non-governmental organisations in the field, that it is essential that top-class legal advice be provided, on the spot and from the very beginning. One reason why Oakington works well is that great numbers of lawyers from various bodies are available there. For example, the Immigration Advisory Service alone has 54 caseworkers on site. When asylum seekers arrive at Oakington, they are provided, within minutes, with the best skilled legal advice possible. They do not have to travel 20 or 30 miles to a nearby town to find a solicitor, because the legal advice that they need is on hand.

So far, the Government have stubbornly refused to include legal services among the facilities that they must provide at accommodation centres. They say, "Of course we will provide legal services there", but why does that requirement not appear in the Bill? Early legal advice is vital, and makes for efficiency.

The Standing Committee was told by the former Minister, the hon. Member for Wallasey, that there was

"no doubt whatever that legal services will be freely available in accommodation centres as required."

If so, why does the Bill not make that a requirement? The hon. Lady also said:

"In the trials, we would certainly want to develop co-located services or access to services".—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 9 May 2002; c. 171.]

Those phrases bear consideration. I assume that the rather weak phrase

"we would certainly want to develop"

is another way of saying, "We are going to do it." In addition, I have always been confused by the word "co-located". Does it mean "on the site"? I hope so, but if it means "next door", or "down the road", the Government should say so. However, I do not know what the development of co-located services or of access to services will mean in practice.

Moreover, the phrase "access to services" is meaningless if people at accommodation centres are told that the nearest legal services to which they have access are a number of miles away, and that they can make their own way there if they want to. The Government's response on the issue was not very satisfactory.

The Minister who dealt with this matter in Standing Committee did not want the requirement to provide access to legal services to be included in the Bill because, as she told the Committee, the vast majority of legal services are funded not by the Home Office but by the Legal Services Commission, which already has adequate powers. That makes me scratch my head, as I am not sure what it means in practice. I think that she meant that the Legal Services Commission has some money and some powers, and that it is for the commission to decide whether to make legal advice available in the centres. That is not at all satisfactory.

The Minister also referred to another aspect that is very troubling. I only spotted these words again this morning, at an appallingly early hour, when I was looking at today's amendments. The hon. Lady referred to moves to shift funding of NGOs from the Home Office to the Lord Chancellor's Department to ensure that there was no perceived conflict of interest about the Home Office running a system and funding advice to people in it. However, there has been no perceived conflict of interest for many years with the principal organisation providing legal advice and assistance—the Immigration Advisory Service—which has been funded by the Home Office since its inception. I pay tribute to the previous Conservative Government for the level of funding that they provided to the IAS. I also pay sincere tribute to this Government for the level of funding that they have provided to the Immigration Advisory Service. How else could the IAS have its lawyers all around the country in different bases and at Oakington, were it not for Government funding?

During the time that I spent as chairman of the trustees of the Immigration Advisory Service, not once did the then Government ever seek to influence the service in one way or another. Conservative and Labour Governments have always given the IAS the grant and said, "Get on with the job." We have the best system in Europe when it comes to Governments who make immigration and asylum laws and also fund organisations to act against them, without interference. I pay tribute to them for that.

The Government need not trouble themselves about a perceived conflict of interest, but they should trouble themselves about there being a duty on them to provide legal advice on site. I am aided in my argument by all the respective NGOs. The Law Society also believes that asylum seekers should have access to good quality legal advice and representation at all stages of the system. Good quality independent legal advice at the earliest stage saves time and expense. Frontloading the services results in minimising delay and costs.

The Law Society has carefully considered the Government's comment that access to legal advice and representation is not included in the list of facilities to be provided at accommodation centres, as such services are largely funded by the Legal Services Commission. However, the Law Society says that access to legal advice and representation is of such fundamental importance to the applicant and for the proper and efficient running of the asylum system that it should be included in the Bill.

If the Government remain concerned about funding issues, legal services could be included in the Bill, in the same way as facilities for health and religious observance are provided for in clause 26(1)(g) and (h)—that is, by referring to facilities relating to or facilities for legal services. That would ensure that the Bill provides for access to legal services while still dealing with the Government's concerns about funding, whether those concerns are real or not. I hope that the Government will think again about this important issue.

This part of the Bill relates to the conditions of residents at accommodation centres. A glance at clause 27 reveals that it remains similar, if not identical, to the one that caused all Opposition Members some concern in Committee. Amendments Nos. 133, 136, 137 and 138 would remove, from time to time, the word "dependant" from clause 27. This is the mischief about which I am complaining. Clause 27(4) states:

"If a resident of an accommodation centre breaches a condition imposed under this section, the Secretary of State may—

(a) require the resident and any dependant of his to leave the centre".

It was hard in Committee to make the Government clarify exactly what conditions could be broken that would give rise to the draconian step of requiring a resident to leave the centre, but many of us felt distinctly uneasy at the prospect of not only the offender but everybody linked to that person, such as a spouse or dependant—who may not have behaved remotely badly—being required to leave the centre.

Subsection (5) states that if a dependant of a resident breaches a condition, the Secretary of State may require the resident and any dependant to leave the centre or authorise the manager of the centre to require the resident and any dependant to leave the centre. Therefore, if someone who is dependent on someone else breaks a condition of residence, not only is the dependant chucked out but so is the resident because of the sins or faults of another.

We need reassurance that someone will not be thrown out of an accommodation centre for breaking a minor condition. The only parallel that I can think of is in bail hostels, where minor infringements are often overlooked. I hope that the Minister can reassure us on that point. I should also like some understanding from the Government about our unease at the prospect that people will, in effect, be treated harshly because of the sins of others. This issue needs a sensitive touch—a light touch—and a realistic approach.

I have outlined my amendments in this group. I commend them strongly, with some hope that the Government will accept them. There cannot be a reason for not accepting the appointment of a visiting committee. There are awfully good reasons, at this stage of the Bill's progress, for the Government to accept this proposal and agree that it is their duty to provide various services and to have the provision of legal advice inserted in the Bill.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I shall speak briefly to the amendments in this group that outline some of the Liberal Democrats' remaining concerns about accommodation centres. I am conscious that important groups of amendments remain to be debated, so I will not detain the House for long.

Liberal Democrat Members support new clause 3. We believe that a visiting committee would be a helpful addition for the accountability of the new accommodation centres. In amendment No. 30 we express our view that, for the first 10 years at least, there should be a commitment on the part of the Government that the accommodation centres remain in public ownership. We went through this in Committee, where the then Minister, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle) was open about the fact that the Government were considering a number of options.

In principle, we have general concerns about the use of the private sector for prisons and facilities that deprive an individual of liberty. As the new accommodation centres will receive a great deal of public scrutiny, it is important that there are clear lines of accountability from the centre to Ministers. Obviously, one hopes that nothing will go wrong in any of the centres, but if it does, people will not be satisfied if it is suggested that the fault lay with a particular contracting company. The amendment relates to the establishment of clear lines of accountability and in our view that means retaining the centres in public ownership—at least initially.

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Perth)

The hon. Gentleman mentioned, as an aside, that he had concerns about the use of the private sector for prisons and the like. Perhaps he is not aware that his colleagues in the Scots Parliament who sit in coalition with Labour are pursuing a private prison route.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I certainly am aware of that. In the wonderful federation that is my party, the Scottish party makes its own decisions which reflect its political circumstances. I know that the Minister for Justice has been faced with some difficult decisions as regards prison accommodation in Scotland.

Amendments Nos. 40, 166, 167 and 168 attempt to tease out how the facilities will be provided. We want to consider two forms specifically. The first is what must be provided—like the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) we have included legal advice. We, too, feel strongly that access to good legal advice speeds up the asylum determination process and is not something that the Government, or anyone, should fear—it can facilitate the process and ensure that there are fewer legal errors that could lead to an appeal. The amendment would distinguish between facilities that "shall" or "may" be provided.

Amendment No. 42 relates to our concern about how cash is given to asylum seekers. We understand that the Secretary of State will make regulations governing the handling of cash. It is important for an individual's dignity that they have some cash and some purchasing power—whether the amount is large or small. That is significant even when the basics of life are provided.

We are concerned that currently there is dual provision. The Secretary of State may by regulation determine the amount of cash given to an individual, but the accommodation centre manager may also have that power. The amendment would limit that power to the Secretary of State alone.

Amendment No. 43 would establish the extent to which the powers to require an individual physically to be present at the accommodation centre might be widened to create, in effect, a form of detention. The amendment would limit to 15 the number of hours that an individual was required to be present. We seek an assurance from the Minister that there is no intention that people should remain in the centre for 24 hours, for example—that would clearly move us into the realm of detention.

Amendment No. 44 revisits a subject that we considered in Committee, but about which we are still uncomfortable—the relationship between behaviour in an accommodation centre and the actual asylum claim, which can be a matter of life or death for an individual. We understand that the Government may require an individual to be present in an accommodation centre as part of the terms of their immigration status—they would be allowed into the country on condition that they resided at the centre.

Under clause 27, the Government would take powers, in effect, to evict an individual from an accommodation centre because of their behaviour, and such eviction—as we heard from the hon. Member for Woking—would also apply to their dependants. There is a lack of clarity in the provision, in that a condition of immigration law may require a person to remain at the centre, yet their behaviour might lead to their removal. That could give rise to conflict, especially if the individual was pursuing an asylum claim, as they might find that they were in breach of their immigration conditions, thus prejudicing their claim. If an individual has done something wrong, sanctions need to be taken, but if those sanctions force an individual to breach their immigration conditions because they are required to leave the accommodation specified under those conditions, that is a matter for concern.

I shall not speak further at this stage, save to point out that there are some important amendments in a later group.

Michael Spicer (Conservative, West Worcestershire)

As we have already heard, no one likes the Bill's provisions for accommodation centres—neither the Refugee Council, nor the Transport and General Workers Union. The Government seem to be the only people who are pressing them.

One of the reasons for that dislike is the cavalier way in which the Government are discussing the resources required and the provision of facilities. Amendment No. 3 is much more important than meets the eye because it would put a duty on the Government to be much more specific.

There have been several examples of the Government's cavalier approach to the assessment of facilities at a proposed accommodation unit adjoining my constituency. I recently asked the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he had made of the additional funding required for health services if a centre was built in that part of south Worcestershire. The answer was:

"As yet, no assessment has been made in respect of any additional health or social care needs."—[Official Report, 24 April 2002; Vol. 384, c. 356W.]

Such vagueness about the provision of facilities is serious and it goes right across the board—deep into the Home Office.

Earlier today, the former Under-Secretary at the Home Office, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), made a dignified apology about misinformation on figures that she had given the House. We are not dealing with size at present but it is obviously relevant to the provision of facilities; it is certainly relevant to information.

On this occasion, I do not blame the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, who was incompletely briefed on the matter. However, I am seriously worried about the poor information from the Home Office on the provision of facilities. That is why it is so important that the Government accept amendment No. 3.

The planning inquiry constitutes a specific reason for the Government to be less muddled about the facts and information they give about the provision of facilities and services in respect of their proposals. I understand that there will be a proper planning system, so if the Government continue to be muddled and misinformed when they provide information to the planning inspectors, it will be serious for two reasons. First, the result could be a judicial review—but that is for the Government to worry about. Secondly, however, the acceptability of the planning system could be undermined.

If people think that the planning arrangements are a fix, with the Government providing false information about the facilities and the local requirements for the fulfilment of the policy, that could have a serious effect on the credibility of the planning procedure. Above all, the process must be fair. I tell my constituents not only that the planning procedure is a good thing but that it will make a fair judgment as to whether the proposals are right.

If the Government continue to give false, bad or muddled information about facilities, the results for the planning procedure could be serious, so I hope that they will consider amendment No. 3 carefully. It imposes a duty on them to provide proper, clear information about facilities.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I shall be brief. No one could argue with the proposals for visiting committees, but such committees would, in essence, be concerned with the welfare of asylum seekers. As the accommodation centres will be sited in remote, rural areas, will the Government consider setting up liaison committees?

When I was first elected, there was a big United States Air Force base in my constituency where about 750 young men were stationed. Even with 750 disciplined service men, it was necessary to set up an ad hoc liaison committee, organised and operated by the district council, which provided the secretariat. Representatives of the parish council could hold regular meetings with the personnel who ran the base.

It would be extremely helpful if Ministers suggested to local communities that they were prepared to establish similar committees, where representatives of the parishes surrounding the accommodation centres could hold regular meetings with the management of the centres to raise matters of concern to the local community. Local people could then have confidence that their concerns would be addressed in a timely, proper and systematic way. That would ensure that they were not frustrated and that they could express concerns and grievances. [Interruption.] I hope that Ministers will be kind enough to give the House their attention because if they want these experiments to work, they must be aware of the concerns of communities about the siting of accommodation centres.

Such concerns must be addressed, but given that none of the centres will be sited in the constituencies of Labour Members, no Labour Member will be able to express those concerns in the Division Lobby. As no Minister has taken the trouble to visit one of the sites or visit or talk to representatives of local communities, the least that they could do is give the House their attention for the very short period that the Government have deigned to give Members to discuss their concerns this evening.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I will in a moment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) raised the issue of resources, and was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer). I reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire said, and I want to ask a further question. The Bill makes it clear, in many instances, that if people misbehave in accommodation centres they will be expelled. What will happen to them? Where will they go? Moreover, what local police resources will be used in relation to such people? If someone decides not to return to the Bicester accommodation centre, will Thames Valley police be notified? If they are notified, will they be expected to find and apprehend those individuals? If so, what assessment, if any, has the Home Office made—after all, the matter is one for that Department—of the effect on the resources of Thames Valley police?

