Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill

House of Commons, 5 November 2002.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that hon. Members want to get on with the substantive debate, since we have a guillotine, to which we agreed because we have limited time. We are not comfortable with it but we accept it in the circumstances. I want to register an anxiety on which you may be able to reflect.

I understand the pressures on the Home Secretary and I do not make a personal criticism of him, but is it desirable for Government amendments to Lords amendments to be tabled in the last few minutes of the previous day's proceedings? The few hours since the Vote Office opened this morning constituted our only opportunity to take advice on them. We all understand end-of-term pressures, but perhaps you could suggest that it would be at least helpful, if not the norm, to have earlier notice, especially of Government amendments to a Government Bill.

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's views. It is up to Ministers to look into the matter but we can do nothing about it today.

I draw the attention of the House to the fact that privilege is involved in Lords amendments Nos. 24, 36, 37, 40, 48, 84 to 86, 99, 102, 179, 190, 214, 215 and 276, which are to be considered today. If the House agrees to these Lords amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the journal.

Clause 4 — Deprivation of Citizenship

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

With this, we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 13, 14 and Government amendment (a) thereto, 15 and 237.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

This may be the only moment of anonymity—

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

Surely not.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I mean unanimity. I must get my vowels, if nothing else, the right way round. The amendment forms part of a broader thrust in the Bill to try to ensure that we build trust at home and are therefore in a better position to welcome those from around the world who are either fleeing death and torture, seeking economic refuge or have rights that they want to exercise. We want to try to ensure that they receive a warm welcome in this country. The amendment seeks to achieve that.

We are talking here about righting an historical wrong, in terms of what happened back in the late 1960s and early 1980s in regard to British overseas citizens, protected persons and British subjects. Those three groups found themselves in an anomalous situation, and on 4 July I said that I wished to put right that anomaly for British overseas citizens. In October, I said that I wished to do the same for protected persons and British subjects. The amendment seeks to clarify the third of the requirements relating to the action or inaction of the individuals in respect of their citizenship elsewhere in the world. We are amending that third point to apply to those who have, in those circumstances, given up citizenship of another country since 4 July.

That date was chosen because that was when we made our first indication of the change, and because we do not want those whose cases date from before then to be discriminated against or disqualified simply by the accident of the circumstances in which they find themselves. This will avoid disqualifying people who, through no fault of their own, did not know, for example, that their inaction would disqualify them from citizenship in their country of origin. The measure will also protect those who believed that they could use the special voucher scheme, which is now defunct.

This small amendment to the Lords amendment will ensure that we do not put people in an anomalous position, and will allow us to welcome those who have found themselves excluded for many years. I hope that the House will put that right this afternoon.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

The Home Secretary is, uncharacteristically, being too pessimistic. There could be quite a lot of agreement in the House this afternoon, because I am glad to say that, after a certain amount of huffing and puffing in the media, the Government appear to have made splendid concessions on a range of issues that had concerned us. I suspect that there will be many instances of agreement, or, at any rate, of the Opposition coming to meet the Government half way. Indeed, with one exception, I do not expect us to be at loggerheads. In relation to these particular amendments, all that we have to say is that we have agreed with them and we continue to do so.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

I think that I may have provoked the Home Secretary's remark about unanimity. It is rare for me to get up in debates on immigration and asylum to congratulate the Home Secretary, but I would like to take this opportunity to do so. I would also like to thank him for introducing to the Bill in the Lords—and further amending it to improve it—amendments that mean that the most racialist underpinning of Britain's immigration and nationality laws is about to be swept away. For me, this is important not only because I have been campaigning against racism in immigration and nationality law for almost the whole 35 years for which these measures have existed, but because I represent the town of Slough, and my two predecessors as Labour MPs for the town both opposed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968. Many people thereafter chose to agree with them, with the benefit of hindsight, but Joan Lestor and Fenner Brockway were two of the very few Labour Members of Parliament who opposed that legislation at the time.

With the House's permission, I would like to read out a few words that Joan spoke—at 7am, I might add, after an all-night debate; I am glad that those are a thing of the past, too. She said:

XThe Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary are not racialists. We all say that we are not, yet we pass legislation which is what those who speak with racialist tongues want us to pass. Until we fight on the grounds of equality, we shall never further our race relations." —[Official Report, 28 February 1968; Vol. 759, c. 1710.]

I believe that she was right, and we should bear those words in mind as we consider the Bill and all our legislation.

Since the 1968 Act, we have had seven Bills on immigration, asylum and nationality, and every time we debate them racial attacks in our constituencies increase, because by using the huge mechanism of legislation to focus on abuses and problems, we make people with racialist thoughts think they are justified. I urge the Home Secretary to consider that we should put our energy not into new legislation but into making sure that we can manage and arrange the delivery of existing legislation so that people can have confidence in the integrity of the system. It is time to stop writing laws that inevitably are devised for the tiny handful of people who are cheats and therefore cause injustice for the honest majority. We must ensure that we make our existing laws work. If we do that, as well as agreeing to this amendment, we will have done something worth while today.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I hope that the Home Secretary has not been carried away by the wave of unanimity, rather than anonymity, that he has inspired this afternoon. It is important to place on the record our appreciation of these minor amendments. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have come late to the Bill, having had other responsibilities, but I have read very carefully the debates in another place and elsewhere. As well as the minor amendments that form the majority of this group we wholly welcome the more substantive changes in Lords amendment No. 14, Government amendment (a) and Lords amendment No. 15.

I pay tribute not only to the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who has again demonstrated her excellent record on these matters, but to my noble Friend Lord Dholakia, who put forward a cogent argument on behalf of those who would have been disadvantaged by the Bill. The Home Secretary has listened, particularly to the arguments about those Kenyans who might have been disadvantaged by the abrupt and precipitate end to the voucher system, and he has done something about it, for which we thank him.

On Lords amendment No. 15, arguments were adduced in another place by my noble Friend Lord Avebury about a minor but significant area of discrimination in the Bill. If I may express disappointment without shattering the unanimity, I echo the remarks of Lord Avebury about a further small step that should have been taken: the removal of the qualification date of 7 February 1961 from the amendment. That would have removed an inequality for a small and finite number of individuals and put paid to the last vestige of discrimination in the Bill.

The Home Secretary has not been able to go the extra mile. I would be churlish if I did not thank him for the amendments that he has already accepted, and I hope that he will reconsider that point so that we will not discriminate between, for example, siblings born either side of a watershed date. We should ensure that future legislation on these matters, like Lords amendment No. 15, contains neither racial nor sexual discrimination. We welcome the amendments.

Lords amendment agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 13 agreed to.

Lords amendment No. 14 and Government amendment (a) thereto agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 15 and 237 agreed to.

Clause 14 — Establishment of Centres

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendments Nos. 18, 19 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, 20 and amendment (a) and the Government motion to disagree thereto, 21 to 24, 25 and amendments (a) and (b) and Government motion to disagree thereto, 26 and Government motion to disagree thereto and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu, 27, 28 and Government amendments (a) and (b) thereto, 29 to 37, 38 and Government motion to disagree thereto and Government amendments (a) to (e) to the words so restored, 39 and Government motion to disagree thereto and Government amendment (a) to the words so restored, 40, 41 and Government motion to disagree thereto, 42 and Government motion to disagree thereto, 43 and 44 and Government motion to disagree thereto.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

We are about to debate an issue that is of great concern to many Members across the House. I hope that hon. Members will find it helpful if I take a little time—not too much, as many Members will want to speak—to set out our position. We need to address a number of specific issues on accommodation centres.

The Lords amendment provides that an accommodation centre shall be established only when the Secretary of State is satisfied that the proposed location is suitable to the needs of the persons to be accommodated therein. Clearly, great attention has been focused on accommodation centres. I shall set out what we are hoping to achieve with the trial of accommodation centres.

First and foremost, we all share the view that our asylum system must be fast, effective, efficient and fair. We believe that that can be achieved only if asylum seekers know what is expected of them, so we must keep in close contact with them and they with us. Secondly, we need to do that in a way that reduces pressure in the system and on local services. That is another important principle underlying our decision to trial accommodation centres, and why we wanted to provide facilities on site as part of the new centres.

The accommodation centre trial is necessary to enable us to test the extent to which such centres can contribute to a more efficient management of the asylum process, while taking pressure off hard-pressed local services, particularly in the south-east and our main dispersal areas. I hope that Members will agree that the need for the trial is both clear and increasingly urgent. It is an essential part of our policy on asylum.

In the first instance, so that the trial could be effective, we decided to develop large out-of-town facilities that could be self-contained, thus allowing on-site provision of services to be thoroughly tested. In choosing sites, we look principally to previously Government-owned land. We are committed to developing trial centres in such locations, and for that reason we are vigorously pursuing our proposals for centres with 750 places at Bicester and the former RAF Newton.

In another place, we were challenged about location and accused of pushing on regardless of the points put to us. Lady Anelay argued that the amendment to clause 14 was necessary because

Xthere is no incentive on the face of the Bill to provide the Government with the opportunity to trial different types of accommodation centre"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 October 2002; Vol. 639, c. 315.]

We have listened carefully to what has been said in both Houses and by others, and we have accepted the need for the trial to include different models. Indeed, the Home Secretary and I made exactly that point—not recently in response to the House of Lords debate, but more than a month ago to the Select Committee on Home Affairs.

I can announce today, as testimony to that commitment, that at least one of the trial centres will be smaller, for single men only. That will allow us to test the alternative approach against the larger centres to which I have referred. It may be that such a centre, because of its smaller size, can be in or on the edge of an urban area. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will welcome that, as well as organisations such as the Refugee Council.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I welcome what my hon. Friend has said. Has she seen the model proposed by the Refugee Council for a core-and-cluster centre? What does she think of it? Might she proceed down those lines?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

My hon. Friend anticipates my next point. I have met representatives of the Refugee Council, who gave a presentation on their core-and-cluster model. I spoke to the general secretary again today.

I have given a commitment, in saying that we want to go on working with the Refugee Council on its alternative cluster-based proposal. I think that it has some interesting possibilities. There are issues on which we do not currently agree, but both sides are committed to trying to resolve them. I enter the negotiations in that genuine spirit.

I can also announce today that I have decided not to pursue our proposal for a centre at Throckmorton airfield as part of the trial. Although I consider the site itself to be suitable, we have not been able to settle satisfactorily the necessary land acquisition arrangements that would allow it to be developed within an acceptable time for the purposes of the trial. That issue needs to be evaluated urgently. I will make announcements on potential new sites in due course.

Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

I hope that I will be able to speak later, but it would be wrong for me not to express my gratitude to the Minister at this point. A huge sense of relief will sweep through the community of Throckmorton, which has already borne a great deal for the rest of us. May I invite the Minister also to acknowledge what the Home Secretary was generous enough to acknowledge—that the campaign waged by the people of Throckmorton was strictly anti-racist, and not at all motivated by nimbyism?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I risk introducing a note of discord but my conversations with the elected leaders and representatives of people at Throckmorton were cordial, courteous and in no way racist.

I hope that the three elements of my announcement today will convince hon. Members that there is scope for flexibility in the trial—the Home Secretary and I have been committed to that for some time—that I am serious about having flexibility in the models that we trial, and that there is scope within the arrangements that are in place at the moment to incorporate flexibility.

Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Rushcliffe)

I thank the Minister for showing flexibility in looking at the form of future accommodation centres, but now that she is prepared to look at smaller centres near urban areas, which have been urged upon her by everyone with an interest in the proper handling of asylum applications and by a large number of other interests across the political spectrum, will she set aside the proposal to proceed with the large accommodation centres in isolated rural areas, which so far as I am aware would still attract universal condemnation? Why spend all that money on the large rural camps when she is prepared to contemplate testing the kind of accommodation centre that everyone has been urging upon the Government for the past six months?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I am sorry but I cannot go as far as the right hon. and learned Gentleman would like me to go in that regard. I have made it clear that we want the trial to include a mixture, a range of models. The advantage of having a site for one classification of person—for example, for single people—is that the range of facilities that we would need to provide on that site would arguably be less than if we had a large mixture of people, particularly if we included families. That is part of the reason why we can contemplate a smaller site. The range of services that will need to be provided on that site will not be as great as that for other types of asylum seekers. Because I want to retain a mixture and because we are in the process of a planning inquiry on those two other sites, I cannot give him the assurance that he wants but I hope that other hon. Members will take comfort from the fact that we want it to be a genuine trial and are looking to have a mixture of models in our arrangements.

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Perth)

Can the hon. Lady indicate what the size of the smaller site for, for example, single males will be?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I cannot give the exact size, but I would have thought that the site would accommodate about 400 people, as opposed to 750 people at the other sites. I would not want to be held exactly to that.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The Throckmorton announcement will be welcomed but I would like to push the Minister. Has she concluded that there should be a smaller centre or is she just thinking about it? Her colleagues in the Lords were thinking about it and we had hoped that by now the Government would have said that there would be one. Does she believe that all centres should be able to meet the test in amendment No. 17, and do the two original sites that have been publicly announced meet the appropriate location test in the judgment of the Secretary of State?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I will deal with the latter point in talking about the amendment. On the first point, as I have announced, subject to the practicalities of real life—of finding a site and all that—we will have a smaller centre and that will be one of the models in the trial.

The amendment would open up scope for challenge to the location of an accommodation centre in all sorts of ways and from all sorts of sources, particularly by way of judicial review, so we cannot accept it. It would create the possibility of delay and uncertainty before and after planning consent has been secured, and, indeed, throughout the entire life of each centre. The Government have made it clear that we will abide by the planning process, and by the outcome of any public inquiry. That is both fair and democratic, but we do not believe that a further avenue should be created. Such an avenue might be exploited by those who seek to avoid the creation of an accommodation centre in their area, or the provision of support in such a centre.

When introducing Lords amendment No. 17 in the other place, the Opposition made it clear that their resistance to siting accommodation centres related to rural areas. They welcomed the concept of centres and our trialling of such an approach—perhaps not surprisingly, since their previous policy was to detain all asylum seekers in secure conditions. However, for the reasons that I have outlined, I hope that the House agrees that the amendment is unnecessary.

Michael Spicer (Conservative, West Worcestershire)

I am delighted by the decision on Throckmorton, and my constituents—particularly those living in Pershore, which is two or three miles from the proposed site—will be especially delighted. However, is the Minister now saying that the needs of asylum seekers who will be residents of such centres should not be taken into account? If those needs should be taken into account, surely the whole matter should be subject to judicial review. What is the point, therefore, in keeping the provision off the statute book?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The amendment refers to suitability and, as the hon. Gentleman makes clear, tries to link it to need. In terms of what is provided within the centre, we are clearly very concerned about meeting asylum seekers' needs, and ensuring that, in doing so, we can progress claims in the best and fastest possible way. However, that point does not relate to the question of suitability of location, which is the aspect of the amendment that I do not want to accept.

I turn to length of stay and Lords amendments Nos. 19, 25 and 26. Under the terms of Lords amendment No. 19, a person could be supported in an accommodation centre for a maximum of four months only, unless there were Xexceptional circumstances". I am sure that there are no differences among Members—certainly not among Government Members—on the primary objective of establishing a fair and fast asylum process. We have made it clear throughout the Bill's passage that we are committed to faster processing, which will form a key part of the evaluation of accommodation centres. We want asylum seekers to be supported in an accommodation centre throughout the process of initial decision and subsequent appeal, but at this stage we do not believe it sensible to include in the Bill a four-month time limit.

Since coming to power in 1997, we have made significant progress in processing: about 70 per cent. of initial decisions in new applications are now made within two months. However, we must remember that existing statutory limits for appeal rights—which take into account practice directions issued by the chief adjudicator, irrespective of Government—would make a total limit of four months, including the appeal process, impossible to achieve in a manner fair to the applicant. At the moment, a substantive appeal hearing before an adjudicator will not be given less than seven weeks from the date of receipt of an appeal in respect of standard track cases. If we accepted a four-month time limit at this stage, we would run the risk of allowing all those seeking leave to appeal to the tribunal to leave the accommodation centre. Most such cases would involve those whose claim had been refused and where the decision was upheld by an adjudicator. They are precisely the people with most to gain by leaving the centre, with its tighter contact management arrangements.

We are all committed to the same principle of speedy decision making and we all agree that it is in nobody's interest for asylum seekers to spend long periods waiting for their claims to be determined. However, I wish to make it clear that I do not accept the argument that the accommodation centres will be bad places in which to be supported: they will not.

In the light of the amendment made in the other place, and discussion about the issue, we have, as hon. Members will know, brought forward a revision that gives a clear indication of our intentions and provides the assurances that are being sought. Our amendment will mean that a resident will remain in an accommodation centre for a maximum of six months, unless in the particular circumstances of the case the Home Secretary decides that it is appropriate that the person should remain for a short time longer. If the Home Secretary does decide that, it will be for a maximum of a further three months.

We have also provided for an order, which will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, to be made allowing Parliament to shorten—only shorten—either or both of the six-month and additional three-month periods. That is a clear indication that we are not just saying that we will accept that those limits are as good as it gets. What that says is that we will continue to do all we can to drive down processing times in the way that we have done since 1997 to secure a speedy, fair and credible system that commands people's confidence.

The amendment made in the other place recognises that there will be exceptions, and our amendment follows that logic. There will be cases, for example, in which somebody is due to receive a determination shortly after the six-month time limit and it would make sense to require the person to remain for that short period beyond six months rather than to subject them—and the process—to upheaval. Of course, the intention will be to complete as many cases as possible, end to end, within the initial six months in the accommodation centre. However, some cases are particularly complex and documentation for them needs to be obtained from overseas or from other organisations. In other cases, the asylum seekers themselves may have delayed the process. In those instances, it is sensible to ensure that we have the capacity to require the applicant to remain for a short while longer in the accommodation centre.

Furthermore, our amendment ensures that somebody may remain in an accommodation centre beyond the six-month period if they want to. Whatever views some appear to have about accommodation centres, our aim is to make them supportive environments where people will feel secure and where their needs will be met. It would make no sense to require someone to leave when they wished to stay.

The remaining amendments with which we are disagreeing—Lords amendments Nos. 41, 42 and 44—are consequential.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The Minister's announcement about time limits will be widely welcomed. Her announcement that the Government are willing to contemplate bringing the time limits down is also welcome. I am grateful that the Liberal Democrats' suggestions that we cannot reach our intended destination immediately, and that exceptions to the best practice should be allowed—such as permitting extensions to stays of a few more months—have been accepted, after passing between the Chambers. Am I right in thinking that the final package will apply to all people in accommodation centres, because that is slightly different from the original Government acceptance, which applied to families only? If that is the case, we will be entirely satisfied with the Government's proposal and will not push our four-month proposal this afternoon.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention. As he has already deduced from the amendments, I confirm that the new amendment composites various suggestions, in that it applies to any resident of the accommodation centre, not just families with children. In the spirit of the progress that we have already made in reducing the time taken to deal with claims, I hope that the House will accept the Government's amendments.

The amendments on length of stay in accommodation centres are also relevant to some of the concerns that hon. Members have about education provision on site. I recognise that this is a key issue for many hon. Members. I share the position on which they base their views and from which their concerns arise—that, although we need to establish a good asylum system, the main priority is the best interests of the child.

The amendments accepted in the Lords have deleted the provisions in the Bill ensuring on-site education. Amendment (a) tabled by the Liberal Democrats to Lords amendment No. 20 would allow the local education authority to choose whether the education should take place in the accommodation centre or local schools. I am grateful to Liberal Democrat Members for their kindness in showing the amendment to me and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary before the debate, but there is a problem with its drafting. As drafted, amendment (a) would make the LEA the arbiter of whether a child could be placed with his or her family in an accommodation centre. That is something that the Government cannot entertain.

I hope that the debate about education issues and the impact on children of being educated in an accommodation centre for a period of time can be based on the reality of what happens to some children now and on an understanding of some of the advantages that will arise from the proposed arrangements. I therefore ask that hon. Members do not think in simple ideological or dogmatic terms. I do not mean to be pejorative, as I know that hon. Members hold very strong views on these matters, but thinking about the best interests of the children involved means that we must think about the reality of the experience faced by many asylum-seeking children, both before their arrival in this country and, sadly, afterwards.

The reality is that not all is rosy for those children in terms of their integration in schools in the dispersal system. We intend to provide those who are given permission to stay here with education geared to their needs. Because that education will be provided in a centre, there is the potential that it will give the children a period of stability and be to their positive advantage. I hope that hon. Members will bear that in mind, for this debate at least.

Iain Coleman (Labour, Hammersmith and Fulham)

Will my hon. Friend give the name of one organisation working with children or refugees that has supported the Government's proposals not to allow asylum-seeker children to go to mainstream schools?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I shall shortly cite the findings of a report from one of the major children's organisations in respect of these matters, but my hon. Friend raises an important point. There is confusion when it comes to distinguishing those children who are refugees—who have been given permission to stay and whose families' claim to be fleeing persecution has been decided in the affirmative—from those children whose claims are still being assessed. Children in the latter category are seeking asylum but have not been granted it. Most of them will not be granted asylum and—as was made clear in the previous debate—they will return within six months to the country from which they have come. We are therefore talking about two categories of children. Focusing on the experience of the children in the two groups is essential if we are to evaluate the current system and the potential advantages of what is being proposed.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

I have a certain amount of difficulty in understanding how the experience of a child could be improved by putting that child in an accommodation centre, however short the stay might be, rather than a mainstream school. However, I was most concerned when my hon. Friend said that the experience of asylum-seeking children has not been entirely rosy. Is she implying that the reception given to those children by the teachers and pupils in our schools is not rosy? If so, what work is she doing with the Department for Education and Skills to ensure that all teachers make it abundantly clear to all indigenous pupils that asylum-seeker children should be welcomed?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

No, I am not implying that at all. Schools and teachers make considerable efforts, often in very difficult circumstances. However, I will deal in a moment with the points that my hon. Friend wants me to address in terms of some of the problems in the current system.

Jon Owen Jones (Labour/Co-operative, Cardiff Central)

I have an asylum unit in my constituency and I visited a number of the schools there both last week and yesterday. They are coping, although with difficulty, and the children are settling in. However, the teachers and head teachers told me that if the throughput of asylum seekers continues as the Government want, so that decisions are made rapidly, primary schools in particular will have difficulties if children enter and then leave after some months, to be replaced by others speaking different languages. It is asking a lot of those small junior schools to cope with such disruption.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution, which dealt with some of the implications for schools and children here. It therefore has a direct bearing on asylum-seeking children as well, and we should be concerned about some of these issues.

John Robertson (Labour, Glasgow Anniesland)

My hon. Friend will be aware that education is a matter devolved to the Scottish Executive, while asylum-seeking is reserved. What consultations has she had with the Scottish Executive?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I have had two meetings with the Deputy Minister for Social Justice in the Scottish Executive—I made a visit to Scotland not long ago and she visited me in London. Discussions on those matters continue.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

No, I should like to make some progress, if my hon. Friend will forgive me.