My information is that, as yet, not only has the Home Office not consulted other Departments or organisations such as the health service or education or social services in Oxfordshire, but there has been little if any consultation with Thames Valley police on the likely impact that the accommodation centre will have on their resources.

Hilton Dawson (Labour, Lancaster and Wyre)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I will in a moment. If Ministers cannot even liaise with and consult organisations within their own Department, what hope is there for a sensible assessment of the demands on other areas of Government activity?

David Cameron (Conservative, Witney)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I should give way to the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) first.

Hilton Dawson (Labour, Lancaster and Wyre)

I am most grateful. Does the hon. Gentleman realise how tedious it is to hear the nimby argument paraded over and over again? His party is supposed to support accommodation centres. I, with great qualms, support them. I would support the principle of accommodation centres coming to my constituency, and he should do so in relation to his.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

My constituents—and other constituents—find it deeply patronising that their concerns are described as nimbyist or, as some have described them, racist. They find that deeply offensive, as they are raising serious concerns. More than 10,000 of my constituents have petitioned the House sensibly and rationally to ask for a public inquiry into this matter. Why do they want that at the end of the planning process? They want it so that their concerns can be rationally and sensibly examined by an independent inspector. That is all that they ask for, sensibly and reasonably.

The argument made by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre would be much stronger if he could find a single organisation concerned with refugees and asylum seekers that supports his argument. But every organisation from Amnesty International to the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux to the British Medical Association to the British Red Cross to the Refugee Council opposes the combination of size and location.

Hilton Dawson (Labour, Lancaster and Wyre)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

Not again. If the hon. Gentleman cannot get his mind around the policy concerns of such organisations, he is clearly not bothering to read the post that he receives each morning.

The House needs to discuss other important groups of amendments. Ministers need to pay attention to how to meet the concerns of local residents. In addition to visiting committees, therefore, I hope that they will also consider the establishment of liaison committees and listen carefully to what has been said about the provision of services. When consultation takes place with local authorities, and if there is a public inquiry, can we have full, coherent and candid answers about what demands accommodation centres will place on local providers of local services?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for trying to be as brief as possible, as I know that there is a desire to move on to other groups of amendments.

With regard to new clause 3, I hope that it will provide reassurance if I say that we have already been thinking about the type of committee envisaged. With regard to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) about a possible liaison committee, we can take into account all sorts of models, and that type of committee is not necessarily ruled out. Clearly, it is important for the public and asylum seekers to have confidence in the policies and the way in which we carry them out. An independent body of the type envisaged by the new clause is one approach. I hope that that will provide reassurance, and that new clause 3 will not be pressed to a vote.

With regard to amendment No. 30, we do not believe that it is sensible to rule out the option of contracting out the running of accommodation centres. Successful examples of such contracts exist, and contracting out is a familiar method of running some National Asylum Support Service accommodation and removal centres.

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Perth)

The Minister mentioned that there were examples of successful contracting out. Can she list them?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

I am prepared to write to the hon. Lady with other examples.

The important thing is public accountability, on which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) is right to focus. We want to ensure that the public and asylum seekers have confidence in the system. We also believe that the private running of an accommodation centre—to standards set by the Home Office—can deliver what we want; it can deliver public accountability. Whichever method is adopted, we want appropriate partnerships and liaison to be established with a range of bodies such as local, health and education authorities, charities and non-governmental organisations. They all have a role to play in that ongoing process. The whole point of a trial is to identify what works best. We therefore want the flexibility to do that within the trial period.

We cannot accept the Conservative amendment No. 3, which would place a duty on us to provide all the facilities listed in clause 26 to residents of accommodation centres. That also applies to the similar Liberal Democrat amendments Nos. 40, 167 and 168. If we are to have a genuine trial, we should not have a fixed concept about what might work. We have already said that we are prepared to consider a different configuration of accommodation centres in response to concerns about 750 beds. A smaller centre may affect the types of services that it is practical or necessary for the Home Office to provide. We believe that it is prudent to be prepared for all eventualities. We would not want the Bill to place an obligation on the Home Office to arrange to provide something that it would not always necessarily be sensible for us to provide. I hope that hon. Members accept that that is why we do not want to be constrained by the amendments.

Amendments Nos. 4 and 166, taken with amendments Nos. 3 and 40, would place a duty on us to provide legal advice and representation to accommodation centre residents. As hon. Members said, we had a substantial debate on that in Committee and explained why it is unnecessary to take the power to provide legal advice to accommodation centre residents. Powers already exist in the Access to Justice Act 1999 to provide legal help via the Community Legal Service. They place a requirement on the Legal Services Commission to meet local needs. Powers in clause 93 enable the Home Office to fund organisations that provide advice to asylum appellants.

A duty to provide legal advice and representation to accommodation centre residents is a different matter. Let me re-emphasise that we are committed to providing access to free, independent, quality legal advice to residents of accommodation centres. That advice will be provided and funded by the Legal Services Commission through on-site provision, local supply or a combination of the two. The precise arrangements, however, will depend on the location of each accommodation centre, but all centres will provide facilities for use by solicitors and advice agencies. It would be distinctly odd to place a duty on the Secretary of State to provide legal advice to those in accommodation centres when other immigration legislation contains no equivalent duty for the generality of asylum seekers, even those who are detained at Oakington, for example.

Keith Vaz (Labour, Leicester East)

There is obviously a difference between a power and a duty. Is my hon. Friend saying that she is satisfied that current legislation means that appropriate legal advice will be provided at each centre?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Yes, I am, and I hope that my comments have reassured hon. Members.

Amendment No. 42 would delete subsection (2)(b) of clause 26, which enables us to make regulations requiring the manager of an accommodation centre to determine the amount of money to be provided to an accommodation centre resident. Hon. Members expressed their fears about that in Committee. I hope that I reassure them when I say that their fears are unfounded. If we contract out the operation of accommodation centres, there will be no question of a private sector manager making arbitrary decisions on the amount of cash paid to asylum seekers. Equally, there will be no question of a civil servant manager or a manager from the not-for-profit sector making arbitrary decisions. Clause 26(2)(b) enables a centre manager only to determine the amount of money in accordance with the regulations. The regulations will provide the safeguard because we will ensure that they do not give the centre manager the discretion to make arbitrary decisions.

We also believe that amendment No. 43 is unnecessary. As we explained in Committee, administrative law requires the Secretary of State and the centre manager to act reasonably. That is implicit and enforceable. They will be able to impose residence conditions only in accordance with regulations subject to the draft affirmative procedure. On the length of time that people are required to be present in the accommodation centre in any 24-hour period, we said in Committee that we envisaged the 12 hours specified in the Opposition amendment tabled then to be at the upper end of the scale.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, the atmosphere in the centres is the key. We will provide a range of activities to enable asylum seekers to spend their time in the centres productively. There will be incentives to remain on site as well as requirements to be there. If we get it right, we hope that asylum seekers will recognise that what we are asking of them and what we are offering them is in their best interests.

We also cannot accept amendments Nos. 133, 136 and 137. The whole asylum support regime is structured to enable us to treat asylum seekers and their dependants as a group. That is what the National Asylum Support Service currently does. Again, it would be distinctly odd for us to take a different approach in accommodation centres. I understand that hon. Members might think it unfair to evict the dependants of an asylum seeker from an accommodation centre because of a breach of conditions committed by the principal applicant, or vice versa. However, that is what happens under the Asylum Support Regulations 2000.

The consequences of a breach of conditions for the family as a whole will be made clear to asylum seekers at the outset and they will be briefed about their obligations. We do not think it unreasonable that the actions of one member of a family should have consequences for the rest of the group. That is what happens already and it would be odd if the regulations on accommodation centres were different.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

On that point, will the hon. Lady give an assurance that a light touch will be used? It is possible that an asylum seeker will be in a remote rural location far from the accommodation centre and physically unable to return to it because of a lack of public transport, which would be no fault of theirs. Will sympathetic discretion be used such circumstances?

Rosie Winterton (Labour, Doncaster Central)

Of course discretion will be used in all such circumstances. Such decisions would not be taken lightly.

I hope that hon. Members agree that amendment No. 131 is unnecessary. I understand entirely the concern to ensure that asylum seekers have a right of appeal against any decision to withdraw support by requiring someone to leave a centre. We agree with that. As we explained in Committee, a right of appeal already exists by virtue of clause 45, which inserts new section 103 into the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. It gives a right of appeal to the asylum support adjudicator against any decision to stop providing support under clause 15 or section 95 of the 1999 Act, or both.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

I am grateful to the Minister for her kind response on visiting committees. That is most encouraging. I shall not seek to press my other amendments to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 8 — Compensation for depreciation of property value

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 28, in clause 14, page 8, line 42, after "persons", insert—

'in locations suitable to the cultural and other needs of those to be accommodated.'.

No. 6, in page 9, line 2, at end insert—

'(3) No accommodation centre established under this section shall hold more than 200 persons.'.

No. 1, in page 9, line 2, at end insert—

'(4) An accommodation centre shall only be established after the Secretary of State is satisfied that the proposed location is suitable to the needs of the persons to be accommodated therein'.

No. 29, in page 9, line 2, at end insert—

'( ) Each accommodation centre shall hold a maximum of 250 people at any one time, except where expressly agreed between the Secretary of State and the relevant local authority.'.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I hope to have the support of my hon. Friends so that I can press the new clause to a Division. I also hope that it will be possible to have a separate vote on amendments Nos. 6 and 1. I know that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench would welcome that.

I note that amendment No. 6 was tabled by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), who intervened on me earlier to accuse my constituents of being nimbyist. The amendment stipulates that no accommodation centre should hold more than 200 persons. I hope that when we vote on it, the hon. Gentleman will have the courage to support his decision to table it.

On Second Reading and in Committee, Ministers made it clear on numerous occasions that accommodation centres are an experiment. Indeed, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle) said:

"As we have no experience of running such centres, we have no hard and fast view about different scales.

Ahead of a trial, I have no idea about the answers. The Bill will give us the power to trial . . . The trial will allow us to find out what works, and we can proceed from that point."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 7 May 2002; c. 74–75.]

That was a fair acknowledgement by the Minister conducting the Bill through Committee that the Government are engaged in an experiment. There is no precedent for such an experiment in this country; indeed, there is no precedent anywhere in Europe. Although there are accommodation centres for asylum seekers elsewhere in Europe, none has anything like as many as 750 people living in it at any one time, as Ministers acknowledged in Committee.

Mike Gapes (Labour/Co-operative, Ilford South)

I have been listening at length to the hon. Gentleman's speeches, and they all come down to one point. He seems to think that urban areas, where services and facilities are already under pressure, and boroughs such as mine, which has more than 5,000 refugees, rather than the 750 that he is talking about, should continue to bear all the costs and pressures of the asylum system. As an MP representing an urban constituency, I think that his whole approach is one of nimbyism.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was in his place when an earlier intervention on that point was made. If that is his reaction to my remarks, he clearly has not been listening to them. Furthermore, such interventions display considerable intolerance on the part of Labour Members. My first contribution to these proceedings lasted no longer than six minutes, but the hon. Gentleman seeks to give the impression that Conservative Members have been speaking at great length. I speak as a Member of Parliament who faces the prospect of an accommodation centre being sited in his constituency, and I believe that all my comments have been sensible and proportionate.

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that being concerned about a liaison committee or interested in the centre's impact on the resources of the local police and health service signifies nimbyism, he is not serving his own community very well. If he and his colleagues had been reading their post, they would know that every organisation from Amnesty International to the British Red Cross is opposed to the proposals. The comments made by the general secretary of the TGWU on the "Today" programme this morning, in which he said that the proposal is fundamentally flawed, clearly fell on deaf ears.

I am conscious that there is not much time for this debate, so I hope that I can continue without further such interventions from Labour Members, who seem to feel that any sensible, constructive opposition or comment on the Bill can simply be dismissed as nimbyism. The experiment by the Government is having an impact on my constituents. That impact is not hypothetical or possible; it is immediate. In the days following the Government's announcement that the outskirts of Bicester may be the site of an accommodation centre for asylum seekers, I was visited in my surgery by constituents who had seen the sale of their home fall through.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

No, there is very little time and I want to make several comments.

These were people coming up to the exchange of contracts who now found their property unsaleable. [Hon. Members: "Why?"] Because the prospective purchasers had withdrawn. That situation is not hypothetical, but real.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

Labour Members are demonstrating rather appalling intolerance and an ignorance of reality. As my hon. Friend knows, in my constituency, where there is a foot and mouth disease burial site 300 yd from the proposed site of an accommodation centre for asylum centres, every one of the small number of houses affected is completely unsaleable. They are all on the market and there are no takers for any of them. Some of those people desperately need to get on with their lives, and they cannot do so because of the Government. Would not it be right for the Government to buy those properties and then sell them when the market recovers?

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

Yes.

Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

No. I want to make my speech.

The state has decided, for whatever reason, that it wants to take action because it believes that there will be a greater good for the state as a whole, but in doing so it is having a direct impact on the lives of individuals and on the value of their property. In those circumstances, it must be right, in natural justice and in equity, for the state to compensate those individuals.

When the M40 was built through my constituency, those affected by motorway noise were granted compensation. When, as a consequence of the change of flight paths from USAF Upper Heyford, aircraft noise increased substantially over a number of villages in my constituency, and it could be demonstrated that the value of people's properties had fallen as a consequence, the Ministry of Defence gave an ex gratia payment based on the change in the value of the property. There was a clear recognition that, in the interests of national security and of the state, it was sensible to change the flight paths, but as a consequence of that action by the state, a number of individuals suffered and it was right and proper that the state compensated them.

That depreciation in property value was not fictional, notional or imagined; any loss had to be determined and quantified by professional chartered surveyors acting on behalf of the claimants and by surveyors acting for the MOD. However, when a loss could be shown and agreed, compensation was made. I am not going as far as that in my new clause. The Land Compensation Act 1973 does not go so far as to say that there should be total compensation for any depreciation in the value of a property; it says that if the state decides to carry out certain works, householders should be compensated for the impact of those works on their property.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

I offer what I hope will be comfort to the hon. Gentleman's constituents. He is rightly concerned with their anxiety that the value of their property will plummet if 750 asylum seekers are sited nearby. May I reassure them? London and the south-east, which carries by far the largest number of asylum seekers and refugees in the country, is an area in which property prices have risen to astronomical heights, and they continue to rise. It could well be that the siting of an accommodation centre on the outskirts of Bicester will be followed by a property boom.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

Such a fatuous comment will be met by my constituents with the reaction that it deserves. I extend to the hon. Lady a genuine invitation to my next constituency surgery so that she can put that point to them. I hope that she will have the courage to do so. It is easy to make cheap points in the House of Commons, but it will be different when she has to look families in the face and tell them that property prices in her constituency are going up, so the house sale for which they had been hoping for months and which has just fallen through is just tough luck. I hope that she will come to my constituency—she will be very welcome.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

I am grateful, and I shall of course accept the hon. Gentleman's kind invitation—if he will accept an invitation from me to visit one of my advice surgeries and meet some of my constituents who are unable to find not only somewhere to buy, but somewhere to rent in this city, because property prices continue to rise.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

Of course I am happy—[Interruption.] Of course I am happy to come to the hon Lady's constituency—indeed, I visited it on several occasions when I was a Minister for housing. [Interruption.]

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but let me remind the House that we are dealing with a serious matter that should be debated in an orderly manner.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

The hon. Lady's second point was something of a non sequitur, but as she has mentioned it, I shall ask her and the Minister a question arising from a point that was not made clear during the consultation with local authorities. About 10 per cent. of asylum seekers have valid claims; therefore, on a six-month basis, about 75 individuals or families from a centre will be found to have a claim to remain in the UK. Is it the Government's intention that the local authority in which the centre is sited will have responsibility to accommodate those people? So far, the Government have given no explanation of such matters to local authorities or local people.

To return to my central point, if there is no loss, there cannot be compensation. Compensation is possible only if there is a demonstrable statutory loss. I see no reason why the Government should resist the amendment, which is on all fours with existing legislation and precedents relating to compensation. It would be extremely perverse if compensation were possible in relation to every other Government activity, but, simply because accommodation centres are an experiment or trial, the Government were unwilling to grant compensation to householders who suffer real, not hypothetical, loss.

The fact that the centres are to be established as a trial or experiment is all the more reason why there should be written into the Bill a statutory system whereby people may be granted compensation. I hope that the Minister will make it clear that the Government acknowledge that where the state intervenes for the benefit of the state but individuals lose as a consequence, it is right in natural justice and equity that those individuals are compensated.

Hilton Dawson (Labour, Lancaster and Wyre)

That was the most appalling speech that I have heard in my five years as a Member of Parliament. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) asked whether I would go through the Lobby in support of amendment No. 6. I assure him that specially trained and built for speed and strength wild horses could not drag me through the Lobby to support the Tories against the Labour Government. Monkeys, if they sit at typewriters long enough, might eventually come up with a work—

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When an hon. Member has put his name to an amendment, is he not under some obligation to vote in accordance with that fact?

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

That is not a matter for the Chair.

Hilton Dawson (Labour, Lancaster and Wyre)

I am happy to answer that point. The hon. Member for Banbury destroyed the argument by the way in which he introduced it into his speech.

Although I have some sympathy with the proposal that accommodation centres should be as small as is feasible, and a great deal of sympathy with the notion that people should remain in them for as short a time as possible, it is vital that the House recognises the position described by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson), wherein certain communities are under enormous pressure. There is therefore a great responsibility on every Member of Parliament to acknowledge that asylum seekers and people who want to come to this country should be made welcome. They are people of skill, intelligence and resilience whom we should welcome into our communities.

Rather than stand here and, as has already been done many times this afternoon, spout reasons why accommodation centres should not be established in various parts of the country, I say that they should be established throughout the country. I would welcome an accommodation centre in my constituency, and I think that my constituents would welcome it too.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

I rise to speak to amendments Nos. 6 and 1. I judge that my hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), for West Worcestershire (Sir Michael Spicer) and for Banbury (Tony Baldry), who have been in their places for the whole debate, have throughout spoken on behalf of their constituents with great realism, sense, sensitivity and humanity. I am proud to be associated with each of them, with what they have said and with their approach to the problems.

The hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) made accusations against my hon. Friends' attitudes to the size and location of accommodation centres. How wrong he is to do so. What does he say to the 10 respected organisations—international names; I will not run through them, but he knows who they are—that wrote to the Home Secretary on 3 May outlining concerns identical to those expressed by my hon. Friends? Does he say that those organisations are wrong? With all their experience, they wrote:

"we are greatly concerned at both the locations of the eight potential sites for Accommodation Centres to house asylum seekers and the proposal that the four confirmed sites should house up to 750 people each."

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Hilton Dawson (Labour, Lancaster and Wyre)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

I will give way to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), because I know that he has been desperate to intervene.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

Is the hon. Gentleman not being a little disingenuous and deliberately confusing the issue of organisations that have legitimate concerns, shared by many of us, about the way in which asylum seekers are treated with the attitude taken by his hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), which is basically one of total opposition to the presence of any asylum seekers anywhere near any of his constituents?

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

My hon. Friend's attitude is nothing of the sort. He has advanced good, sound arguments. If the hon. Member for Islington, North is saying that he has legitimate concerns about size and location, let us see whether he follows us into the Lobby in a few minutes' time. Despite his comments, I doubt that he will be able to do so.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

May I make it absolutely clear that my constituents would welcome the opportunity to share with the rest of the country the burden of asylum seekers? The problem is the manner in which the Government propose to do it. The diocese of Worcester, whose bishops are no supporters of the Conservative party, has said that it opposes the Government's proposals because the Churches cannot make their distinctive contribution to making people welcome because of the concentration of numbers. We could more effectively make smaller groups of asylum seekers welcome in Worcester.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

My hon. Friend makes his point well. I shall be grateful for an opportunity to divide the House on amendment No. 6, when the time comes. That amendment relates entirely to accommodation centres not holding more than 200 persons.

I need not go through the arguments. One of the tragedies of this place—frankly, it is a disgrace—is that at ten minutes to 7 tonight there will not be a chance for us to get on to vital debates on other matters. That saddens me—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary may say that from a sedentary position, but dozens of Labour and Conservative Back Benchers want to speak on those important issues. Suffice it to say that in Committee I inferred from the words of a number of Labour Back Benchers that they had great sympathy for my proposal that no accommodation centre should hold more than 200 or 250 people. I am looking at the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard).

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

Do not put words in my mouth.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

I remember what the hon. Gentleman said in Committee, and I look forward to his joining us in the Lobby shortly.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

I wish to move an amendment, in a group of amendments that we will not reach, which would make significant changes to the Bill. If we had spent less time on futile debate, we would have reached it.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

I am sorry that we will not reach those amendments because the hon. Gentleman has a seriously good reputation in the field of asylum and refugees.

Amendment No. 1 proposes that an accommodation centre should

"only be established after the Secretary of State is satisfied that the proposed location is suitable to the needs of the persons to be accommodated therein".

I shall say little else, except to repeat the words of respected non-governmental organisations, which said in their letter of 3 May that situating centres

"away from urban areas is likely to lead to isolation and potential institutionalisation."

They went on to say:

"There are . . . financial and social benefits from siting smaller Accommodation Centres in urban areas rather than as proposed."

They also said that

"smaller Centres in urban areas . . . are likely to blend more easily into the existing environment with consequent reduced tension among the resident population".

It is vital that the Home Secretary listens not just to experts outside the House but to the members of the Opposition who are urging him to establish small centres in suitable areas and, equally importantly, many Labour supporters who, if they had a chance, would vote with us tonight.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

I shall briefly introduce amendments Nos. 28 and 29, which were tabled by my hon. Friends and me and echo the concerns of the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins). We take seriously the concerns of people outside the House, who believe that smaller accommodation centres in appropriate locations would be more fitting—[Interruption.] The Home Secretary is right to say "Sheffield, Hallam" from a sedentary position; a good accommodation centre was set up during the Kosovan airlift at Folkwood school in a suburb of my constituency, allowing individuals access to the facilities of the city. The arrangement worked well, and local people felt so too.

We are trying to be constructive. Appropriate accommodation centres can work, but we do not want the Government to go ahead with larger centres in inappropriate locations, only for Opposition Members to return to the House in two or three years' time to say "Told you so". I would rather not go through that painful experience; the centres should be sited appropriately from the outset. I hope that we will be able to have a separate vote on amendment No. 28, which refers to the appropriateness of the location. I, too, regret the fact that we have not had time to debate more groups of amendments.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

We all accept that, as Members of Parliament, we are obliged to represent the views of our constituents in the House, but it is a great pity that the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) spoke three times at length on the same issue—he does not want an accommodation centre in his constituency—which regrettably means that we have not reached the next group of amendments on which many Members wished to speak.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

Does the Minister accept that it is not three modest contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) that have cost us the later debates but the Government's insistence, day after day, on driving matters through the House without giving us a proper chance to debate them?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I do not accept that for a moment. Opposition Members spent an hour debating the format of our proceedings and on three occasions the hon. Member for Banbury put his point of view.

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Perth)

Will the Minister give way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

No, I shall make progress.

The hon. Gentleman repeated the same points over and over, at the expense not of Ministers but of other Members.

I must tell the hon. Member for Banbury that new clause 8 is unacceptable not only because it cuts across part 1 of the Land Compensation Act 1973 and is unworkable but because it challenges some of the most fundamental principles of planning law. Part 1 requires compensation to be paid where physical factors arising from the use of public works cause depreciation in land value. Those factors are noise, vibration, smell, fumes, smoke, artificial lighting and so on. I do not believe, and I do not think that anyone could possibly believe, that any of those factors will arise from the building of accommodation centres anywhere.

Part 1 is a remedy for people who suffer nuisance from a public development but cannot pursue a claim in the courts, as promoters of a scheme have statutory immunity from prosecution. To give compensation for depreciation caused by the mere existence of a normal development would cut across the principles of planning law. We therefore do not accept the intention behind the new clause, and even if we did, we would have to rewrite part 1 to deliver it.

On the hon. Gentleman's points about consultation and involvement, my predecessor Lord Rooker agreed to visit sites before changes in ministerial responsibility were made.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

That is news to me.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

It may be news to the Opposition, but it is true. I have made arrangements through my private office to implement my noble Friend's decision, and shall go to the hon. Gentleman's constituency in the next two or three weeks and talk to people there and in other locations.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

My hon. Friend is very brave.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

If I can face up to the Prison Officers Association, I can certainly face up to the hon. Member for Banbury and his constituents.

Amendments Nos. 1 and 28 are a Trojan horse for the Opposition's argument that all accommodation centres should be in urban areas. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already made it clear that we do not accept that premise. The National Asylum Support Service currently disperses asylum seekers to cluster areas. The top 10 locations—those receiving the highest numbers of asylum seekers—are Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bradford, Nottingham, Leeds and Wolverhampton. We are not prepared to accept the premise that places with the most experience of accepting asylum seekers should continue to be the only ones that do so. Having said that, this is a trial and if the accommodation centres work as we expect, we will be willing to explore a variety of locations; indeed, we will want to do so.

The other amendments deal with size. We have partly covered that issue and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said on Second Reading that we would proceed with a smaller accommodation centre. In terms of including a limit in the Bill—

Clause 14 — Establishment of centres

Clause 15 — Support for destitute asylum-seeker

Clause 16 — Asylum-seeker: definition

Clause 17 — Destitution: definition

Clause 21 — Person subject to United Kingdom entrance control

Clause 31 — Education: general

Clause 33 — "Prescribed": orders and regulations

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that we were unable to reach the amendments in my name, starting with amendment No. 83, before 7 o'clock. Although Members of this House might understand why that happened, it will be difficult for people outside this place to understand why we have failed to debate what is perhaps the issue of most interest to those looking at the Bill. Is it possible for you to try to avoid this in future, Mr. Deputy Speaker? I appreciate that you do not control the timetable motion, but when it is obvious that there are matters of interest to be debated, could you discuss the matter with the parties involved so that we can reach important amendments?