I would like hon. Members to understand what can happen to asylum-seeking children when they enter the dispersed system. They often undergo an induction process if they come through Dover. Assessing them takes several days—it can take up to a week. Arrangements for dispersal can take some time and they may be in emergency accommodation until that can be arranged. During that time, the children receive no education. There is then the difficulty, in many parts of the country, of finding a place for the child to go. Those three stages can mean that a considerable period elapses between a child entering the country and going to school. That is one impact.

Some children have difficulty in integrating in the first instance. Over the summer, I talked to several asylum-seeking families and went to the accommodation where they were staying. I heard several stories from parents and children about the difficulties that they were still experiencing three or four months on. A young Ethiopian boy is still taunted every day on his way to school. He has one friend in school, another asylum-seeking child. I do not say that that is the norm, but it is not uncommon. The pressures that the current system is creating in some of our most hard-pressed communities means that it is sometimes difficult for the resident population to be as accepting of asylum-seeking families, and for resident children to be as accepting of asylum-seeking children, as we would like them to be.

I want to refer to a report published by Save the Children.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

Will the Minister give way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I want to finish my point; it is an important one.

In September, Save the Children reported on some work that it had undertaken in Glasgow, with examples of the experiences of young asylum seekers in the city. The main findings of the report rightly referred to school being the Xhighlight" in the lives of many young asylum seekers. However, the report detailed the views of children who had been in Glasgow for many, many months and so were fully integrated.

The report dealt with other key issues. It included quotes from children about racial abuse, violence and bullying. The detail of the report showed, tellingly, that to help children to integrate, schools in Glasgow had to provide separate classes for them during the first few weeks of their attendance. Schools then had to work to manage the movement of each child into mainstream classes. That was because the experience of many of those children was traumatic. Their journey to England and their experience when they first arrived created uncertainty. Many children do not speak English sufficiently well to be able to go straight away into a class with other children and make the most of the education that is on offer.

Some people would have us believe that the experience of school is unproblematic and the best possible for children in terms of integration. However, for some children—perhaps for many—that experience is not all that it should be.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

What the Minister described is the norm for many children who are already settled in the United Kingdom. That is what happens every day. It is up to the schools to overcome the problems. Can the hon. Lady give the House a shred of empirical evidence that demonstrates that segregation promotes integration?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The hon. Gentleman's labelling of the experience in an accommodation centre as segregation is unnecessarily pejorative. It is not segregation; all the children will be educated together in the accommodation centre. For children who are then given permission to stay, that will provide a stable and rich educational environment that relates to their greatest needs, especially for English language acquisition, in a way that an inner-city primary school could not hope to achieve.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I am going to make some progress.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

With regret, no; I want to explain what accommodation centres can offer.

Accommodation centres can offer a safe protective environment when people first arrive in the UK. They can offer a sound and decent preparation for mainstream schooling, especially in English. They will offer a high standard of education that will be inspected by Ofsted and will offer the national curriculum.

I draw the attention of Members to the remarks of the bishop-elect of Birmingham, Bishop Sentamu, in a recent radio interview. He said:

XWhat is important when you come to a country where you don't speak the language is to learn English, be able to learn properly and be taught, instead of some places"—

[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) does not like what I am saying and wants to drown me out from a sedentary position, but he will not succeed.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I have been generous in taking interventions, so I will finish the quotation.

The bishop said:

XWhat is important when you come to a country where you don't speak their language is to learn English, be able to learn properly and to be taught instead of some places where you may actually become a victim of other people because they don't understand you. I'd rather there was a caring place than having these refugees who can't speak English suddenly being pushed into the community."

I am not asking hon. Members to assume that the advantages of accommodation centres necessarily meet the needs of every asylum-seeking family or individual. Clearly, most people will still be in the dispersal system. We are talking about a trial involving a maximum of 3,000 people. It seems to me important, however, that we recognise some of the issues with which people arrive in this country, and that there is potential for a different way of meeting and dealing with those needs for us to evaluate.

Gwyn Prosser (Labour, Dover)

Is my hon. Friend aware that during the difficult times that Dover experienced when we were receiving more asylum seekers and asylum-seeking children than we could cope with, local head teachers gathered together and approached me to ask whether a central school could be provided so that interpreting, special needs services and all the other facilities did not have to be provided on three, four, five or six sites?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

My hon. Friend is very well aware as a result of the significant numbers of asylum-seeking families in his constituency of the pressures that schools and communities can experience. He is right to draw our attention to the experience of teachers and schools in his area because it is germane to the debate.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Will the Minister give way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I want to make more progress as I am very aware that other hon. Members want to speak. I will give way in a moment.

My hon. Friend has outlined some of the pressures and issues and, of course, the UK is not alone in facing them. In Denmark, children are educated in accommodation centres rather than in schools. In Spain, the Madrid regional government is introducing an initiative, which will begin early next year, under which liaison centres will be established for migrant children who arrive during an academic year and whose Spanish is not very good. That is not segregation or stigmatisation; it is not putting children's needs second. Crucially, it will not prevent the integration of those who are allowed to stay. Indeed, as I have argued, it will provide a very strong base for that integration to be planned and managed much more comprehensively and in a way that meets the needs of families.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

No, I will not give way on that point.

We are not being inflexible either. The Government amendment makes it clear that, where special circumstances call for provision that can only or best be arranged by the local education authority, the education provider can recommend that to the LEA. That has always been our intention, and we have now made that clear in the Bill.

I believe that the Liberal Democrats' amendment is designed to leave the choice of whether education is provided on site or in the accommodation centre to the LEA. However, as drafted, it would mean that the LEA would allow a family to stay in an accommodation centre only if it felt that it had the capacity to educate the family's children in a maintained school or an alternative educational establishment. Clearly, we cannot accept that amendment because if the LEA decided not to bid to provide the education at a centre and believed that it did not have the capacity to educate the child at a maintained school, we could still not be able to place the child in a centre. The family would need to be supported and we would simply have to support them in a dispersal area where the LEA would have to provide education even if it did not believe that it had the capacity to do so.

I am sure that that is not the intention behind the amendment, but its effect could contradict the very purpose of an accommodation centre. Furthermore, effectively, it would allow an LEA to decide that an asylum-seeking family with children of school age should not reside in that area because the LEA had deemed that it did not have the capacity to educate those children. I hope that hon. Members will understand that that cannot be accepted.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I said in my letter to the Home Secretary that if there were drafting issues, we would be happy to discuss them, because this is an important matter. The Minister will understand that the amendment is designed to reflect the concern of her colleagues in local government, which we share, that it should be for the LEA to decide whether—to pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Prosser)—it has capacity in its existing schools, or whether some other provision is needed. What is important is that the LEA has that choice, and that if something else is needed it retains responsibility—even if the provision is on-site in the accommodation centre.

The Minister understands the point of our proposal. We are happy to discuss the drafting of the amendment, but I hope that she is sympathetic to the principle that the LEA should take the lead responsibility. My understanding of discussions taking place elsewhere is that that point is being discussed. The Government need to move their position to accept that the LEA is the right body to make the first choice.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I do not think that that is possible within the arrangements that we will have to undertake to establish accommodation centres. Within that procurement process, it will not be logistically possible to ensure that an LEA has lead responsibility. However, there are several ways in which the role of the local authority can be assured.

The Bill provides the opportunity for a local authority, which can include the LEA, to bid to provide an accommodation centre in its entirety. Secondly, the local authority, either as the LEA or as part of an LEA consortium—perhaps through the Local Government Association—could bid for the education provided within a particular centre. Thirdly, it is open to the local authority to help to develop the detailed proposals for the education within a particular centre—that is happening at the two sites currently under discussion. Fourthly, in any case LEAs have an advisory role in relation to all education provision.

Let me point out that, even in our maintained system, it is the schools that provide the education. The schools run themselves—the LEA is not the direct provider. The Liberal Democrats need to take that into account when thinking about what they are trying to achieve. I want LEAs to be involved—I would welcome their involvement—and I have outlined the several ways in which, to a greater or a lesser extent, including total provision, they can be involved. I hope that those possibilities satisfy the Liberal Democrats.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

The Minister misses an essential point that many Labour Back Benchers have made, which is that currently an LEA does not have the option of saying that, if it has the capacity, it will educate all the children in mainstream schools. That strikes me as a point that the Government could concede without losing face on any of the other issues, because that is already the duty of an LEA. It is precisely the same duty as an LEA would have if, for example, a group of Romanian itinerants entered its area. The LEA would have a duty to educate the children and it would have the choice of either educating them on the site, if that is what is wanted, or placing the children, or some of them, in local schools. That is a perfectly legitimate and reasonable halfway house, and better than saying that the only place in which the children we are talking about can be educated is in the camps.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The hon. Gentleman uses the pejorative term Xcamps" to support his position. His proposals on LEAs having the right to say that they will provide for the children's education if they have the capacity in maintained schools go against the essential feature of accommodation centres, which is on-site provision. Therefore, what he wants cannot be achieved. However, we can achieve the involvement of LEAs in the ways that I outlined.

We are quite willing to see the local education authorities provide education in the accommodation centres—for instance, if they are part of a wider local authority bid. We will add a further safeguard, as I said, to ensure that together with the bidders for accommodation centres, we will endeavour to engage in each case with the local education authorities so that they are able to put themselves forward as a subcontractor, perhaps in a consortium with other LEAs, or as bodies with specialist experience, if they wish.

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

As I understand it, the central argument in the case for accommodation centres is to maintain close contact between those asylum seekers and the Home Office while a decision is being made. In what way does educating the children of asylum seekers at local schools undermine that central purpose of the accommodation centre?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The logistics of trying to provide for education in schools for a significant number of families in a particular place, who would have to travel out to different schools, make for very complicated arrangements and cut across the fundamental objective that we are trying to achieve in the accommodation centres—close contact with people and the provision of services on-site, so that they do not impact on local schools in the way that we have seen in many areas.

Gregory Barker (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The Minister alluded a little earlier to the visits that she had made in the past weeks and months and her conversations with asylum-seeking families. In her discussions with the asylum-seeking parents of school-age children, did the parents express views about whether or not, in their first few weeks or months of settling in this country, they would like their children to be educated in units dedicated to the particular needs of their children, or in mainstream schools?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I did not specifically ask the parents that question, but I got a strong sense, as I tried to convey to the House, that for some of those families, their experience day after day of seeing their children unhappy in local schools was profoundly difficult for them.

I want hon. Members to understand that I share the spirit of what they are trying to achieve. I expect LEAs to be well placed to provide the service at the accommodation centre, and I very much hope that they will want to work with us and the contractors in that way. However, I do not want to rule out the possibility of other bidders putting forward their proposals.

On legal advice and amendment No. 28—

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

Is the hon. Lady conscious that we have just over two hours for this debate? She has spoken for nearly an hour, which means that there is only an hour for the whole of the rest of the House to contribute. I hope that she is not seeking to filibuster out any opportunity for colleagues to contribute to such an important debate.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

It is a question of being damned if I do and damned if I don't. I have tried to be generous with hon. Members while I am speaking, to give them the opportunity to scrutinise what I am saying directly and to ask me questions. Indeed, I have had to decline many hon. Members whose questions I would have liked to accept. If hon. Members tot up the time that I have spoken and the time that I have taken interventions, I do not think that they will find that I can be accused of filibustering.

I will try to deal quickly with the next issue, as I hope that we have been able to meet the concerns about it. I refer to amendment No. 28 and access to legal advice. The amendment in another place provides for the Secretary of State to arrange for the provision of facilities in an accommodation centre for the use of a person in providing legal advice to a resident of the centre, and obliges the Secretary of State to provide a resident with access to legal advice from suitably qualified advisers.