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

There is not a role for the Chair in this regard. These matters are decided either through the usual channels or by a motion before the House that is discussed and agreed, as happened this afternoon. While I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman, who was not able to bring his amendments before the House, I am afraid that it was out of my hands.

New Clause 14 — Appeal from within United Kingdom: unfounded human rights or asylum claim

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 15—Appeal from within United Kingdom: unfounded human rights or asylum claim: transitional provision.

Government amendments Nos. 224 to 227.

Amendment No. 13, in clause 80, page 44, line 19, leave out Clause 80.

Government amendment No. 228.

Amendment No. 7, in page 44, line 21, leave out—

'the Secretary of State or an immigration officer'

and insert "an adjudicator".

Amendment No. 14, in page 44, line 21, leave out—

'Secretary of State or an immigration officer'

and insert—

'adjudicator or an Immigration Appeal Tribunal'.

Amendment No. 8, in page 44, line 26, leave out—

'the Secretary of State or the immigration officer'

and insert "an adjudicator".

Amendment No. 15, in page 44, line 26, leave out—

'Secretary of State or the immigration officer'

and insert—

'adjudicator or the Immigration Appeal Tribunal'.

Government amendment No. 229.

Amendment No. 9, in page 44, line 29, leave out—

'the Secretary of State or the immigration officer'

and insert "an adjudicator".

Amendment No. 16, in page 44, line 29, leave out—

'Secretary of State or the immigration officer'

and insert—

'the adjudicator or the Immigration Appeal Tribunal'.

Government amendments Nos. 230 and 231.

Amendment No. 155, in page 44, line 32, leave out—

'the Secretary of State or an immigration officer'

and insert "an adjudicator".

Amendment No. 170, in page 44, line 34, leave out "or matter".

Amendment No. 171, in page 44, line 37, leave out "should" and insert "could reasonably".

Amendment No. 172, in page 44, line 40, leave out—

'would have been permitted or required to raise'

and insert "could reasonably have raised".

Amendment No. 173, in page 44, line 43, leave out "or matter".

Amendment No. 156, in page 44, line 44, leave out—

'the Secretary of State or an immigration officer'

and insert "an adjudicator".

Amendment No. 174, in page 45, line 1, leave out "or matter".

Government amendment No. 232.

Amendment No. 175, in page 45, line 3, leave out "or matter".

Amendment No. 157, in page 45, line 4, leave out—

'the Secretary of State or an immigration officer'

and insert "an adjudicator".

Amendment No. 176, in page 45, line 5, leave out "should" and insert "could reasonably".

Amendment No. 177, in page 45, line 5, leave out "or matter".

Amendment No. 178, in page 45, line 7, leave out from "section" to end of line 8.

Amendment No. 158, in page 45, line 9, leave out—

'the Secretary of State or an immigration officer'

and insert "adjudicator".

Amendment No. 179, in page 45, line 10, leave out "or matter".

Amendment No. 159, in page 45, line 12, leave out—

'the Secretary of State or an immigration officer'

and insert "adjudicator".

Amendment No. 180, in page 45, line 15, leave out "or matter".

Amendment No. 181, in page 45, line 18, leave out subsection (6).

Government amendments Nos. 233 to 236, 245, 246, 244, 247, 242 and 243.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

We should pause for a moment to determine what it is we are trying to achieve, not only with the changes in the Bill, but in terms of the appeals system. We are trying to ensure, first, that those who have a legitimate claim that their life, liberty and well-being are being threatened are able to make such a claim in this country and have that considered, as we said earlier this evening, speedily and fairly.

At the moment, the volume of claims in this country by those who are subsequently not allowed to remain—because, through the adjudication and appeals system, their claim is turned down—is so substantial that it clogs up the legitimate system for dealing with first decisions and appeals, which, frankly, is grinding to a standstill.

The amount of resource that has been allocated to the system, including support, and the prolonged nature of the way in which the appeals system works means that there is a danger that those who have a legitimate right to be here under the asylum system, as opposed to another form of migration policy, are in danger of being overlooked. We need to concentrate on the objective, which is, rightly, to provide for those who are genuinely at risk.

There is all-party support for this. On Second Reading, the shadow Home Secretary put it very well, when he said that he shared the objective of ensuring

"the rapid, effective admission of refugees fleeing dreadful persecution and the equally rapid and effective removal of those seeking to use this as opposed to other, legitimate means to enter the country, getting round rather than facing the immigration rules."

I agree with that, as I think most people would. We need a system that works on that basis.

Lynne Jones (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

My right hon. Friend is correct to say that there is agreement on the objective, but he referred to the prolonged nature of the appeals system. In order to deal with that prolonged nature, surely it is necessary to have a robust analysis of the reasons for it. Has that been done?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

Yes, it has. Many of the issues relating to the length of the procedure were outlined in the White Paper on 7 February, which is why we proposed an end-to-end review, starting with the question of induction and reporting, through to the existing dispersal of the new accommodation centres and to the removal provision, as well as a reassessment of the whole appeals process.

On Second Reading, I said that we were not satisfied that we had yet made sufficient progress in relation to the nature of appeals. The multiple opportunities for judicial review that exist—I remember spelling them out on Second Reading—lead to layer upon layer of delay. It is a question not only of the application of the resource that should be going into an assessment of the appeals that are made by those who have escaped from death and torture; there is also a diversion of expertise because it is not simply the resource that has to be applied.

We are doubling the number of people going through the adjudication system and we have massively increased the number of adjudicators in the last year alone. We have increased the staff of the immigration and nationality directorate by about 4,500 over the last two years and we are dealing with the largest number of new applicants currently in Europe, including Germany.

It is not that we should not be taking, processing or granting the right to be here for those who have a legitimate claim. It is right for us to take a substantial number of those entering Europe, but we must be able to deal with claims fairly and properly. The shadow Home Secretary had a good point on Second Reading when he related this to Europewide objectives. He said:

"It would be practical and useful to have a general agreement across Europe that when asylum applicants come from a safe country . . . they should return to the safe country from which they started their travels to have their application processed there."—[Official Report, 24 April 2002; Vol. 384, c. 359–64.].

On Thursday in Luxembourg, at the Justice and Home Affairs Council, and at the Seville Council the week after, we will promote the idea of rapid improvement and change so that we can get a grip Europewide, collaboratively rather than competitively, on what needs to be done. We need to deal with asylum shopping, which is causing real difficulty, and on which we appear to be the last stop.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Under the Home Secretary's criteria, do safe countries include all the applicant countries to the European Union?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

No, there is no list at present, because we need to be clear that anyone who is to be returned under the category of a clearly unfounded claim would not have been at risk in any of the countries that they passed through to get here. We are talking about two categories: clearly unfounded, when people produce no evidence of having been at risk or that the country from which they came was unsafe for them; and the category of those who—there has been considerable debate about this in this country for some time—have not made a claim in any of the countries through which they have passed, where their asylum claim would have been quite legitimate and would have been heard in the same way, although not under precisely the same rules and processes, as in this country.

It is crucial that we are able to deal with those two categories sensibly and sensitively. We need to ensure that people whose claim is certified as clearly unfounded or those who have come through European countries where they would not have been at risk but where they failed to make a claim—so it could be presumed that they were heading for Britain for reasons other than that their life and well-being were at risk—are not returned through the undue use of Executive power. That is why it will be open to them to make an appeal against that certification under judicial review. Obviously, judicial review will establish a set of criteria in relation to the countries in Europe through which such people have passed, to determine whether those countries can be regarded as safe under the terms of the European convention on human rights and whether it is therefore appropriate to return people to them.

If, when we get these changes into statute, certain countries have been allowed into the European Union and have been seen to be providing all the necessary safeguards, it will be ridiculous if the regulations continue to debar us from doing an automatic return to them. Because it would be wrong to have a white list, safe countries must be determined on the evidence provided and in a way that ensures that safeguards are in place.

There is a wider issue—obviously, the Opposition will raise this, and I would have to be very silly not to pick it up, because there is a clear theme running here—concerning whether the assessment of countries is sufficiently clear or rapid. If it is not—which we do not accept—we need an advisory committee to assist us. Such a committee would have to be open and transparent and prepared to have consultations with the Government and the two main Opposition parties on its make-up. It would have to help us with the process without removing the existing formulations, which draw down all the known available evidence. It is important to put that on the table immediately, because no one should get the impression that we are going to put people at risk.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The Home Secretary has anticipated that we strongly oppose the new clauses and will seek to divide the House on them later. I do not understand how the Labour party has completely changed its policy over the past few years. In the run-up to the 1997 election, the Home Secretary's predecessor said that removing people before they appeal undermines justice. What has changed? His own figures—validly applauded by himself—show that the rate of making decisions is getting faster, appeals are being held in record numbers and the removal rate of failed applicants has increased. If the system is improving, which we welcome, why is there suddenly a need to do things that many people in the House and elsewhere find thoroughly obnoxious and morally reprehensible?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

It would be obnoxious and reprehensible if we were to return people to regimes that put them at risk or if we did not give them a clear opportunity to make a claim in a legitimate European country, because they wanted to come to Britain. We have to ask why people want to come to Britain. Is it to escape death or torture or because of particular benefits to be found here; or should they be claiming through the new economic migration routes, because they want to work here? Given the number of people who fail to make a valid claim right through the appeals process, there are clearly many who want to work here and are not coming to escape death or torture. That is a simple fact.

The electorate do not fully understand why people who have crowded through the rest of Europe have not chosen to exercise a claim there, even though their reason for being there was escape. Asylum is not a matter of whether people would rather be here. It is fair dos if people really want to be here because they have learned our language over the internet or have friends or family here. Those people should apply through the other routes, many of which we are just opening up in new ways. That is a different matter from facing death or torture.

We need sensible ways of dealing with the matter, especially if we are to open new routes through the United Nations, so that people can claim out of country rather than clandestinely making it through the tunnel or on the ferries or coming through airports with false documentation, which is what many do. Many others make an in-country claim after having been here for a substantial time, sometimes on human rights grounds, having made no such claim at the time of arrival but having decided that it will help them stay. We all know that to be true, because we all see it all the time in our constituency surgeries.

The answer to the hon. Gentleman's direct question is that unfounded claims massively clog up our ability to use the extra staff and resources that we have provided fairly and properly, thereby negating the investment that we have put in. People out there think that we are crackers, and if they think that, they will not warm to the other things that we are saying about tackling prejudice and racism. We need to build trust in the system, so that people welcome warmly those whom they know to have been facing death or persecution.

I am trying to develop a system that does not involve a white list, but which has some common sense built in and which includes proper safeguards for those who genuinely face persecution. That is why there is the right to review and to challenge the decision taken on whether a person's life and liberty is threatened by reason of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, and whether certification should therefore have been made. If those points prove true and the life or well-being of the person concerned is threatened because of that, they would not of course be returned, and their appeal would be heard in this country. The same is true of all who present some founded claim the moment that they arrive, or who have some legitimate proof that they were at threat or that their country of origin had presented a threat in recent times.

I accept that we were fairly slow on the uptake in respect of Zimbabwe, but we did not put people's lives at risk. We halted the returns and listened to what was being said, including by my own party and the Opposition parties. I mention my party because I was touched by the deep concern expressed earlier today by members of the Conservative party for my well-being within my own ranks. It was clear that I had their support in taking into account Labour party views, and that certainly made me feel much better.

The second criterion is that we will not send someone back to a place from which they will be sent to another country, other than in accordance with the refugee convention. In other words, we will not return people in circumstances in which they will not enjoy the protection of the 1951 convention. Those safeguards are built in; we are simply trying to turn away people who have no right to be here, and to send them back even in cases where we will grant them an out-of-country appeal.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

rose—

Michael Weir (Scottish National Party, Angus)

rose—

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

To varying degrees, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Finland have policies that allow out-of-country appeals to be heard. They are not countries that anyone would describe as illiberal, albeit that the changes are being introduced in Denmark are draconian. However, I am talking about the situation before the recent parliamentary debate and the legislation that was passed by the Danish Assembly.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The Home Secretary knows that we support the introduction of resettlement programmes and other routes into the country for people who are genuine economic migrants. We welcome that initiative and have said as much publicly and privately. However, does he accept the view of British courts that out-of-country appeals are in many cases almost valueless? The reality is that many people do not appeal, and in effect the system is making it impossible for many to do so. The system appears intentionally to be driving down appeals. The Home Secretary and I seemed to agree in an earlier debate that between 40 and 50 per cent. of all claims in the past 10 years were accepted under one heading or another. It is surely wrong, therefore, for significant numbers—at least one in five—to be forced out of the country before their cases, which might eventually be accepted, can be determined here.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

That would be true if they were at risk in the country to which they return, but I am desperately keen to ensure that they are not so at risk. If they have a personal reason for wanting to pursue the appeal, we should facilitate their doing so. It is a lot easier to do so now than it was even five years ago, thanks to the internet and other communication methods, as well as to more traditional ways. Incidentally, it is not uncommon for paper appeals to be heard in circumstances where a person cannot attend an appeal in this country or in other European countries. Lawyers are familiar with such situations.

A person may well not appeal in a country that operates an out-of-country appeal because they recognise that they have no ground for an appeal and that it will prove unsuccessful. So long as legal support, asylum support and accommodation is available, and so long as another appeal is available somewhere along the line, people are inclined to use it. Indeed, the fact is that many lawyers are inclined to encourage them to do so. That is why our process is so prolonged. As I have said, that distracts from those who have a legitimate right to have their appeal thoroughly aired.

The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) and I had not a disagreement but a useful exchange on Second Reading about the percentage who stay. I agreed that if we added in the cases of exceptional and indefinite leave to remain, his figures were correct, so we eventually concluded that we were both right. Indeed, I remember the exchange well. However, the trouble is that exceptional leave had to be used in cases where everyone accepted that the country in question was not safe to return to. In Afghanistan—I mention it purely as an example—a great deal of heartache and human and military resources, have been expended to re-establish safety and civilisation and to put Afghans back in charge of their country. However, what is to say that such people will still not attempt to come to this country? Some 9,600 have done so in the past year. Exceptional leave to remain was granted, even if the claim was not accepted, because we did not wish to return people.

Of course, the point is rapidly coming where we can encourage and support people in returning to Afghanistan—with the help, I hope, of the rest of Europe. We can then ask whether it is legitimate to suggest that they remain at risk from the Taliban, given that the Taliban no longer run the country. Such simple questions must be asked and answered, so that people who are genuinely fleeing persecution can be helped. I do not want to over-egg the point, and I know that many hon. Members will want to intervene, not least to clarify certain matters. However, in terms of returning people to European countries from whence they came, proper certification, judicial review and establishing which countries can legitimately be regarded as safe constitute a reasonable set of presumptions through which to get the matter right.

Michael Weir (Scottish National Party, Angus)

I understand the Secretary of State's argument, but his concentrating on countries rather than individual cases gives me cause for concern. A particular country could be safe by and large, but it might not be so for certain individuals. A current example is India. By and large, someone returning to India may be relatively safe, but that is not necessarily true if they originate from Kashmir, for example. In concentrating on the country rather than the individual, the danger is that injustice might be done.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

If a person can provide any evidence whatsoever that clearly shows a founded fear—within the terms that I have described, and with which we are all familiar—their claim would still be heard. They would not simply be returned. However, India is not a good example. We are discussing not countries that are threatening each other with military conflict, but people who are persecuted and threatened with death or torture by a particular state or—under the wider definition of the 1951 convention—other organised groups that put them at risk.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

I appreciate that a person could make an appeal from overseas that deals with the merits of the case, but I am concerned about judicial oversight of the process of certification. Many people find judicial review an expensive, alien and complicated process, to which they do not necessarily have easy access. Is there not a way to ensure some oversight of the certification process? I have a lot of confidence in the Secretary of State, but not in every possible holder of that office. I am concerned that the certification process could be misused in such a way that someone who is genuinely in fear of persecution might not have their right to asylum protected.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

Given the long-standing and deep interest that my hon. Friend has in those issues and her knowledge of them, I take seriously what she says. We would all wish to ensure that the initial decision—the certification—is carried out by professionals trained for the job, and that the possibility of review is readily available. I envisage that on issues relating to the nature of the risk in a particular country, we will wish to facilitate a rapid testing of the initial decision. We will also wish to be able to test the situation further, following any changes in that country. We are keen to establish a pattern that will be checked by the judiciary on certification to provide us with a base on which to make common-sense decisions. People will then know that the system is fair and credible.

The same is true of returning people to other European countries. In the end, a sensible bilateral agreement with those countries, as part of a longer-term revision of the Dublin agreement, must be the way forward. I will take every step possible, after next Sunday's concluding election in France, to do that. The interim Interior Minister has shown a willingness to achieve that aim and our position will be strengthened by the vote tonight. The interim Minister accepts entirely the rule of law and has written to me to indicate that he accepts the spirit of the new clauses and the way we are proceeding. Some tough negotiations will be necessary, but to have the ability to return people to France—we have been able to return almost 6,000 people who came for other purposes but did not claim asylum—makes sense.

We return almost 6,000 people a year, as I have said before—including during the question and answer session on the White Paper—but we do not return those who mention the words "asylum claim" when they hit our turf, even though they might have just come from France or Belgium and did not claim asylum there. We are trying to get the position right in the way that the Danes and the Germans have managed to get it right. Other countries are also keen to achieve that. The problem needs to be seen in the context of bilateral and multilateral agreements across Europe, with us taking a lead rationally and sensibly, instead of clamping down unacceptably as Denmark has, which has led to great disquiet and social uncohesion—if there is such a word.

Lynne Jones (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Will one of the proposals that my right hon. Friend puts to the new French Government be an agreement that UK immigration officers should visit places such as Sangatte and interview those people who are attempting to reach this country as asylum seekers, so that their claims can be assessed there?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

As part of bilateral and multilateral Europewide agreements, I would not rule out the use of our immigration officers and support staff working on other national territories, but I do not wish to be tempted into discussing what might be agreed for Sangatte, because that might start some hares running that I could do without. I have not even started negotiating on Sangatte, despite the Catholic weekly magazine and the interview with the interim Social Affairs Minister that led the Leader of the Opposition to write an intemperate article in the Daily Mail that presumed I had already given all my cards away. In fact, I am trying my best to strengthen my hand tonight with a few aces and I hope that the Opposition parties will assist me in doing so.

In the end, we want Sangatte closed under proper procedures that do not result in people on the streets of Calais and surrounding areas. We do not want people trying to get here in, on or under trains, or by other routes across the channel. We want people to come here fairly, under Europewide agreements that allow us to assess and return them if that is the sensible approach. That is what I will suggest on Thursday in Luxembourg, and in that spirit I ask the House to support the new clauses and the associated amendments.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

I welcome what has been a slow but steady acclimatisation on the part of the Home Secretary to the merits of the argument that we began making about eight months ago—that the resuscitation of the bilateral agreement and, as far as possible, multilateral agreements that work is key to resolving the chaos of the asylum system. He has even moved a little further today than in the past few weeks, and that is very welcome. We want to strengthen his hand, and he is right to say that some parts of new clauses 14 and 15—the meat before us tonight—will have that effect, or at least seek to achieve it.

New clause 14(3) and (4) have that intention and are welcome. New clause 15(2), (4) and (5) also seek to achieve that effect. If I have understood the articulation of those subsections correctly, they relate precisely to the case in which a person comes to the UK having most immediately been in a country other than their country of origin. In the example of France, the provisions would allow the Home Secretary, if he is equipped with the appropriate bilateral or multilateral agreement, to remove the person back to that safe country without the possibility of appeal. That is clearly an appropriate legislative underpinning for the resuscitation of the 24-hour rule that obtained in the bilateral agreement while it was in force, and we support it as a necessary consequence of our long-term argument in favour of the resumption of such an agreement. On that point, we are not one iota apart from the Home Secretary.

As I mentioned when we debated the initial question of the recommittal of the new clause to Committee, the problem that we face is that the Home Secretary has ingeniously allied the subsections that I just mentioned to other subsections—new clause 14(2) and new clause 15(1) and (3). Those subsections are about something different. They have the intention that the Home Secretary—which in this case means a rather junior official acting on behalf of the Home Secretary—should be able to make the judgment that a particular application is "unfounded". It is extraordinarily difficult to know how the official in question will make the decision that a claim is unfounded. By its very character, the decision is difficult to make.

In his remarks on this group, the Home Secretary mentioned frequently the example of a case in which the person presents no evidence at all. In such a case, I accept that it is relatively easy to decide that a claim is unfounded. When people who wander in and claim asylum are asked for evidence that they are subject to persecution and are unable to say anything at all, in any language, that might suggest that they have ever been or would ever be subject to persecution, I am bound by logic to accept that their claims would be, in any ordinary sense, unfounded.

However, the number of such claims is, of course, minimal. Most of the people whom we are discussing in connection with the subsections will have said something in defence of their claims. They may not have said very much, or been very articulate, and they may have spoken about countries that, on the whole, are not very dangerous. Yet they undoubtedly will have said something, and the subsections to which I referred will call on junior officials to make the judgment that their claims are utterly unfounded, when such judgments might otherwise have fallen to an adjudicator on appeal.

The Home Secretary sought to counter what he suspected would be one limb of my argument when he spoke about the advisory committee that he wants to establish. That committee will decide whether the country in question might be dangerous.

I welcome the Home Secretary's idea of an advisory committee, although it does not go far enough. I do not accept that the present system of country risk assessment is merely in need of oversight by an advisory committee. That oversight is welcome, but the present system of country assessment is woefully and intrinsically deficient. I do not believe it likely that any Government agency will ever be able to conduct country risk assessments with the speed and confidence necessary to allow a junior official to decide that a claim is wholly unfounded, and to do so with the conviction required to sustain judicial review, among other things.

If the Home Secretary wants new clause 14(2) or new clause 15(1) and (3) to have any chance of sustaining themselves under judicial review, he will need to move to genuinely independent country risk assessment, at the very least. Even with that, there is a real question about whether it is proper for a junior official to decide whether a claim is unfounded, and to force the person involved back to the country from which he or she came—if, indeed, that is possible. That person would then have to conduct an appeal from that country. If the junior official makes an error, I have the gravest reservations about whether the case could be brought to a just conclusion.

The Opposition face a great difficulty, therefore. We want to back the Home Secretary in some subsections of the new clauses. Those provisions are necessary and safe, and there is no question that returning a person to France, Denmark or any EU country, for example, is anything but a perfectly legitimate act for the British state. It runs no risk of compromising that person's life or liberty. However, by the same token, we want to resist new clause 14(2) and new clause 15(1) and (3). The Home Secretary has so designed the new clauses as to ensure that we cannot achieve both desires simultaneously.

I suspect that the matter will be pressed to a Division by Liberal Democrat Members. If so, we will vote with the Government and against the Liberal Democrats, although we will have to hold our noses over the subsections of which we disapprove. We will seek to engage the interest of our noble Friends in another place to disentangle new clause 14(2) and new clause 15(1) and (3) from those other provisions with which we agree.

I fear that that will lead, yet again, to debate and discussion taking place between Members of the two Houses. That is not, I think, one of the Home Secretary's favourite occupations, but I see no other way to make progress. I am determined that we should give the Home Secretary the support that he deserves in regard to those provisions that are right and which make it possible to imagine that bilateral agreements will come back into play. However, I intend to preserve our determination to avoid, if we can, compromising improperly the safety of individuals through those subsections that pose a threat to their safety.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

I shall make a brief contribution to the debate. I understand the concerns expressed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about the way in which the process is sometimes dragged out deliberately by advisers and lawyers who know from the start that victory in a case is unlikely. Those of us who deal with asylum cases will be familiar with those instances in which atrocious advice is deliberately given with no other aim than to drag the process out. We all see such cases, and I understand my right hon. Friend's concern about them.

A proposal similar to the one in the new clause was contained in the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996. I remember the debates on that legislation, in which we discussed proposals from the then Home Secretary that would have allowed people with manifestly unfounded cases to be sent back to the countries from which they had arrived. The proposals then allowed those people to mount appeals from those countries.

In the 1996 debates, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was the shadow Home Secretary. His view as to whether the proposed course of action was right was rather different then. Some of the concerns raised about the proposals in the 1996 Act are being raised again about the provisions in the new clauses.

We can tell people removed to a third country that they have a right of appeal from that country, but we cannot guarantee that that person will be allowed to stay in that third country until an appeal is heard. It is quite possible that they will be sent on somewhere else, or back to where they came from. We have no control over such people once they have been removed from the UK.

Experience with other appeals, such as family visit appeals, that are held on paper as opposed to being held in person, shows that adjudicators trying to judge the credibility of a person's story are more likely to respond positively when they can hear that person speak. That can be of critical importance when adjudicators come to decide whether an appeal should be allowed.

I should like some clarification because, from my reading of the new clause, it seems to deal only with removals to a safe third country as it refers to a country of which a person

"is not a national or citizen".

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will receive the clarification that he seeks. I did not read the new clause that way, as he will have noticed. So far as I can see, subsection (2) applies specifically to the opposite case: to someone who is not being returned to a country of which that person is not a national—not another safe country—but to the country of which that person is or may be a national—an unsafe country, potentially.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

That is an important point, and I want to be clear about it. Subsection (3) is quite clear, but some of the briefings and reports sent to us by outside organisations suggest that someone could be summarily removed back to their country of origin. I would be seriously concerned if that were the impact of subsection (2).

Much of the debate so far has focused on sending people back to France, Germany or Denmark, where they might have been able to claim asylum but did not, as opposed to sending them back directly to their country of origin. That is an important issue, and I would like the meaning of subsection (2) to be made absolutely clear. Does it mean that people can be summarily returned to their country of origin? If that is a possibility, it puts a very different perspective on the new clause.