During the Bill's passage, debates have focused sharply on access to early legal advice as an important part of a swift and fair initial decision-making system that would reduce the scope for delay, and we have taken that on board. To confirm and deliver that commitment we have brought forward an amendment that requires the Secretary of State to take reasonable steps to ensure that a resident has an opportunity to obtain legal advice before the initial substantive interview. That clearly addresses the points made by the noble Earl Russell in another place when the amendment was introduced and, as I said, focuses clearly on the initial stage.

Let me explain what we mean by reasonable steps. We all agree that we want to cut out opportunities for delay, so we need to ensure that an amendment does not inadvertently allow a person to disrupt the system by failing to turn up for an interview, which the amendment introduced in the other place would have done.

What we have introduced makes our obligations clear. The Secretary of State must take reasonable steps to ensure that a resident has an opportunity to obtain legal advice. We will, for example, make sure that people are informed in reasonable time of the date of their asylum interview and how they should, if they wish to do so, access legal advice. We are all agreed about the quality of the legal advice that must be guaranteed. All solicitors and advice agencies holding contracts with the Legal Services Commission are checked.

We do not believe that there is any advantage in references to Xsuitably qualified" or Xcompetent" in the Bill. Again, we are concerned that such references could open up the possibility of unnecessary challenge and delay. I hope that the Government amendment deals with the concerns raised and that it will be accepted.

Accommodation centres have received tremendous attention and I acknowledge the strong principles that are the source of the concerns of many hon. Members. Our rationale for the centres is clear—fast processing, and good facilities, relieving the pressure on local services. We may not have been able to accommodate all hon. Members' concerns, but I hope that they will acknowledge that my responses today on a variety of matters show that we have listened to those concerns and, where we have felt able, tried to meet them. Different models of centre will feature in the trial, there will be a time limit in the Bill to provide the incentive that we want to speed up the process, good quality education will be delivered and there will be access to legal advice.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

I begin by accepting what the Minister said towards the end of her remarks. There is no doubt that the Government have listened to much of what was said in the other place, and we are grateful for that.

In essence, the debate on accommodation centres springs from two quite different visions. One is the Opposition's, which the Home Secretary may originally have entertained, and the other is that which the Government happened upon, presumably as they discussed the issues with their officials. Our vision was of small, one-stop-shop centres in urban areas, each devoted to handling the cases of asylum seekers from a particular area, country or region. At each would be present the relevant translators, lawyers and decision makers for those people, who would become expert in the affairs of the area or region rather than dealing with Somalia at 9.15 am and Bosnia at 10 am in a dizzying sequence as at present, as well as the medics to provide such evidence as was necessary and the adjudicators—effectively the judges holding the appeals. That would allow everything to be done on site and at a speed wholly different from that to which we have alas had to become accustomed.

Like me, the Minister has talked to asylum seekers in centres throughout the kingdom and will have come across cases in which individuals have two or three different Home Office records in slightly different names. In such cases, different decisions are sometimes made in relation to two or three different sets of records applying to the same person. We have also met people with lawyers based 200 miles away whom they do not meet until the appeal; people in respect of whom decisions are made on the basis of inadequate documentation; and people who find that the adjudicator places no faith in the decisions made by the decision maker. That can happen because the decision maker often does not know much about the subject of the decision—not because he or she is unworthy but because he or she will have been called upon to make decisions about six different countries in the space of a day.

Those are the real-life problems of our current asylum system. Our idea was to establish accommodation centres that dealt with them all at once. The Government may have begun with a similar idea, but they moved away to the idea of establishing huge accommodation centres with only very partial delivery of the various facilities that are necessary to achieve rapid processing. The intention of the Lords amendments was to move the Government from one vision to the other—from their vision to ours. That endeavour was shared in great part with Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, to whom I pay tribute. It was also shared with Cross Benchers and some Bishops and Law Lords, and on several occasions with notable and distinguished Labour peers who gave support by their absence or by their presence in voting with us.

The Government have come a good way, for which I am grateful. The Bill is not perfect on lawyers, but we accept that it is the best that we can persuade the Government to provide. In my view, the six-month/nine-month rule, if I can describe it in that fashion, provides for a time limit that is vastly too long, but we accept it as the best that the Government are willing to offer. I am grateful that the Minister gestured towards reducing it further.

It is hugely in the Government's interests to move in the directions in which we sought to make them move. We sought to give the Secretary of State—in this case, the Home Secretary—power against his own officialdom. By forcing matters legislatively, he has not wholly taken that on board, but he has conceded a six-month/nine-month time limit, after arguing for many months that no time limit could conceivably be administered. We accept that in the spirit of good grace with which it is offered.

There will be further discussion later about education. Listening to the to-ing and fro-ing in the Chamber, I remain as I have always been on the matter—in two minds. One thing about which I am absolutely clear is that, if the accommodation centres were as quick in processing as they would be if our vision were implemented, and took only six weeks to fulfil their task, there would be no discussion. Nobody in the House would claim that it makes sense to argue strenuously about whether a child who has just arrived in the country and may go home six weeks later should have separate or a mainstream education. Either course of action could be adopted and a separate education might make perfectly good sense. We are all a bit queasy—indeed, some of us are more than a bit queasy—about the idea of children being educated separately for months or years. At some time scale or other, the idea becomes utterly intolerable. I suspect that, if the Government really move towards quick processing, that problem will disappear.

Our main concern, however, remains with Lords amendment No. 17 and the Government motion to disagree thereto. That is the one matter on which we remain wholly apart. Before I describe the Government's position and point out what I think is a serious defect in ministerial logic, I should like to pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), who are in their places, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), who has rightly shot off to appear on the BBC to announce his victory for his constituents in Throckmorton, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who has played a notable part in our proceedings. They have acted not only in the interests of their constituents but with considerable force and dignity.

I also pay tribute to many people who have nothing to do with the Conservative party who have helped to argue the case against large rural centres. For example, a letter was sent on 3 May from the immigration advisory service, Amnesty International, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, the Law Society, the Commission for Racial Equality, Shelter, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and the Electronic Immigration Network. They are not normally the most strenuous advocates of the Conservative cause. All wrote to the Home Secretary and made it clear that they were worried about whether large accommodation centres in rural areas would work.

The organisations said that they believed that such centres could cause serious problems both for those accommodated in them and for local residents. We believe that neither fast processing nor harmony—or indeed any desirable result—is likely in vast rural centres. We may be wrong. We are more than fallible: we are not only human beings but politicians. We may well have made an error. Have the Lords sought through amendment No. 17 to force on the Government the truth of our view? By no means.

The Minister rightly read out the amendment. Let me remind hon. Members of its terms. Their lordships asked that

XAn accommodation centre shall be established only when the Secretary of State is satisfied that the proposed location is suitable to the needs of the persons to be accommodated therein."

The Minister presented some strong and persuasive arguments. However, when she considered the amendment, she was neither strong nor persuasive. How can the Home Secretary reject the idea that, before establishing an accommodation centre, he should be satisfied that it is

Xsuitable to the needs of the persons to be accommodated therein"?

Do the Home Secretary and the Minister seriously maintain that they propose to establish accommodation centres, which, in their considered opinion, are not suitable? Surely that is not the Government's policy.

The Minister cited judicial review as the main reason for her objection. Would judicial review judge whether the Home Secretary had found a suitable place? No; that is not its role. Judicial review would establish whether the location was sufficiently close to suitability to lead the Home Secretary and the Minister, were they reasonable people, to judge it suitable. The Minister argued—I presume seriously and not as a joke—that she resisted the Lords amendment on the ground that she believes that she will be open to judicial review because she intends, on the Home Secretary's behalf, to establish not only unsuitable centres but centres that could not be deemed suitable in the opinion of a reasonable person. That is not a serious argument.

I take it that we are dealing with Home Office lawyers' earnest desire to protect Ministers—their perfectly proper job—by ensuring that there is no basis on which ministerial decisions can be challenged by judicial review. That is another example of the Government's trying to limit the scope of judicial review. Their objection is not well founded in logic and cannot be founded on rational policy. It cannot be Government policy to establish centres that no reasonable person could regard as suitable. That approach is founded on a profound aversion to the intervention of the judiciary in the affairs of the Executive, and is not a tolerable policy for the Government to adopt. I shall, therefore, be asking my hon. Friends to vote in favour of the Lords amendments by doing what is open to us in the House, namely disagreeing with the Government' s motion to disagree.

Since the Government have made so much progress towards consensus by means of so many helpful concessions—not just in this section but throughout the Bill; we welcome, for example, the huge change in what was previously a ghastly Guy Fawkes clause at the end of the Bill—I profoundly hope that we shall not see this legislation getting into trouble in the Lords purely on the basis of an indefensible proposition advanced for no better reason than to limit the scope for judicial action.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

I want to concentrate on Lords amendment No. 20, because it is identical to one that I tabled on Report that was never debated or voted on because of timetabling problems.

Before that, however, I want to make one or two more general comments about accommodation centres. We are being asked to set up mainly large accommodation centres, with perhaps one smaller one in an urban area. The immigration and nationality directorate of the Home Office will set the centres up, employ teachers, and arrange for legal advice, health care and leisure facilities in them.

Suppose an organisation outside government—a local authority, a school or a hospital—routinely failed to answer letters for months or years, even letters from MPs; routinely lost clients' vital papers; experienced major delays in decision making; and, even when decisions were made, in many cases failed to send out information about the decisions or to enforce them, particularly the negative ones. If such an organisation came to us and said, XPlease can we have millions to spend on an experiment?", would we say, XActually, we remember the last experiment you sold to us. It cost millions as well, and was to do with vouchers of some sort. Of course, you now have a new chief executive who has scrapped the vouchers, so maybe we will think about it."? We would not dream of going down that road. We would say to that organisation, XSort yourselves out."

If we put a fraction of the effort that is going into the plans for accommodation centres into making the system work for the majority of the people who are going to continue in the National Asylum Support Service dispersal system for some time, we would achieve far more than we will ever do by going down that road.

I think we will be back in three or four years' time contemplating another expensive mess. The Minister spoke of the difficulties of the present system, particularly in relation to education and housing, but we set that system up and it will continue for some time. We have to get it sorted out and make it work. We are in danger of being distracted into putting a huge effort into something that is of far less importance than getting decisions made properly and getting them enforced when they need to be.

On Lords amendment No. 20, the letter we have all had from the Home Office on this matter says:

XThis is not a policy to discriminate or segregate."

I am sorry but I disagree; it is precisely that. We are dealing with a minority of asylum seekers because only 14 or 15 per cent. have children. However, we are being asked to agree that those families cause massive problems in communities throughout the country. The term Xswamping" was used about schools.

Like many colleagues, I know from my constituency experience that it is difficult for schools to cope with children who speak a variety of languages, who may not be adequately housed and who may move quickly from one place to another. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Coleman) said in an intervention, not a single organisation that we might expect to complain has done so. Teaching unions, individual teachers and parents are not saying that there is a problem and that asylum seeker children should be removed from schools. None of the children's organisations supports the proposals, and that ought to give us pause for serious thought.

Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)

I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. The Minister said that children would gain a better grasp of the English language by being segregated. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that every method of modern language teaching indicates that target immersion in the language—immersing young people in English not only in the classroom but in the playground—is the best way to learn? This policy will drive children to speak their own language rather than to grasp English, which the Home Secretary clearly wants them to do since he said that he wants them to speak English at home.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

I will come to that point later in my speech. Anybody who has tried to learn another language knows that one can sit in a classroom all day but one only starts to develop expertise by talking to people for whom that language is their native tongue. Last week, some of us met a group of asylum seeker children who came to the House. We talked to them about their experiences, and they made that point.

Schools say that they need support in these matters, and of course they do. Many schools have developed considerable expertise in dealing with asylum seeker children. I have spoken to head teachers in deprived inner-city areas who said that the presence of motivated asylum seeker children lifts their school rather than depressing it.