We have already referred to who will make the decisions on certification and how those might be challenged. If decisions on certification are to be made by a caseworker at a port of entry, perhaps very quickly, and even though, on paper, a judicial review might be possible, it might be difficult for someone to take that route if they have been unable to obtain easy access to legal advice, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart).

Oakington has been described as a place that would be used for cases that appeared to be unfounded. A pattern seems to be emerging that the people sent to Oakington are from certain countries of origin. One wonders whether that is the criterion, rather than what the individual said when arriving at the port of entry. We will get close, if we are not careful, to a white list in another form if countries of origin become one of the main deciding factors in whether a case is manifestly unfounded.

One of my greatest concerns is that this could be a critical decision affecting the individual, particularly if it involves summary return to the country of origin. It is essential, therefore, to get the initial decision right. Comments made by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) rang some bells. It is easy to talk as if there are only two classes of asylum claimants—those who will be given asylum because their cases are evidently well founded, and those, at the other extreme, whose cases do not have a shred of credibility. The reality, however, is that among the many thousands of people who claim asylum each year is a whole spectrum of cases, from one extreme to the other. We are trying to draw lines in that spectrum. Inevitably, with regard to which cases are certified and which are not, people will be bunched around that line. There will be very fine divisions between claims being certified or not. It concerns me that very small differences between individuals might lead them to be dealt with in significantly different ways in respect of whether they have a right of appeal.

Patrick Hall (Labour, Bedford)

My hon. Friend is making some useful points about the principles of out-of-country appeals. Does he share my concerns about the practicalities of a person who is removed from the country without having completed or begun an appeal here doing so from another country? What are the resource implications? What support would there be? Would it be through a British overseas post, which, as we know from dealing with ordinary matters are already under pressure, or would it be down to the individual to write, presumably in English, to the authorities in this country? Has my hon. Friend given some thought to the practicalities, never mind the principles, of the issue?

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

That is an important point. Nothing in the Bill gives us an answer to that question. Let us assume that a person could act in various ways—they could pursue their appeal by writing, using the internet or visiting a British post overseas. That, of course, gives rise to other practical questions. How does that person obtain representation at their appeal? It would probably not be much good for them to try to use a lawyer in another country who was not familiar with British law, but how would they make contact with a lawyer in this country? How would they brief the lawyer, and where would they find the resources to conduct an appeal?

Such situations are different from other appeals conducted from overseas. For example, in family visitor appeals there will inevitably be sponsors in the UK who can help with some of the problems of finding representation in this country.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

Is there not another and more fundamental difference? If a person is sent back to the country of origin—if that is indeed the purport of subsection (2) of new clause 14—will it not immediately be evident either that the decision that the claim was unfounded was true and that the person has no basis for appeal because they are happily situated back in their own country, or, unhappily for economic reasons only; or that the claim was not unfounded and the person is in the most dire straits? In that case, how on earth can they conduct an appeal if they are being chopped up by some appalling regime to which they have been sent back by mistake? I cannot see—can the hon. Gentleman?—how an in-country appeal can resolve any problem that might arise under subsection (2).

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

The hon. Gentleman is right. If a mistake is made, it is difficult to see how the consequences can be other than extremely serious for the person returned on the basis of an unfounded claim.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

We must not misunderstand each other. My hon. Friend has been putting his case extremely carefully and credibly, but we must not misunderstand what the shadow Home Secretary has just said. I spelled out the unacceptable risks, on which we are all agreed, and we are not intent on sending people back to countries that would chop someone up, in the words of the hon. Gentleman—or anything like it. We know of no country that has it in for one person alone, as regards taking away their rights and exposing them to the danger of death or torture as individuals, as opposed to the groups to which they belong, the religion they hold, the politics they espouse or any of the other things that I read out. I was specific about that because it is in those terms that we are talking about returning people.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

I completely accept my right hon. Friend's point, but I question whether the proposed system will deliver what he says and whether there might not be a risk of serious problems for some individuals whose claim has been certified as unfounded.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

It may help my hon. Friend if I give an example of a case where such risks might occur in a country that is usually safe for most people. In parts of some countries, female genital mutilation is practised on young women and there is no adequate protection for them. That happens in countries to which we might consider returning people. I am not clear that the procedures would offer adequate protection that such practices could never happen.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. Such issues have always given rise to difficulty—whether only part of a country is safe and whether the person being returned actually ends up in the part of the country that is supposed to be safe.

My final point relates to new clause 15. My understanding is that it would apply to cases that were already in the system. An appeal might already be in progress under the existing system, but under the new clause the process could be stopped before the appeal was heard, the case could be certified as unfounded and the person could be removed. Retrospective legislation of any sort always concerns me. If that is the effect of new clause 15, I would be extremely worried.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I indicated earlier that my hon. Friends and I would divide the House at the end of this debate on the two Government new clauses. It might be helpful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I also indicate that we will seek to divide the House on our amendment No. 13. Of the many amendments in this group that Mr. Speaker has selected, it addresses one of the other issues that, in our view, goes most to the heart of what is wrong with many of these sets of proposals.

We may debate this later in the day when some of the heat and noise has gone out of the earlier exchanges—both those that happened and those that were expected to happen but did not—on education. We regret the failure to allow the time for such debate. In my view, we shall not have the time, with an hour and 10 minutes left, to complete the business schedule for today by any means. There are four groups of amendments on appeals—this is the first, and there are three remaining. We may not get beyond this debate by 10 o'clock, and that will be the end of it.

In this context, we are discussing the protection by law of some of the most vulnerable people who ever come to Britain to seek protection. It is unacceptable that Parliament should have to debate proposals put down on Friday afternoon, and published for the first time and available to colleagues for the first time yesterday morning, which nobody has been able to amend, even though we are meant to be able to amend new clauses and schedules on Report. It would not be acceptable even if they were relatively unimportant new clauses and new schedules. It is fundamentally unacceptable when they relate to the right of the courts to oversee the actions of the Executive and the process of appeals, and when they relate to this entirely new proposal, which, as I indicated to colleagues, the Labour party opposed five years ago—that an immigrant or asylum seeker may have to go abroad to pursue their case, but anybody else can have their case dealt with here.

It is fundamentally wrong as a matter of principle that if one comes here seeking shelter, one should not have the same appeal rights as someone who has gone through the employment appeal tribunal on an employment matter, through the social security appeal tribunal against a decision of the Executive on social security, or through the tax appeal system, for example. On behalf of my colleagues, I want to register our dissatisfaction with the process as well as the substance.

I shall give one example only of why what the Government are doing is fundamentally wrong. It relates to the intervention of the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), in terms of the kind of issue that it raises. A well known case called Islam and Shah went to the House of Lords in 1999; it got there after an application for judicial review. It went through the process in the following way. Originally, the case had been put to the adjudicator and lost by the individual applicant. She was refused leave to appeal to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal. She applied for and obtained judicial review of the tribunal's refusal. The Home Office then appealed to the Court of Appeal and won. She then appealed to the House of Lords and won. It was not on an insignificant issue but on a hugely important issue relating to the rights of women in Pakistan. In many ways, that country might be regarded as one where proper process, in many years, might be acceptable, but the House of Lords was very clear that its decision was merited by a hugely important matter.

Let me set out what the Lords decided as regards whether someone could seek asylum on the basis of being a refugee as a result of belonging to a particular social group, which in some parts of the world could be women, people of a particular age, or people of a particular sexuality. For example, homosexuality is unacceptable in Nigeria and the safety of a homosexual who wants to return there might be at risk in some parts of the country.

The House of Lords said:

"a 'particular social group' consisted of a group of persons who share a common, immutable characteristic that either was beyond the power of an individual to change or was so fundamental to the individual's identity or conscience that it ought not to be required to be changed. The existence of such a group did not, however, depend on an element of cohesiveness or co-operation or interdependence amongst the members of the group. Thus, as gender was an immutable characteristic that was beyond the power of the individual to change and as discrimination against women was prevalent in Pakistan in violation of fundamental rights and freedoms, women in Pakistan constituted a 'particular social group', within the terms of Art 1A(2) of the 1951"

convention on refugees.

The ruling continued:

"Accordingly, as the appellants were members of a particular social group in Pakistan and as the Pakistani authorities were unable or unwilling to protect them against gender-related persecution, it would be contrary to the UK's obligations under the 1951 Convention for"

that person

"to be required to leave the UK and"

her

"appeal would have to be reconsidered by the Tribunal."

That woman came to this country and a couple of years ago the highest court in the land decided to uphold her case. However, it was upheld only because she had the right to have an Executive decision heard by our independent judiciary.

It is important not only to separate the powers of the Executive and the judiciary, but to understand that we often win the argument only because we have had the debate, like we did today. The hon. Member for Slough and others know that from their work before they came here. We do not stand a chance of winning a case if the only alternative is to have the papers looked at by someone in authority, with no chance of anyone putting the argument, which is what the Government propose.

Many of the greatest decisions in favour of liberty have been taken by courts in this land, the United States and elsewhere only because there has been debate and a court has been persuaded. The Government, to their shame, are suggesting that a group of people—not you or me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but people who have been subjected to the most awful circumstances before they arrive here—are deprived of that right. That must be wrong.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The hon. Gentleman's points are serious and important. I endorse what he says about the appalling lack of time available to scrutinise all the amendments properly. However, for the sake of clarity, is he saying that under the terms of the group criteria, the British Government should offer asylum to the entire female population of Pakistan? I may be wrong, but is that the essence of his argument?

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The trouble with the debate is that we have such limited time in which to discuss the issues, and the matter that the hon. Gentleman raises is precisely what we should be considering. I have with me a sheaf of papers from Amnesty International, which knows what it is talking about, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, the Immigration Advisory Service and the Refugee Legal Centre. They all say, first, that we have not had time to consider people's concerns properly, and, secondly, that the proposal is profoundly wrong.

The answer to the hon. Gentleman's specific question is no—the only asylum issues that are dealt with here concern those who get here to put their case. That is one of the flaws of the system, and it is one reason why the Secretary of State rightly says that we must try to have a saner system that does not require people illegally to board a channel tunnel train and put themselves and others at risk. However, if a Pakistani woman were here and there was evidence that she came from a part of Pakistan where she would be at risk, she would be entitled to asylum. The refugee convention, drafted by British lawyers after the war, was introduced specifically to ensure, among other things, that people in need could put their case when they found somewhere safe away from their own country.

The great bulk of refugees do not come to Britain. It is not as if all the world's refugees were coming here. That is another fallacy perpetuated by tabloid newspapers. Most refugees are in places such as Pakistan and the central African states. Europe has a very small proportion of the world's refugees, and of that proportion we have a very small number. There may have been between 70,000 and 80,000 applicants, but they constitute a relatively small proportion of those coming to Europe. The numbers go up and down, and although at the moment the United Kingdom and Germany have the highest numbers, that has not always been the case.

Crucially, between 40 and 50 per cent. of those who have come here in the past 10 years have had their claim upheld. It is not as if all those people were putting dud cases. Of course there are economic migrants who try to claim asylum—I know them and I have dealt with them, as we all have. However, between 40 and 50 per cent. are not like that.

I want to give the House a few more figures, which are not an invention but come from a written answer given by Ministers. On 19 April, at column 1259W, Ministers gave figures for the outcome of asylum appeals at judicial review for the last two years for which figures are available. In 2000, 365 judicial review applications were allowed out of a total of 755 made. By my calculation, that means that almost half of them succeeded. In 2001, 260 applications were allowed out of 390 made, which is well over half. The total for the two years is 625 applications allowed out of 1,145. Those are not my figures; they were given by the Government in a parliamentary answer. They show how important judicial review is.

There are many proposals in this group of new clauses and amendments, and I shall state briefly—I hope that it will take no longer than 10 minutes—why I hope that colleagues from all parties will support us. I understand and respect the difficulty experienced by Conservative Front Benchers, but I hope that Conservative Back Benchers and Labour friends and colleagues will support us in saying that the Bill is not acceptable.

I understand the pressure on Governments to try to have a co-ordinated European policy, and I welcome that effort. However, that does not mean that we have to misrepresent the position and take measures that are unnecessary and positively harmful. I quote to the Home Secretary a letter of 15 May 2002 from the then Minister of State, Lord Rooker, which sets out how the Government are succeeding on asylum:

"The rate of making decisions is faster; appeals are being heard in record numbers . . . and the rate of removal of failed applicants has increased."

Last month, then, the Government were saying, "We are doing better."

We know that on the very day the letter, headed "asylum constituency casework", was sent to colleagues, the Prime Minister was meeting Ministers to discuss what action was required to reduce the number of unfounded asylum applications. One idea put to that ministerial group by civil servants was that it might be worth considering taking Department for International Development aid away from poor countries where large numbers of asylum seekers originate. I do not pretend that the Government adopted that suggestion, but it is the sort of idea that is being put to Ministers as part of the process.

Some of us, including the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) and the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, served on the Standing Committee on the Bill. During the Committee stage, the Government said that they would table some amendments—and they did. However, more announcements were made on 30 May, after the Committee had finished. It was announced that, in addition to the tightening up, the appeal on the papers alone and the removal of judicial review—all of which were introduced by the Government to their own Bill only after Second Reading—asylum appeals would have to be made outside the United Kingdom.

Let me explain why such a system is unacceptable, even if one or two other countries use it. First, all the evidence is that a person in France—to take the easiest case—will not have the same access to lawyers and advisers who can help in the British appeals system as a person here would have. In reality, such people's ability to lodge and argue an appeal does not work in the same way as it would if they were here. It is paradoxical that people who try to enter this country as immigrants and are turned down in, say, Tanzania or Lagos have their appeal heard here, but people who are here will now have to have their appeal heard here when they are somewhere else. That is simply illogical.

Worse than that, it is suggested that such people can go to one of two places. They can return to the country from which they came. Let us be realistic. The person from Kosovo who came to my constituency advice surgery three years ago, before there was peace in the Balkans, was hardly going to go back to Kosovo. A person who came here more recently from Afghanistan is hardly going to go back there. The fact that we are holding meetings with the Government of Afghanistan does not reassure people that the country is now entirely safe. I hope and pray that it will be safe, and it may well become so, but it will not become safe in a week, or a month, or even three months—life is not like that. The fears that drove people to leave will not suddenly be alleviated.

The Government offer those people an alternative, which is to go back to the last safe country they were in. I understand the logic of that, but it is actually a form of pass the parcel—passing the responsibility. It says that such people are not our business—pass them to France. I went to Sangatte and talked to the people in the camp, and I honestly believe that many of them did not know how they got there. They came across Europe in a lorry, not knowing whether they crossed over the Romanian frontier, the Polish frontier, or the German frontier first. They do not know their point of entry into the EU—they did not go through passport control. What was the first safe country? What do the French do—send them to Germany? What do the Germans do—send them to Austria?

That is a nonsensical system, it is nonsensical that we are playing into that system, and it is an unacceptable system for us to adopt. The proposals are not merely dangerous to the interests of the applicant; they are bad policy if what we want is a coherent system for dealing with asylum and immigration.

Mike Gapes (Labour/Co-operative, Ilford South)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

No. I have told the hon. Gentleman that he does not normally make helpful interventions. He has made one unhelpful intervention today and I am certainly not going to give him the chance to make another.

The second argument that the Government might advance is that we need to pass the Bill as an emergency measure. We heard that argument last autumn and winter in respect of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, and we accepted that there was an emergency. However, the Bill before us now is not an emergency measure. There is no justification for not carrying out proper scrutiny or for making bad decisions.

I hope that hon. Members have had a chance to read the representations from bodies such as Amnesty International which make it clear that the Bill embodies unacceptable decisions and proposals. I shall quote only Amnesty International, which says:

"The provisions set out in Part 5 of the . . . Bill represent a profound attack on the right of appeal of asylum seekers. Amnesty International believes that, given the well-documented flaws in our asylum determination procedures, adequate appeal rights are an essential safeguard against erroneous decisions. Home Office statistics indicate a steady increase in the proportion of successful appeals, with the most recent figures showing a success rate of nearly one in four."

If, under criminal law, one in four innocent British people were convicted, there would be an outcry, yet the Government are willing to put before Parliament a provision that will reduce the percentage of appellants who put their case fairly and succeed. That is not right and cannot be justified on the grounds of an emergency; there is no reason for treating the Bill in the same way as the anti-terrorism legislation that we passed last year.

It is now Government policy that the Government decide which claims are unfounded. That is unacceptable; it cannot be right that the Executive, who make the first decision, then decide whether or not there is a case further up the appeal ladder. The whole idea is that somebody else reviews the initial decision, not the Secretary of State. May I tell the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration, who has just assumed responsibility for this, that the initial decision is often overturned—something which might have been considered unfounded has been shown not to be so? I therefore agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard).

The difference between the proposals and the old white list, which the Labour Government, to their credit, abolished, is not clear. Under that system, someone would be treated as safe or unsafe depending on which country they came from. There has been no confirmation that clearly unfounded claims will not be similarly categorised now. It is not as if the matter has not been considered before, as it has been discussed by parliamentary Committees, particularly in the other place, which have said that the proposal to change the law is bad news. The House of Lords European Union Committee, after taking evidence, produced a report on minimum standards in asylum procedures. It said:

"Whether so-called fast-track or accelerated procedures are in practice efficient has been questioned. The evidence we received, especially that from the appellate authorities, suggested that they were not. Witnesses pointed out the adverse effects, in terms of diverting resources, delaying other proceedings and placing burdens on the judicial process. We can see no benefit in the retention of such procedures and we have doubts whether an accelerated procedure has a place in the Directive. All cases, including manifestly unfounded ones, should be dealt with on their merits speedily within an efficient 'regular' procedure. That would also apply to manifestly well-founded cases.

The general principle stated in Article 33(1) that appeals shall have suspensive effect is one of the major procedural safeguards established by the Directive."

I repeat for the benefit of colleagues that one of the best protections for appellants is protection against getting thrown out of the country before their appeal is heard. May I tell Ministers that if, by any chance, the provision gets through the House of Lords, and the courts when it is tested there—I hope that, if it succeeds here, it will fail in the Lords; but if it does not, I hope that it fails in the courts—the Government will have to deal with the consequences? Instead of people being able to go for judicial review, they will come to Members of Parliament. Calls will regularly be made to the Home Office duty officers who, if they do not decide to detain someone before they get on the plane, will call on Ministers to intervene; injunctions will be served on the Government; and people will be taken off planes because they are about to be sent back to unsafe countries.

That is undesirable for the Government, given the image of Britain as a supposed safe haven. However, they may have decided that it is all about playing and looking tough; they may want to sound tough before the Seville and Luxembourg summits so that other European countries can follow us. The Government tried such an approach on terrorism. They derogated from the European convention on human rights and said that that was justified and that all other European countries would follow them. Nobody has followed. No other European Union country has done the same thing or decided that the events of 11 September justify such derogation. The Government should not believe that adopting macho postures to the detriment of many vulnerable individuals is an appropriate response.

I apologise not only for taking relatively more time than I did earlier, but for being absolutely unable to do justice in such a short contribution to the significant number of points that have been made by those who know what they are talking about in relation to immigration and asylum and who have made the strongest representations about why judicial review is not a hindrance but a help, about why Governments should not seek to reduce such review, and about an approach whose basis is not argument about the facts, but a consideration of whether a reasonable decision was taken by the Executive authority. Those people have made the case for why it is important that people should be allowed to put their case clearly.

As far as I have been able to gather, all those who have been consulted have concluded that the people who work in the system as practitioners believe that a reduction of rights is not what is needed. They do not want an approach in which cases are decided only on the basis of the papers involved and in which people's rights to judicial review are taken away. They do not want the Lord Chancellor to be given power to take away rights, or provisions such as those before us which add to the right to penalise those who represent the applicant by awarding costs against them. There is no equivalent right to penalise the Home Office, which is often the cause of delay. The treatment is absolutely unequal. People tell me that as many delays are caused by the Home Office as by applicants' representatives; and such delays frequently arise.

People also believe that they cannot trust adjudicators any more. The hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) gave the example of an accommodation centre for Somali citizens with an adjudicator who is well versed in affairs in Somalia. Such a person would be perfectly able to tell whether good cases were being made or whether somebody was trying to play along with the court and delay matters unnecessarily. We are talking about the Government not trusting the independent authorities to make independent decisions with which they are comfortable.

The provisions are not an acceptable series of interventions. If the people making the representations believe there is a need for more resources, more adjudicators, more people in the Immigration Appeal Tribunal or more civil servants working in the system, let us remedy that failing. If Home Office bureaucracy is the failing, let us deal with it, but let us not visit the sins of the Home Office and our systems in recent years on the sons and daughters of people who come to this country because we have a reputation for being a defender of human rights.

The reasons why people come here may vary and depend on where they come from, but those people should expect the same service and upholding of rights as the rest of us. It is a theological and a civic moral premise that the way in which we deal with the least of our brethren—those with least resources and ability to look after themselves—is the way in which we should be judged and expect to be dealt with ourselves.

The new clauses are profoundly wrong, as are existing parts of the Bill. I hope that they will receive significant opposition in the Lobby.

David Cameron (Conservative, Witney)

I want briefly to speak to new clauses 14 and 15. It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), although he tends to speak expansively on these subjects, so that, like many liberals down the ages, I feel that I am being pushed towards the guillotine.

I agree fundamentally with what my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) said about our desire to unpack the new clauses, although I respect what the Home Secretary said about the oversight committee considering the assessment of countries. That will help, although we wish that it went further. I want to make two points and ask a question. Before I do so, I want to say how depressing it is to see such fundamental proposals coming before us with so little time for consideration.

I did not serve on the Committee, so I come fresh to many parts of the Bill. There are just 12, or perhaps 24, hours to consider fundamental provisions that appear to take whole classes of people out of the ability to appeal and to represent huge attempts to limit the relevance of the Human Rights Act 1998 and other legislation. That is difficult to get to grips with. I have been relying on what the Minister for Social Exclusion said on "Question Time" on television to understand some of the beliefs that lie behind the provisions. If the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), who is a great expert in this area, finds it hard to understand, what hope is there for the rest of us?

On the first of my two points, the new clauses are not much use without bilateral agreements, especially with France. Will the Minister say more about the timetable for securing that bilateral agreement? It is no good being able to send people back to the safe country from which they came—in many cases, France—if that agreement is not in place. What plans do the Government have for bilateral agreements with other countries that asylum seekers are using as a jumping-off point?

Secondly, the new clauses seem, in the most negative way, to invite judicial review. Subsection (3) of new clause 14 states:

"A person who is in the United Kingdom may not bring an appeal to which this section applies . . . if the Secretary of State certifies that—. . .

(b) there is no reason to believe that the person's rights under the Human Rights Convention will be breached in that country."

That is almost begging the courts to take a different view from that of the Home Secretary. That is likely to lead to many judicial reviews. How much of the Bill will survive? How much time has been put into thinking about it in the Home Office? We certainly have little time to consider it now.

My question is aimed at clarifying the drafting of subsection (5) of new clause 14 and subsection (6) of new clause 15, which deal with out-of-country appeals. They say that the appeal

"shall be considered as if he"—

that is, the asylum seeker—

"had not been removed from the United Kingdom".

Is there any intention behind using exactly those words? Someone who has come from France—say, from Sangatte—was in a safe country and should have applied for asylum in that safe country. If they should not have been here in the first place to apply for asylum, why should they have an out-of-country appeal? Do the words that I quoted mean that the person can claim legal aid and other rights?

The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey explained the Shah case with his usual great power and vigour. The weakness of his argument is that saying that in every circumstance the right route for asylum applications is appeal, further appeal and judicial review—a highly judicial process—means that we need to work out what element of asylum applications should be an administrative process and what element should be a judicial process. There may be a strong case for saying that women who come from Pakistan or certain other countries should be seen as asylum seekers because of the way in which women are treated in those countries, but the Government should make a proposal about that, which we can debate in the House. This is where the decision about the framework should be made—it should not always be made, as it is currently, through very long judicial proceedings. That is one of the reasons why the system is getting so clogged up and our constituents think that we are incapable of dealing with the problem.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I accept the general proposition that many of us support the European Union's work towards a common basis of definition. As yet, France, Germany and the UK do not have the same definition of who qualifies for asylum. If we could reach that level, some of the difficulties would not exist and it would be much easier for the first decisions to be the right ones, so there would be far fewer appeals.

David Cameron (Conservative, Witney)

I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but if we believe that the issue should be determined fundamentally in a judicial context, the courts can take a different view, despite a common agreement.

I have already taken five minutes but I should be grateful if the Minister could clarify the mysteriously worded subsection (5) of new clause 14.

Angela Watkinson (Conservative, Upminster)

I want to speak briefly about the refugee convention, which new clause 14(4)(b) mentions. The provision relates to a person being removed from the United Kingdom to a place that is specified as safe,

"from which a person will not be sent to another country otherwise than in accordance with the Refugee Convention."

Can we be confident that the convention is adequate to deal with the issue? I am not familiar with all its provisions. How binding is it? Is it the only agreement with other countries or have other arrangements been made under which we would be likely to send people to other countries to have their appeals heard? Is not independent country assessment required to enable us to produce a safe list on which we could all rely and thus know that people would not be sent on to a country that was unsafe for them?

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

I want to speak briefly about the amendments that we have tabled in the group. I share the sadness of many hon. Members that, yet again, we shall not debate more than a small proportion of what we should discuss.

I want to speak about amendments Nos. 7, 8, 9, 155, 156, 157, 158 and 159. I assure those who believe that that is a mouthful that they are short and almost identical. They relate to clause 80, which was clause 74, and is entitled "Earlier right of appeal". It troubled many members of the Committee that considered the Bill, including my hon. Friends the Members for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) and for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Barker). I am pleased that they are in their places. It also troubled the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) and one or two Labour Back-Bench Members. I recall contributions from the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) and for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz).

The amendments would substitute "an adjudicator" for

"the Secretary of State or an immigration officer"

throughout clause 80. Why did the clause trouble us? For the first time, an essentially legal process could take place without the involvement of the judiciary. The provision relates to appeals under clause 66(1). Clause 66 is a general provision that determines what an immigration decision means. It defines several immigration decisions and refers to "an adjudicator". In simple terms, clause 80 provides:

"An appeal . . . against an immigration decision . . . may not be brought . . . if the Secretary of State or an immigration officer certifies"

that it cannot be brought. Let us analyse what that means in practice.