Gwyn Prosser (Labour, Dover)

I share that experience. Schools that act properly and tolerantly find that asylum seeker children enhance their whole ethos. However, is it sensible and practical to supply the support mentioned by my hon. Friend at perhaps three or four sites in the same area?

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

It is a practice that has been going on for years in my local education authority and many others in inner cities. Many London schools have children from ethnic minorities, and a variety of languages are spoken, not only by asylum seeker children. Support is essential to the entire ethos and education system in such schools.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

It is not unusual for primary schools in my constituency and, indeed, in the whole borough of Camden, to find that more than 57 languages were spoken among their pupils. I remember that when Labour was in opposition, groups of London-based colleagues argued for the retention and expansion of section 11 money, which gave precisely that kind of support to children whose mother tongue was not English.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

That mirrors the experience of many of us.

I turn now to the six-month time limit, and I shall simply tell the House what the asylum seeker children we met said. When we asked them how they would have felt if they had been in a centre for six months and had then gone into a mainstream school, they said, XWhen you are a child, six months is a very long time." We should not forget that.

The other issue that has not been addressed is the question of what education is about. I am sure that it would be possible to recruit teachers to teach the national curriculum in an accommodation centre, but education is not just about what is in the curriculum. It is about the social interaction within a school and children learning to get on with one another. The children to whom I have talked who are not asylum seekers often make positive comments about what they, as well as the asylum seeker children, can gain from that interaction.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

Does my hon. Friend agree that children from asylum seeker families who go to mainstream schools often help to educate the other children in the broadest way? They enable them to have a greater understanding of the situation. Mainstream education also helps to prevent the isolation of the families of those children by making others in the schools and outside aware of the difficulties that they may face.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

My hon. Friend is right. The Minister talked about the difficulties that some of these children face in school, such as racial abuse and being abused as they walk to school. If children have such difficulties, we must sort those schools out, because they will have them whether they go to the schools immediately they come into the country or after three, four, five or six months in an accommodation centre. That problem needs sorting out in the school. I would not for one moment underestimate the hard work that is needed in schools to deal with a variety of children, but the positive experience described to us by many teachers convinces me.

Patrick Hall (Labour, Bedford)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

I shall give way, but I do not want to speak for too long.

Patrick Hall (Labour, Bedford)

Will my hon. Friend take it from me that what he has just described is exactly the experience of many schools in Bedford and Kempston? Schools are delighted to impose and develop policies of integration that are contrary to segregation, and they see the presence of a small number—that is what it is—of asylum seeker children as a great opportunity for the whole school. Those schools are asking not so much for support to teach asylum seeker children, because that is their job and what schools are for, but for support to assist the parents of those children to understand English better and to understand the purpose of education.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

That is a well-made point.

Jim Marshall (Labour, Leicester South)

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said, but I cannot help but feel, in my cynical way, that he is putting too positive a gloss on what Home Office Ministers are trying to do. I suspect that the Home Office does not want these children to put down roots in the local community. It does not want them to go to school with kids who live in the community, because if their parents were refused permission to stay in the United Kingdom, the Home Office would have to deal with appeals such as those my hon. Friend and I present on behalf of those parents, when we say, XThe children are now part of the local community and it would be a disgrace to remove them, so let them and their parents stay." Does my hon. Friend think I am too cynical?

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

I would never accuse my hon. Friend of being too cynical. He has hit on an important issue. The Minister did her best to paint a positive picture of how an accommodation centre could be run, and I would not attribute base motives to her. However, if we step back, the key debate about accommodation centres has never been about the best mechanism for supporting asylum seekers. It has been about process. The Home Office's approach is XWe want a process enabling us to make decisions quickly and to keep track of people". All the questions about support are something of a side issue.

I do not believe we can argue that segregation is in the best interests of the child. Others, I know, will have read the annual human rights report from the Foreign Office, published last month. According to a section about Roma,

XSchool segregation is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination against the Roma in some Central and Eastern European countries and for children of asylum seekers in the UK".

The report is saying that children come here who have been victims of discrimination and segregation in other countries—and what are we going to do with them? The minute they arrive, we are going to segregate them again. How can we justify that?

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I know that we have only about 40 minutes left. I shall try to be as speedy as the last two speakers.

First, let me echo the general point made strongly by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard). The whole perspective is now wrong. I deal with a huge number of immigration and asylum cases, which constitute between a third and half of my constituency case load. It is the administration of the system that needs reform. Every week I deal with people whose papers have been lost or whose names have been confused—people who desperately need to leave because of an illness, a bereavement, a funeral or a marriage, but cannot break through the system. Others are trying to come here for similar reasons.

It would be better if we devoted only half our current effort, let alone the same amount, to improving the current system. Politicians may not be experienced in many respects, but the Chamber today contains all the experience anyone would ever require to recommend a system that would work for all our constituents. That is the priority; this is, in a sense, merely a distraction. It is a distraction for another reason: we are talking about a pilot scheme involving 3,000 of about 80,000 applicants a year. Notwithstanding what the Daily Mail and Daily Express would have us believe, some 50 per cent. of those applicants are granted the right to stay.

We have been trying to argue for intelligent solutions. The good news is that we have made some progress, as the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) pointed out. Liberal Democrats know that locations that are miles from mixed communities and from services, in the middle of nowhere, are not right. That is why we supported the amendment that was passed in the Lords, and will vote today to retain the requirement for appropriate locations. We will happily vote with the Conservatives on that. If services are to be accessible, whether they are on site or brought in, they need to be in communities that are more likely to be accommodating.

The Government, sadly, have not responded. I heard and understand the Minister's argument, but I do not accept it. I am sorry that the proposals for centres in Nottinghamshire and the west midlands are still on the table, because we do not consider either of those locations appropriate.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Let me point out to the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) that it is an implicit and indeed enforceable principle of administrative law that the Secretary of State must exercise his or her powers reasonably. The idea presented earlier that any Secretary of State could decide on the location while knowing, perversely, that it was unsuitable is nonsense.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

To be fair, I must say that that was not the case argued from the Conservative Front Bench. The amendment proposes that an accommodation centre

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

That gives considerable latitude. It is not over-restrictive. If I had drafted it, I would not have come up with those words.

Michael Spicer (Conservative, West Worcestershire)

The decision on Throckmorton is welcome, but it has been reached on the ground of the difficulty of purchasing land, not on grounds of needs and suitability, so the Government took the decision on the wrong grounds.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

To be fair, the reason for the decision was in part the lobbying and in part the difficulty in acquiring the land and in getting planning permission, which should have meant that the proposed centres were out of the frame. I know it is difficult. That is why some of us said that those reception centres should not be as big as planned. I have argued for reception centres but always contemplated that they would accommodate 200 or 250 people and that they would be in existence for a short time. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) said, they should not be like a camp, but if they accommodated 750 or 1,000 people, they would be. They would not be personal but institutionalised. That is why we are sad that, although the Government have accepted a pilot scheme accommodating a smaller number, which is nearer to 250, they have still kept in the frame two reception centres accommodating a larger number.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying but is he not concerned that reception centres in any form become a target for racist attacks? The unhappy experience in Germany has been that a number of asylum seekers living in hostels have been brutally attacked. They were easily located because the fascists knew where to find them.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I understand that argument, which is a hugely important issue. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the trouble is that the dispersal system has hardly been friendly and welcoming. People have been dispersed literally around the country and have not been supported. For example, they have had no one from their own language group to offer support. We must try to find some alternative to the current arrangements. We have argued that appropriate locations for small centres should be found to accommodate people for a short time when they first arrive. In communities such as the hon. Gentleman's and mine, people are used to lots of people coming and going. I hope that the new centres will not be the focus of antagonism and racism, which is the worst risk in any of the provisions.

On Report, we argued to the Home Secretary—I moved an amendment—that we knew that we could not get from the present terribly long-winded system to the system we would like in two minutes, so a six-month maximum time limit, with an opt-out to give a bit of flexibility after three months, would be acceptable. That is what the Minister has come back with.

In the Lords, to try to get the maximum agreement between the parties, we moved towards the Conservatives' position and they towards ours and we proposed a four-month limit, which we hope is achievable—I share the view of the right hon. Member for West Dorset—but the proposal for a six-month limit is greatly welcome. It will set a discipline. I hope it will deal with many of the problems that we have all identified which keep cases going unnecessarily for far too long. The new proposal marks progress and we will not disagree with the Government.

Amendment No. 21, on which we will not force a vote, refers to the occasions when the Secretary of State gives himself power not to deal with a case. That proposal is important to many of us who believe that each case must be dealt with fairly. The amendment says:

Xprovision . . . may provide for an application not to be considered where the Secretary of State is not satisfied that the information provided is complete or accurate or that the applicant is co-operating".

We all know the danger of a case being rejected on a formality, not on its substance. Far too many cases fail not because someone does not have a good case but because they did not sign the form on the right page or whatever. I seek an assurance from the Minister that the terms of Lords amendment No. 21 do not fall below the standards that are being negotiated at a Europe-wide level in the proposal for a Council directive laying down minimum standards on the reception of applicants for asylum in member states. We must ensure that we have common standards that accept good cases on their merits and do not turn them down by some defective process.

The other issue on which an accommodation has been reached concerns legal advice. We cannot provide a proper service for asylum seekers without providing proper legal advice. That is why my hon. Friends and I will argue against the requirement to go abroad to make an appeal. That is a nonsense of a system—people cannot make a proper appeal from abroad. The Minister responded to the compromise position in Lords amendment No. 28, but my concern is that simply giving someone the name of the Refugee Legal Centre or the Immigration Advisory Service might be considered as discharging the obligation to provide legal advice. We need some reassurance that Xlegal advice" means real legal advice from competent individuals on site, so that people can ensure that their rights are not lost.

There are many other issues to which this huge group of complicated amendments gives rise, but I want to finish by discussing education—the issue that has proved the most controversial in this House and in the other place. As Ministers know, I said that, provided that the time involved was very short, I might be able to accept the idea of educating children on site. I am conscious that that was never the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough; indeed, many others in my party were unhappy that insufficient guarantees had been provided in that regard. In the Lords, we sought the guarantees that are effectively encapsulated in the relevant amendment before us. We argued that local education authorities should take the lead in education: that they should decide whether they have the capacity, and whether such schooling should be provided in an accommodation centre. Such a process could be subject to Ofsted, and to inspection by qualified teachers.

Those are the things that we all want for asylum seekers in schools in London—I am the chairman of governors in one such school—and elsewhere. We hoped to make sufficient progress on that issue in the Lords, but in the end we did not. That is why, when the Bishop of Portsmouth's amendment was moved, we decided that, if the Government cannot deliver, we would support the bishops and insist that such provision be offered by LEAs. We voted accordingly, as did some Labour and Conservative Back Benchers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough and I have worked on this issue. We have talked to our local government colleagues and, indirectly, to Labour local government colleagues. The hugely widespread view exists that education should be the responsibility of LEAs. For example, if Worcestershire LEA were unable to provide education on a particular site, it could call on the expertise of other LEAs. If such provision still could not be made, Worcester could enter into a contract with the private sector. It is LEAs who should have such responsibility. They know best—they are the ones on the ground.

I accept that Opposition amendments are always liable to the argument that their drafting is flawed, but I am saddened by the Minister's not accepting the principle behind ours. I am also saddened because, in the end, the Home Office position won against that of the Department for Education and Skills. The Home Office's view was that it must run matters and contract out the service. Our view is that the education service should run things and supply the service, wherever it may be. We will therefore press our amendment to a vote, and we hope that colleagues will support it. It would give LEAs the lead, and if it is defeated, we will support the position that we supported in the Lords. We will do so not because it reflects the common view of us all, but because, unless the Government can produce adequate guarantees, their proposal should not be accepted by this place or the other place.

Gwyn Prosser (Labour, Dover)

In my constituency, we already have an induction centre, a removal centre and accommodation for more than 200 unaccompanied minors. So I am very aware of the impact—I have seen it and felt it—of placing such facilities in areas where they are not welcomed with open arms by all residents. Things are much better in Dover now, but we went through some difficult times. In the light of that background, I certainly welcome the Minister's announcement concerning flexibility in respect of the size—and, to some degree, the location—of accommodation centres. In my experience, numbers—the number of asylum seekers entering an area, compared with the total indigenous population—are everything.

I keep closely in touch with Dover's migrant helpline, so I get the monthly figures for people coming through the port, and the total for those who have actually settled: those who are in the induction centre, in the removal centre, and in the centre in which unaccompanied minors are kept. I can almost estimate the numbers of asylum seekers in Dover from the atmosphere at my surgeries and street stalls in the centre of the town. If there are many people seeking refuge, the queue of local people with complaints is long. Most of the complaints are about practical matters, such as difficulties with local services or with getting children into local schools. We have already debated the issue of schooling children in areas that do not have the provision to meet demand. Numbers are important and that is why I am glad to see more thought put into the problems.

On the issue of the provision of education support, I have already mentioned that we experienced real difficulties when more children were coming into Dover than could be accommodated in local schools. In practice, it is the less popular schools in the more deprived areas—and east Kent still has areas of serious deprivation—that are required to take in the asylum-seeker children. Those children bring enormous riches to the schools and it is a joy to visit the schools that are doing things properly and well, and to see the children relating to each other. I remember a local Dover boy telling me the story of an asylum seeker and his trek from Kosovo. Such examples warm the heart.

To return to practicalities, the resources of schools are still limited. We must support schools but we cannot support all of them with interpretation provision. Interpretation services are necessary from the beginning, because communication is necessary before the children begin to pick up the language. We cannot supply that resource in my constituency on the necessary number of sites.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) questioned my hon. Friend the Minister about whether the changes were being proposed because schools were not treating asylum-seeker children properly, and if so, whether we should in fact complain to the Department for Education and Skills. I agree that we should complain, but it is true that some schools are not welcoming children from asylum-seeker families properly. Two years ago, when things were more difficult in Dover, I went to address a school group on the role of a Member of Parliament. We should have had a friendly exchange, but for an hour I listened to questions from young children, aged nine and 10, that were framed in the most pejorative terms. All the myths that are peddled by papers such as the Daily Mail and the Daily Express were churned up. I was asked, XWhy do asylum-seeker children get free buses to schools? Why don't asylum seekers have to tax their cars? Why do the Government give asylum seekers free tokens?"

Iain Coleman (Labour, Hammersmith and Fulham)

I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend. Is he seriously suggesting that the best way to deal with the lies and propaganda of certain tabloid newspapers is to segregate the children of asylum seekers, so that they do not have the chance to mix?

Gwyn Prosser (Labour, Dover)

No, of course not. Indeed, since I made approaches to my local education authority, matters have improved. The situation will never be perfect and the reality is that not all schools are performing well in that area now. As the Minister said, the picture is not completely rosy.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

Is my hon. Friend able to say something about the role played by local newspapers in the Dover area, because they did much to foment racism against Roma people and other people arriving? Is it not the duty of the House to tell every local education authority and every school that it is their duty to promote mutual respect, support and integration, instead of bowing to racist pressures?

Gwyn Prosser (Labour, Dover)

My hon. Friend is right. One former editor of the Dover Express went into the gutter with his attacks on Romany families and asylum seekers in general. He linked asylum seekers with bootleggers and drug smugglers, describing them all as human sewage and saying that we did not have the resources to flush them down the drain. That is how low that newspaper went for a time. The editor has been sacked and, although it is not perfect, the paper is much better.

In Dover, people are genuinely concerned about the practical problems that they face in a town that they sometimes feel is being overwhelmed by asylum seekers. They feel threatened, as often happens when there is a perceived threat. Education for asylum-seeker children must be provided in a way that is safer and more practical. The proposal will benefit those children more than would be the case if they went to a mainstream school, as long as the period involved remains short.

In an earlier intervention, I noted that the head teachers of my local schools had asked whether education provision for asylum-seeker children should be centralised. At the time, many Romany people from the former Czech Republic were arriving in Dover. They would stay for two, three or four months before being sent home or moving on. The head teachers wondered whether the children involved were being best served by being put into mainstream education. In schools, the asylum-seeker children began to integrate with local children and to put down roots in the community, but they were then dragged out and sent home.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the overwhelming majority of asylum applicants, including families with children, will continue to be taken through the dispersal system? Their service needs will continue to be met in the mainstream community, so some of the problems mentioned by my hon. Friend—and no one should be romantic and deny that they exist—will still have to be tackled head on. I feel strongly that asylum-seeking children should not be given a separate education, but I accept that that is a minority case and that we have to deal with service needs across the board in all the dispersed communities.

Gwyn Prosser (Labour, Dover)

I agree with nearly all those points. I support the proposals in the Bill because they can be regarded almost as a trial or a pilot scheme that will serve to test the waters. The proposals deal with 3,000 or so places in half a dozen sites. I think that they will be successful. The Government got it wrong with tokens, which I also supported. At least, the Government were big enough to admit that they had got the tokens scheme wrong and to change and improve it. The other contentious proposals in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 had to do with dispersal. That was disputed as hotly as this matter tonight, but it has been highly successful in Dover, east Kent and the south-east coast. We were in an unsustainable position, with the National Front holding marches and the British National party putting out literature. The problem of the numbers involved had brought us to a crisis. The 1999 Act's dispersal powers, under whose authority people were moved to other parts of the country, prevented that hostility from spilling over into more aggressive behaviour.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

I entirely concur with my hon. Friend on dispersal. As someone who represents an inner-London seat, I know only too well the problems that were being experienced by asylum seekers regarding serious overcrowding in their accommodation. However, I argued, as did every refugee association in London, that dispersal alone would be useless and non-productive in affording assimilation to those who were granted refugee status in this country if they were not actively and intensively supported in the areas to which they were sent. That support was not forthcoming and I now see people coming back from those areas of dispersal, perfectly prepared to do without any kind of housing benefit and attempting to exist on the measly amount that they are afforded, because they simply cannot stand that sense of isolation. This scheme will, in my view, be exactly the same—under-resourced, underfunded and not thought through in any detail.

Gwyn Prosser (Labour, Dover)

The dispersal system has not been perfect; it has been good in parts, like the curate's egg. It has worked very well in some areas while in others it has been a disaster. I have had the same problem of people coming back to Dover, meeting up with friends and living there again, having been dispersed some time ago.

On the margin, the overall benefit of dispersal was that it made our position in Dover sustainable. Let me take that a stage further: surely it is because of some of the deficiencies and problems of the ad hoc dispersal system that we are now testing a system that will be much more structured and focused, giving us the ability to provide all the services that were not in place under the old system.

Other advantages of making central provision relate to health services and health screening, when local resources can become overwhelmed. Local authorities and health authorities in areas such as Dover have recently started focusing on the need to introduce new asylum seekers and refugees into the medical system as they settle, to check them and ensure that their health needs are being provided for properly on a central basis. It is only since that happened that asylum seekers have received the support and care that they should have received from the start.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

The health issue is very important. I have come across a number of distressing cases in which general practitioners simply refuse to take asylum seekers on their lists until they have been pushed into it by the local health authority. The local papers then chip in and say that asylum seekers are dominating the casualty units in local hospitals. They have no alternative because GPs and the health service are failing them. It is a duty of the health authorities to provide a GP and health care for everybody.

Gwyn Prosser (Labour, Dover)

Absolutely. Who could argue with that? However, I keep pulling hon. Members back to the real world and to what is happening in practice. When we know that services have not been provided properly with the level of care necessary, we must find a different model. What is on offer is a different model. I accept that it is very much a trial or pilot scheme, which must be tested in the real world. However, with the changes that we have discussed and the assurances that we have had from the Minister, I am happy to support the motion.

Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Rushcliffe)

I shall be as brief as I can, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) also has time to strive once more to catch your eye. I would say in passing that it shows the state to which the House of Commons has reduced itself that our timetabling is now so tight that when we consider amendments passed by an unelected House which has the time to debate these matters at leisure, our discussions are so truncated that we have one hour for all Back Benchers to consider a whole bundle of very important issues which, in my opinion, remain unresolved. However, that is for another day.

I confine myself to Lords amendment No. 17, which essentially bears on the suitability of these large, isolated, rural sites as accommodation centres for the holding of asylum seekers before what we hope will be quicker decisions on whether they are to be allowed to remain.

I want to make it clear that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, I and others welcome large parts of the Bill. We need a fair system of immigration control and a fairer system for deciding on the applications of asylum seekers. It must be effective and reach swift decisions, and should help us to integrate properly the people whom we want to accept as refugees from persecution, from wherever they come. It should also help us to remove as decently and in as civilised a fashion as possible those who have, unfortunately, no legal right to be in this country.

Nor do I adopt my position from an attitude of nimbyism. I support the idea of accommodation centres, but it is not the case that I would be wholly in favour of huge camp-like holding centres for refugees if only they were 50 miles down the road in somebody else's constituency. My constituents hold the same view. They, too, think that setting up such an institution in a rural part of Nottinghamshire is unsuitable, but that it would be equally unsuitable in any other rural part of the country.

Indeed, one part of the Home Office did not know what another part was doing, so six miles away, in the equally rural village of Whatton, it is proposing to double the size of a large prison that specialises in holding sex offenders. There is some debate about that, but there has been no opposition in principle from significant numbers of inhabitants of rural villages in my constituency. They accept that there is a duty to protect us from such offenders and also that there should be proper rehabilitation facilities in modern prisons. The arguments are about where the entrance should be and whether surface water will make flooding worse than it was before—but those are not matters that will ever trouble the House.

At Newton, on the other hand, it is proposed to set up, as a trial, a large accommodation centre, designed to hold in isolation for as short a time as possible a transient population of 750 people at any one time. We are told that that will offer a sensible means of dealing with the delicate problem of asylum seeking.

Amendment No. 17, about which the Minister seemed to take an ambiguous view, would not rule out the hon. Lady's proceeding with that policy if she can justify it. However, it provides that such policies should not proceed unless she and her colleagues are satisfied that the proposed location Xis suitable" for the needs of the asylum seekers. What she resists is the idea that the Home Office and its Ministers should be subject to any check on such decisions.

The planning applications will go to a public inquiry where town and country planning issues can be debated—schools, buses, roads and so on—and questions can be asked about rural areas. However, the decision that that is a suitable way to handle 750 asylum seekers at any one time will not be a proper matter for an inspector appointed to a planning inquiry. It is a policy matter. We are told that it is unthinkable that Home Office Ministers might have to justify such a decision in a court of law and try to satisfy people who point out that the proposed location is not suitable to deal with the needs of asylum seekers.

I have to agree with Labour Back Benchers, among others. The last Department of which I would say XHeaven forfend that its decisions on the suitability of such measures should be exposed to any challenge before a court or an independent tribunal" is the Home Office, especially when it is dealing with immigration and asylum.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) anticipated some of my points. He asked why large rural camps were chosen. That relates to the atmosphere in which the policy was first introduced. It has to do with process; it has nothing to do with what we are talking about today—the educational needs of children or access to legal services. I shall not burden the House with precise descriptions of Newton in my constituency, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury will not have the opportunity to describe the rural areas of his constituency, but Newton was chosen for its isolation. It is a very tiny village.