The words are plain. The clause means that a junior caseworker can make a decision and certify that an appeal cannot be made against it. Such a decision could be wholly contrary to the interests of the applicant. How can it be the end of the story when a junior caseworker makes a decision, then a certification? The appellant would never see a judicial person.

There is a point of principle involved here: the taking of powers out of the hands of the judges and putting them into the hands of the state is something to be avoided whenever possible. Quite a number of respected non-governmental organisations thought that clause 80 was unfair and wrong in principle. The debate that we had on, I think, 21 May illustrated just that. One or more of the NGOs have pointed out that the clause made the Secretary of State judge and jury in his own cause.

I asked the Minister during that debate whether it could really be right that a junior caseworker could make a decision and then say, "I certify that this decision cannot be appealed against to any judicial person." I asked why an amendment could not be tabled allowing the same certification to be made by an adjudicator rather than the caseworker. The response that I received from the Minister was that if such an amendment were allowed, it would take up more of the adjudicator's time. That is exactly what it would do, but what is wrong with that? Adjudicators are meant to spend time deciding tricky legal issues, and more and more are being appointed. It is not on for the Minister simply to respond by saying that this would be administratively inconvenient.

Let us look again at exactly what clause 80 is telling us. It says that a junior official, who is not qualified, can make a decision and then certify that that decision cannot be appealed against on the grounds there set out. That is what the clause says. That is the end of the story, so far as any judicial involvement is concerned. Is there anybody in the House of Commons who thinks that that approach is fair?

Who are these junior caseworkers who will make the certifications? The clause also mentions the Secretary of State, and I would be happy if he made them personally, but the task will be delegated. He will never know about them; nor will other Ministers. Dozens of certifications will be made by people who are not judges. Do they have to be qualified lawyers? No, they do not. Do they have to have had considerable training? No, they do not. What training have they had? Does anybody know? Does anybody in the Chamber tonight know exactly what legal or other training a junior caseworker has had? If so, will they intervene on me, and tell me whether they are entirely happy that those junior caseworkers are fully qualified to make a decision that could almost be a matter of life and death, so far as the applicant is concerned?

Iain Coleman (Labour, Hammersmith and Fulham)

I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and he has made a compelling case for opposing the clauses before us this evening. Bearing in mind all that he has said, and the strong case that he has made, will he tell the House why he and his hon. Friends will be voting with the Government this evening?

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

The short answer to that is that, quite often in life, we look to the other place to make progress on our behalf. We often find clauses in a Bill, or clauses that are given to us rather later, with which we agree in part, but with which, in principle, we might have some problems, no problems or a lot of problems. Those matters are not as simple as that, and the truth is that, on appeals, the Government are dealing with certain issues on which we offer some support and sympathy for their approach while on others we remain unhappy.

The hon. Gentleman will share my unhappiness with the fact that the new clauses and some matters that we are discussing tonight landed on our desks yesterday afternoon. That is no way to do business. He is a man who approaches those topics with some knowledge and expertise, but here I am, trying to tell the Government in 10 minutes or so that I do not feel happy that vital decisions under clause 80 that will affect the welfare of someone who has a right of appeal may be taken by someone who simply is not qualified to make the decision. That troubles me immensely.

I return to a point that was reinforced by much of what the hon. Member for Walthamstow said. Were we to keep our eye on the ball, we would consider whether existing procedures in this country work well and efficiently. It is no good legislating year after year—there have been four Bills in the past nine years. What use is legislation when the basic workings out there in our immigration and asylum system are not functioning properly? I could talk for 10 hours or 10 weeks and it would not make a ha'p'orth of difference to what happens outside. [Interruption.] The Home Secretary is being very kind to me. On that note, I ought to quit while the going is good, but I must say to the House that fundamental administrative points in our system need looking at.

We need to watch out. It is unfortunate that a clause will allow a junior caseworker to make a decision and to certify it, saying, "You can't appeal against it, chum." How much better it would be if the powers to be given to the junior caseworker were given to an adjudicator. That would enable the principle that it is wrong to take powers from the judges and give them to the state to remain intact. I hope that, even now, the Government will take what I say seriously and consider taking steps, perhaps in the other place rather than under my amendment, to reassure not just me and my hon. Friends, but Members across the House of Commons who felt such concern about the provision when it was debated what seems like 10 years ago, but was, I think, only about 10 days ago.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I shall try to respond to the points that hon. Members have made, but clearly we shall have further debates on new clauses 14 and 15. We have listened carefully to the comments and, I acknowledge, the genuine concerns that Members have raised tonight about parts of those provisions. The hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) began by claiming that it is difficult to judge whether a case is clearly unfounded and that the decision should not be taken by a junior official. I am concerned that that term has become common parlance among Opposition Members. In fact, those who make the decisions are experienced and concerned people. They want to make the right decision on the basis of the best available evidence. It does them a disservice to dismiss them as junior officials or junior caseworkers.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

I want to emphasise that I accept absolutely that the people making the decisions, like other civil servants in the UK, are trying to do the best job they can and, no doubt, they acquire in the course of their work a certain amount of expertise and understanding. That is not being challenged. However, they do not carry the same weight as a judge, which is why we have a system of adjudication.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) asked for clarification, and other hon. Members rehearsed the same question. In relation to clearly unfounded cases—mentioned in subsection (2) of new clause 14—return would be to a person's own country, or country of origin. In third-country cases, removal, by definition, would be not to that person's own country but to a third country.

I emphasise—we ought to keep this at the forefront of our minds—that the certification that would be allowed under the clauses would be discretionary and that certification would not be made in relation to any country regarded as unsafe.

The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes)—

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

rose—

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I was about to deal with some of the points that the hon. Gentleman made, but I shall take an intervention now.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I know that the Minister has been in her job for only a week, but have she and the Home Secretary decided how the definition of safe country will be arrived at? We used to have a white list. What will be the difference between the new way of defining a safe country and the old way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

My right hon. Friend made it clear that we will not have a list, but we are sympathetic to the points that are being made about the documentation, which is valid—many other countries draw on our process of assessment. We must ensure that the documentation used to assess the situation in countries is perceived as being robust and as independent as possible.

The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey mentioned social groups and women. As the Home Secretary said, social group is one of the factors that will be taken into account. Female genital mutilation was also mentioned; obviously such cases would not be regarded as being clearly unfounded. There is no argument about that.

I regret the linkage that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey made between this Bill—in terms of process and also in terms of substance—and anti-terrorism legislation. There is no link whatever in our minds.

Notwithstanding the concerns to which I have listened, some of the issues that the clause is designed to deal with arise from the kind of cases that, if we are honest, we all deal with in our advice surgeries. We know from the stories that people bring to us, and from the accounts of their circumstances and where they come from, that their claims are unfounded. That raises the legitimate question as to whether, in those circumstances, that person should continue to be maintained here while appealing. It is a question not of denying the right of appeal, but of whether the person should remain here while the appeal goes through. The Home Secretary and I are not into macho posturing. We think that the new clauses raise important issues. There might be disagreement about the solutions proposed in them, but the issues need to be discussed.

David Winnick (Labour, Walsall North)

We know the background, with people with claims of little or no merit appealing time and again, but is my hon. Friend aware that some of us, including Opposition spokesmen, remain uneasy? I would be happier if there were a double check. Perhaps the matter will be raised in another place. We should not have only one official—junior or otherwise, but it certainly will not be a very senior official—deciding that the case is unfounded. The decision should certainly go to another official, higher up the chain. My unease may be totally unjustified, but I had better express my view now.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

As the debate unfolds, various measures and solutions may be proposed that will provide some reassurance on the concerns that have been expressed, while still allowing us to make progress.

I do not recognise the figures on judicial review given by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey. I would be interested to know where he got them. My information is that, in the year up to March 2002, 3,200 cases were dealt with and 441 applications were granted, which is an average of 14 per cent. Perhaps that can be clarified in another place.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

Whatever arguments we may have, they should not be about the figures, which I took from a parliamentary answer on 19 April 2002, at column 1260W. They are ministerial figures given only six weeks ago to Members of Parliament.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I need to be clear about the time scale to which the figures relate and whether we are talking about the same thing. Judicial review outcomes are clearly significant for this debate, and we need to get the figures absolutely right.

The hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) asked about new clause 14(5). Legal aid will be available if the appeal is from a third country, subject to the usual merit and eligibility tests. It is a drafting measure to ensure that the adjudicator considers whether the appellant is a refugee.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the bilateral agreement timetable. The Home Secretary said today that, as the French elections conclude, we should try to make progress on the matter. Towards the end of May, Mr. Sarkozy made a statement warmly welcoming the approach that we are taking and expressing a desire to work with us to establish a bilateral agreement. We can be optimistic about making progress on a reasonable time scale.

The hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) referred to independent country assessment. We are sympathetic to the need to strengthen the perception that assessment is robust and rigorous, and as independent as possible.

Many of the provisions in the new clauses do not break new ground, either here in the UK or in Europe. The idea of having fast-track systems for manifestly or clearly unfounded claims is not uncommon in Europe, and indeed several countries do not have automatically suspensive appeals for such claims. That is the case in Denmark, Germany, France and Finland, for example. Obviously, an unfounded claim is not defined in legislation; none the less, case law exists and our courts are familiar with cases that fall into that category. I am not presenting those arguments to hon. Members as a validation of the principle of non-suspensive appeals; I am simply saying that the argument that the principle is far removed from reality is not itself valid.

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Perth)

The Minister says that, putting to one side the debate about the validity of the provisions in principle, they are not far removed from existing legislative precedent. If so, why were they tabled at the eleventh hour?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

As my right hon. Friend has made clear, we had to relate the provisions to our own legal system and obtain the legal advice necessary to ensure that what we tabled could withstand the robustness of our law.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

In the light of the Minister's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) about the availability of legal aid for appellants in foreign countries, have the Government assessed the additional legal cost of making such appeals from abroad? Given that foreign law firms will be used, an additional cost will presumably be incurred.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

We will deal with such issues as we progress through the Bill.

The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) spoke softly and persuasively on clause 80. Although an extensive debate took place in Committee—I have read it—I am afraid that he still does not fully appreciate the current position or the proposal. As we said in Committee, clause 80 simply builds on existing legislation. Perhaps he does not realise that the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 introduced the one-stop procedure for appeals—a measure that enjoyed support on both sides of the House. It provides for each asylum seeker to have one, and only one, substantive appeal. During such an appeal, all other grounds that an applicant may have for wishing to remain in this country must be raised. To ensure that the system could work, sections 73 and 76 of the 1999 Act introduced certification in exactly the way referred to in clause 80. Section 73 applies if an appeal is dismissed and an applicant raises grounds that they knew about, and which they could, and should, have raised earlier.

As I said, in 1999 agreement was reached in Standing Committee that the one-stop procedure was the right way forward. I should point out to the hon. Gentleman that the form of certification arising from the 1999 Act has been shown to work. Since October 2000, some 700 applications have been certified—by the officials about whom he is rather disparaging—to effect removal. Only three applications for judicial review of those certifications have been made. Two were refused permission on the papers, one was refused after an oral hearing, and no substantive hearings have challenged those certifications. There can be no better evidence that the concerns expressed then and now are completely unfounded.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

When I told Ministers in Standing Committee that the procedure constituted a departure, the point was not denied. Indeed, the current scenario used not to exist. Under the terms of the clause, an appellant might never have seen an adjudicator—end of story.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

That situation might, in theory, arise, but I shall go through the process with the hon. Gentleman and show how clause 80 will build on the current provision. A person submits a claim, having been served with notice on more than one occasion that all the reasons to support the claim must be included in it. An initial decision is then made. Let us suppose that the claim is refused. That decision goes to appeal. It is only in circumstances in which an asylum seeker chooses at that point not to appeal or absconds, and then returns to try to make a fresh application, that it is possible to certify on grounds included in the 1999 Act that the person has already exhausted their access to a right of appeal.

We do not oppose the Opposition amendments because they would take up adjudicators' time, although they would: we oppose them because they would start to unravel the one-stop appeal process and would, in effect, allow another consideration by an adjudicator of the case of someone who had already gone through the process once, and submitted a fresh application. If that case was not then certified by the Home Secretary or an official and went to an adjudicator, there would be another appeal, which would cut across the procedure that we have all agreed in principle—that there should be one, and only one, substantive appeal.

I hope that on that basis the hon. Member for Woking can accept that we are not introducing new principles. We are building on what is already working well and what his party largely agreed when we discussed the process in proceedings on the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. There are no new principles included in the new clauses and, therefore, we oppose the Opposition amendments. They would start to chip away at a procedure to which we have all agreed.

New Clause 15 — Appeal from within United Kingdom: unfounded human rights or asylum claim: transitional provision

Clause 80 — Earlier Right of Appeal

Clause 81 — National security, &c.

Clause 82 — Other grounds of public good

Clause 85 — Appeal to Tribunal

Clause 94 — Regulations, &c.

Schedule 6 — Immigration and asylum appeals: consequential amendments