The choice of such a rural area was designed to ensure that the Home Office was less likely to lose touch with large numbers of people who were waiting for asylum decisions. They would be less likely to vanish and get lost during the asylum process. When the policy was announced, the then Minister obviously fondly imagined that as all the inhabitants would be required to be in the centre at 11 o'clock at night—no doubt, at roll call—if they missed overnight residence, their application would be turned down and they would be turned away. I suspect that the Home Office now has legal advice that it cannot do that. Just because people refuse to live in a camp at RAF Newton, the Home Office cannot tell them that it will not consider their application for asylum. That was the original idea, however, and since then the Home Office has been struggling to maintain that it would be common sense to hold a large group of assorted nationalities, some families and some single people, in an isolated accommodation centre, telling them that most of them will be deported.

The Lords held a long debate, by the end of which the Government, yet again, had no friend for their policy. From beginning to end, the Government have won no significant support for their policy either on the right or the left of the spectrum. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary cited a list of groups which had challenged the policy; for example, the Refugee Council, the Red Cross and the Immigration Advisory Service have no time for the policy. They are fearful that it will make it more difficult to deal in a civilised way with the individual problems of applicants and their families. Furthermore, there will undoubtedly be potential for tension and management problems in institutions as large and unattractive as holding centres for asylum seekers deep in rural England, far away from where any of the asylum seekers actually want to be.

Patrick Hall (Labour, Bedford)

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Rushcliffe)

No, because that is why people are being cut out of the debate. With any luck, I shall confine my speech to 10 minutes.

The Minister has moved to some extent, which is welcome. She has dropped one of the three proposed rural camps to make room for an urban experiment. I shall not be churlish and say that the last and greatest treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason. I suspect that the Minister has dropped the Worcestershire camp because the Home Office cannot get it to run owing to local planning issues. The Government have probably reassessed the cost. They are spending millions on these so-called trials and they can probably only afford two big ones and a little one.

The Minister's third proposal has been urged on her from all sides. It is in line with successful experience on the continent. It is what legal advisers, educationists and most of the advisory bodies want—smaller camps that are nearer urban facilities. It is a belated step in the right direction that, minutes before the measure was subject to further parliamentary scrutiny today, the Government were prepared to make that modification.

If the Minister would tell us that, for the time being, she will set aside the big rural camps that nobody wants and assess whether a small urban camp can work in a civilised way, that would be a much better way to proceed. If she continues to insist that the Home Office should be immune from any review of its decision that big camps are suitable, we should support the Lords in their amendment No. 17.

Sooner or later, the Government will quietly abandon the policy. They have not won a friend for it from the moment they announced it. They are scrabbling on, through humiliation after humiliation, trying to defend their large-camps policy. They want to save face today by insisting on using their majority to reverse their lordships' amendment. However, I hope that they will find a dignified way of saving a bit of face by eventually adopting the more sensible policy that has been urged on the Minister by Labour Back Benchers with the same vigour as by Liberal Democrats and by my right hon. and hon. Friends.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

I have no doubt about the Government's good intentions in this matter, but my deep concerns come from my experiences of trying to assist asylum seekers in my area, where I have seen the practical problems of the present system. I am worried that those difficulties will be intensified in the pilot schemes. I want to refer to practical issues.

My first concern is about large detention centres in rural areas, in isolated places. I always have a fear about the treatment of people who are isolated from mainstream services. That makes them particularly vulnerable.

The big question is who will be running the centres. I am told that Ministers will be deciding who is contracted to run the centres, but who will advise Ministers? Will it be the National Asylum Support Service, which has stood by while the discredited provider in Liverpool, Landmark Liverpool Ltd., has offered an appalling service to asylum seekers? Only after three years of intensive campaigning, finally involving the chief constable of Merseyside, did NASS stop using the tower blocks to house asylum seekers in appalling conditions and under great duress.

I have no assurance whatever that under the proposed system—presumably where NASS-advised Ministers decide who should run these isolated detention centres—companies such as the discredited Landmark Liverpool will not be running a detention centre full of vulnerable people who are isolated from mainstream services. I have very deep concerns about that.

I accept that the Government are proposing a pilot scheme, but I have not heard from my hon. Friend the Minister how it will be assessed, on what criteria it will be assessed or, indeed, who will conduct the assessment. Will hon. Members be involved in deciding whether the scheme will cease to be a pilot? It seems to be the Government's intention that the pilot scheme will be a precursor to a general scheme based on such an arrangement. Indeed, some of my hon. Friend's remarks in introducing the amendments have given me reason to believe that that is so.

If we allow the proposal to go through, could the Minister—perhaps another Minister—in silence and away from public scrutiny take a decision to expand the system without hon. Members who are at the practical end of what happens having any input?

Patrick Hall (Labour, Bedford)

Some of the points that my hon. Friend rightly raises could be addressed when we see the outcome of the inquiry into the Yarl's Wood fire. Does she agree that it may be premature to take positions on the size of accommodation centres, never mind their location, until we see the outcome of that inquiry?

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

I share my hon. Friend's concern.

Above all, I am extremely concerned that the Government appear to be toughening their stance on asylum seekers and leaping into the unknown in a way that will evade the scrutiny which has always applied to the provision of mainstream services. We are dealing with vulnerable people; they deserve proper attention. I am extremely concerned about the implications of what we are being asked to agree.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) for having been so concise.

I am privileged to chair the Select Committee on International Development, which I suppose takes me to more countries where there are potential asylum seekers than many hon. Members. One could begin to consider the issue from the perspective of asylum seekers themselves. Indeed, the Lords amendment does so. One concern that everyone in the House should have is that not a single organisation concerned with the welfare of refugees or asylum seekers supports what the Government are proposing. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), the shadow Home Secretary, read out a letter dated 3 May from a lot of organisations, many of which we all support. Ministers have had since 3 May to convince those organisations that the Government's proposal is right. They have not won over a single organisation. I am sure that I am not alone in making that comment. Indeed, other hon. Members have said that even today the Refugee Council has been lobbying Members, seeking to persuade us that the Government need to adopt another approach.

The Home Secretary—I do not mean this pejoratively—is an honourable man, and the Minister has had the decency to listen to those in the communities involved, but they are committed to the trial. I am sure that everyone in the House would want a trial of this kind and importance to succeed, but knowing—I hope—my patch pretty well after representing it for nearly 20 years, and given that the proposed accommodation centre is to be located in a genuinely isolated area, I am concerned that anyone who is stuck there for up to six months will be bored out of their minds. Against that background, the experiment is likely to fail. I therefore very much hope that the other place will cause this House to think again if Ministers try to drive through the proposal with their large majority.

The Minister sought to give the impression that the Government were making concessions. They have not made any concessions on accommodation centres; they are still intent on establishing large, 750-person accommodation centres in rural areas. The Minister did say in her opening comments that the Government intended to abide by the planning system and to acknowledge whatever the planning inspector had to say. It may be of help if I tell her that only today residents in my constituency, together with a house builder, have lodged a writ in the High Court seeking judicial review against Ministers' decisions not to conduct an environmental impact assessment. Clearly, that judicial review will have to be heard and determined before there can be any public inquiry. Nevertheless, I certainly welcome the fact that there will be a full and proper public inquiry, as indeed do the 10,000 or so of my constituents who petitioned Parliament asking for it, and at least town and country planning matters will be considered by an independent inspector.

I ask the Secretary of State and those on the Treasury Bench to reconsider the policy of establishing very large accommodation centres in remote rural areas, because I fear that against that background the experiment is likely to fail. Of course Ministers may easily say to me or other hon. Members that I would make such comments in seeking to represent the concerns of my constituents over many issues that I do not have time to go into, or would point out the extra statutory burdens that might fall on district and county councils, about which they are understandably concerned, especially against the background of the Government's cutting their grants. Ministers can discount what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and I have had to say, but why on earth are they discounting the comments of Amnesty International, the Law Society, the Refugee Council and the Immigration Advisory Service, which deal with refugees and asylum seekers daily?

One would have expected those organisations at least to reach some compromise with the Government on this issue, or the Government to move some way towards those bodies' concerns, but all that Ministers have done is to say that, in addition to the very large centres that they intend to establish, there might be, as part of the experiment, other smaller centres. That does not meet the concerns that have been raised by all those organisations.

If the Government choose to drive through their proposal by the weight of their majority in this House, I hope that, given that the issue is so serious and that so little attention seems to have been paid to the organisations most concerned with the welfare of refugees and asylum seekers, the other place will yet again cause this House to think about what we are doing.

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

I associate myself with the remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on the issue of the present inefficiencies of the Home Office in dealing with asylum seekers.

The bulk of this debate has been concentrated on those who will be coming into this country for the first time and on how we will deal with them. I should like to raise the plight of so many of my constituents who have been in this country for a considerable number of years—eight years is not unusual—and who are still awaiting a final decision on their applications. The processing of appeals is taking longer and longer. Once an appeal is granted, the relevant paper that informs the asylum seeker of that is lost or delayed. Passports are lost; travel documents and applications are lost.

Linked to that is this vital question: why are we going down the road of vastly expensive accommodation centres, which no one wants and no one in their right mind thinks will be a success, when we might spend a fraction of that money to employ a minority of the people involved to improve the present system, so that it does indeed become firm, fast and fair? Currently, it is none of those things.

The central issue is the abomination of educating the children of asylum seekers outside mainstream schools. That seems to me to be unutterably heinous, and the practicalities strike me as absolutely absurd. The Home Office briefing talks about structuring classes for children dependent on their age. That presupposes that every intake of would-be asylum seekers has the relevant number of children of a certain age to create a proper class. That is highly unlikely. It is also highly unlikely that all those asylum-seeking children will speak only one language. It is entirely possible that they will be attempting to learn English when no one around them—let alone the person who is teaching them—speaks even their own mother tongue.

Eric Joyce (Labour, Falkirk West)

Did not my hon. Friend say earlier that there was a primary school in her area in which 57 languages were spoken? Does that not defeat her argument?

Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. The majority of children in those primary schools, in some of which more than 57 languages are spoken, have English as their mother tongue. If a child spends most of its day within a mainstream school, the language it will hear most consistently is English. A child will not most consistently hear English if it is kept in an accommodation centre.

It is wholly unreasonable to believe that the fears of a child who is potentially traumatised when it first enters this country will suddenly be excised when it is placed in what is, to all intents and purposes, a prison. It might be a very nice, well run prison, but it is most certainly—

Clause 15 — Support for Destitute Asylum-Seeker

Clause 61 — Serious Criminal

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

There appears to have been an interesting misunderstanding. As I understand it, their lordships did not after all intend to prevent us from disqualifying serious criminals, and I am very relieved to hear it. We might therefore gain agreement that there should be a clear presumption sending a clear message that those committing known and serious crimes will be disqualified.

However, I accept that Lord Kingsland made a valid point in saying that, as well as a clear definition so that everyone would understand it, there should be a schedule of offences that may fall outside the specific, defined sentence that is applicable, but which would constitute serious offences. Lord Kingsland referred to

Xthe bizarre situation that . . . a person sentenced to 18, 21 or even 23 months for dealing in drugs or for a sexual offence against a child would not be presumed to be a serious criminal."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 2002; Vol. 640, c. 356.]

I recognise that that is unacceptable. Although my presumption is that the judiciary, especially in relation to forthcoming legislation following the Queen's Speech, would always have sent such criminals into custody for more than two years, I accept that there may be some doubt. We are therefore prepared to accept a schedule that would deal with such serious offences. I stress that it would be about serious offences and not trivialities, and we would want to assure and reassure the House that that would be the case.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The Home Secretary has confirmed that the existing law ensures that a court can recommend deportation of anybody convicted of a serious offence under the Immigration Act 1971 and that that would follow as a matter of course. The court has power to recommend deportation and he can act on such a recommendation.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

A judge could recommend deportation, but we are entirely in the hands of individual judges as to whether that happens or whether they send people to jail for the oddest things, such as trying to get out of the country because their papers were incorrect in the first place. There have recently been some very interesting judgments.

I am trying to deal with this House, and not someone else, taking responsibility for determining that a serious criminal should be disqualified and removed from the country. I do not accept the Liberal amendment insisting that a custodial sentence of 10 years or more should have to be imposed for an offence to be deemed serious—far from it. Most people outside using reasonable definitions would consider that the provisions, including a defined set of circumstances under the schedule, would make sense.

I hope that their lordships accept that we have taken on board entirely the spirit of what they debated and now appear to have intended and that we can now agree. Of course, offences committed overseas would not include acts that are not offences here, so we will not deal with crimes that are considered in some countries to be political and will not, therefore, disqualify people who have a perfectly legitimate and serious case that they are risk of death or torture. Such people would not be detrimentally affected. It is in that spirit that I ask the House to accept the motion to disagree.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

It is always a pleasure to talk to the House with so much support from one's colleagues. [Laughter.] I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) in his place to give me that support.

The Home Secretary will agree that it is a pity that such an important clause can be scrutinised in the House for only about 15 minutes. That is the way in which we operate, but it is perhaps unfortunate. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the Bill contained no such clause on Second Reading and that it did not appear in Committee. He also knows that, in effect, it was rushed through unscrutinised with 14 or more other clauses and several schedules just before 10 pm on 21 May. That is a pity, because he is a great supporter of debate in this House. I hope that he accepts that I speak with some sincerity in saying that is a pity that such important issues sometimes do not get the opportunity to be fully debated.

Opposition Members appreciate what the Home Secretary has said. We think that the clause as it was originally drafted, so as to involve a sentence of two years or more, was flawed. Lord Kingsland pointed out in the House of Lords on several occasions that the presumption of being a serious criminal would apply only where a British court imposed a two-year prison sentence. That leads to potential difficulties, as the Home Secretary readily acknowledges. Wearing my judicial hat—I was regarded on Monday as a serious sentencer, but on Wednesday I shall perhaps be viewed as a less serious sentencer—I appreciate that there is a potential discrepancy in sentences that different judges hand down for the same crimes.

Another problem is that the refugee convention refers to especially serious crimes but the Government's test in the Bill originally related not to the seriousness of the crime but to the punishment. Under the Government's original proposals, a person who had been sentenced to two years for assault would be a serious criminal, but not someone who had been sentenced to 18 months for child pornography offences.

The sentences imposed by courts abroad posed an additional problem. They might vary tremendously from those imposed in this country, and might or might not relate to the seriousness of the crime. When their lordships changed the Bill, the media reports of the Government's defeat in the House of Lords were based on factually incorrect information. They claimed that the amendment that was passed simply raised the threshold for presumption as a serious criminal from a sentence of two years to one of 10 years. However, we were discussing crimes for which a 10-year sentence could be imposed.

Whenever I have stood at the Dispatch Box, the Home Secretary has always been kind to me. However, he was a little unkind, if press reports are true, in raging at the tactics of Conservative peers who joined the Liberal Democrats to block moves giving the Government the right to deport refugees who had committed serious crimes. He apparently pledged to reverse such Xsilliness". He now knows that the Conservative party in the House of Lords was doing its best to introduce genuine sense to the proceedings. The vote on the clause was won by 77 votes to 71. Many of right hon. Gentleman's supporters were absent that night.

Conservative Members in the House of Lords tabled another amendment on Third Reading to give the Home Secretary power to add a schedule of offences when the maximum penalty was less than 10 years but he believed that the offence was sufficiently serious to warrant the perpetrator's inclusion in the definition of a serious criminal.

Matters have moved on. The House of Lords had a mature debate about the subject, with the result that the Bill reverts to us in a different state. The Conservative proposal was that someone would constitute a serious criminal if he or she were convicted of either an offence for which the maximum sentence is 10 years or more, regardless of the sentence received, or any other offence specified by the Home Secretary as one to which the presumption of serious crime should apply, for example, child abduction, child pornography and drug dealing.

The Government's current proposal states that a person is deemed to be convicted

of a particularly serious crime and to constitute a danger . . . if he is convicted of an offence specified by order of the Secretary of State, or he is convicted outside the United Kingdom of an offence and the Secretary of State certifies that in his opinion the offence is similar to an offence specified".

That is fair enough, and I hope that the Home Secretary will accept that Conservative Members believe that the proposal is good. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it moves the debate forward.

We believe that Government amendment (a) fulfils the convention's principles. We previously doubted whether the Government's proposals did that. However, proposed new subsection (3B)(b) provides that the order

Xshall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament."

I take it that that means that one would need to pray against it rather than using affirmative resolution procedure. Some people claim that the affirmative resolution procedure might be more satisfactory.

When the provision was first included in the Bill on the last night of Committee, we had no chance to consider it carefully. A combination of peers has examined the matter and pointed out the flaws. Consequently, the Home Secretary has presented a proposal that we regard as satisfactory. We are grateful, and I thank right hon. Gentleman for it.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

We are in difficult territory. As the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) suggested, the House of Commons has not debated the matter during the Bill's passage, although it was discussed at length in the Lords. When the provision left this place, I understood that those convicted of any offence and sentenced to more than two years would be caught by it. However, the events that the hon. Gentleman described ensued, and resulted in a different definition of offence and maximum offence, and the provision for a schedule. On advice, my colleagues and I take a different view.

I do not argue with the Home Secretary that one has to breach a threshold of 10 years for the offence to be serious. Our amendments have been probing. However, the matter does not need specific legislation because it is governed by international obligations and current law. The courts are allowed to deport people and the Home Secretary can get rid of people if they pose a risk to the country's security. We do not need to go down the road proposed by Government amendment (a).

We believe that although it is right for the Government to be able to protect us against those who have offended—

It being three and a quarter hours after the commencement of proceedings, Mr. Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].

Lords amendment No. 104 disagreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, pursuant to Order [this day], proceeded to put forthwith the remaining Questions necessary to dispose of the proceedings to be concluded at that hour.

Lords amendments Nos. 105 and 106 disagreed to.

New Clause

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I beg to move amendment (b) to the Lords amendment.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

We come now to financial support for asylum seekers. I am conscious that, as a consequence of the guillotine constraints under which we are working, we have only a quarter of an hour to debate the amendments, and this House has not previously had an opportunity to deal with these matters because the measures were introduced in the House of Lords when the Bill was recommitted to a Committee. The Government produced these amendments, after the summer, at the end of the Report stage, and they are tightening the rules at the eleventh hour. In our view, those changes are unfair and likely to result in considerable hardship and lack of redress.

The Lords amendment states:

XThe Secretary of State may not provide or arrange for the provision of support to a person under a provision mentioned in subsection (2) if...the person makes a claim for asylum which is recorded by the Secretary of State, and...the Secretary of State is not satisfied that the claim was made as soon as reasonably practicable after the person's arrival in the United Kingdom."

Amendment (b) would change the balance, so that the Secretary of State would have to be satisfied that there was undue delay in making the claim. There are many people who, through no fault of their own, do not immediately make an asylum application. It is not only Liberal Democrat Members who believe that; hon. Members on both sides of the House who deal with asylum cases know that there are such people, and current and previous Labour Front Benchers have said so in proceedings on earlier legislation. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said so when he was Home Secretary. The right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) sought to pray against orders that would have had the same effect as the Lords amendment because he was unhappy about them.

Most persuasively, the very good Committee of Members from all parties in both Houses, which we set up to deal with human rights issues, said of the Lords amendment that

Xthere is a significant risk that the new clause could lead to a violation of Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in cases where the circumstances did not amount to a violation of one of the Convention rights as defined in the Human Rights Act 1998... it is difficult to envisage a case where a person could be destitute without there being a threat of violation of Articles 3 and/or 8 of the ECHR. We reiterate that the Secretary of State has a duty under section 6 of the Human Rights Acts 1998 to avoid that risk. We draw this to the attention of each House."

My experience is that people who come here who are ignorant or frightened of the system may well not come to the attention of the authorities for days or months. They are afraid to do so because they do not know what the consequences will be. The danger in the Bill—although, I hope, not the intention—is that many of those people will be ruled out from receiving financial support and from the ability to appeal against that decision because the Secretary of State could say that he was not

Xsatisfied that the claim was made as soon as reasonably practicable".

The phrase

Xas soon as reasonably practicable"

means at the first available opportunity, which should be objectively defined. There should be an objective test, based on when the person knew that they were required to make a claim. I shall give the House one parallel. In civil litigation, where there is a three-year limit for action, people are entitled to start the clock not when they sustain the injury for which they are entitled to make a claim but when they become aware of their entitlement.

I hope that the House accepts that the Government should have to satisfy themselves that any delay is undue, unreasonable or unjustified. This case is simply put, but it has huge implications because, in the long term, the Secretary of State may be in breach of the convention. In the short term, however, I am more concerned that many deserving people who will otherwise be destitute will not be entitled to the support that we, as a rich country, must give them when they come to us looking for asylum.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the number of people who will become destitute. Is he aware that there are already thousands of asylum seekers who, having been dispersed to other parts of the country, have removed themselves to London from a place of safety and are sleeping on people's floors? We have a situation, mainly in London, in which the very poor are trying to house the desperately poor in their rooms.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I agree. My experience from my constituency is that there are many people who do not claim support, do not receive it or are appealing against a decision so they are dependent on the charity of others in pretty much the same situation. The bigger danger is for people who have no one to look after them, because they are likely to be out on the streets and open to abuse and exploitation. If we are trying to keep refugees and asylum seekers out of the hands of criminals, traffickers and exploiters, we are going the wrong way about it. I hope that the House will support amendment (b).

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I ask the House to reject the amendment on the very precept put forward by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). He gave an example based on civil litigation, saying that the clock should start when we presumed that people had become aware of their condition. I presume that people who come to this country to escape from death and torture do so to claim asylum, and I presume that they will claim asylum when they get into the country.

There are people who fulfil other immigration and visa requirements and who remain here, sustaining themselves, for a long time, until they run out of money or their course finishes. They then claim asylum so that we may sustain them for a further period. We all agree, I hope, that they should be ruled out from receiving that support.

The question is how reasonable we are regarding people who come here but do not claim asylum at the port of entry. We need to be reasonable and to take into account the trauma that people experience. We need to allow a reasonable period before we presume that people have come into the country for another reason and have been sustaining themselves, then when they can no longer do so, have decided that the asylum system would sustain them, being more generous than the equivalent something-for-something welfare to work system.

We are saying to people, XIf you have been here some time, by all means tell us how you got here, what your circumstances are, the means of entry and what you have been doing since you reached this country and we will provide you with support." That is what our proposals provide, and I think that that is reasonable. People with families will be sustained and those with special needs will be supported. That is in the proposal. People who have been in this country for some time and have decided to claim asylum can continue with that claim, but there is no reason on God's earth why we should sustain them. We should remember that those who choose to take part in the dispersal system receive not only sustenance, such as food and heating, but accommodation, equipment and other materials. As we do not automatically do the same for the indigenous population, it is not a lot to ask that we put these people on equal terms.

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Perth)

rose—

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

rose—

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I give way to the hon. Lady.

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Perth)

I listened to the right hon. Gentleman's explanation of this provision and its apparent reasonableness, but if it is so reasonable why was the proposal introduced at the eleventh hour?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

One reason was that the number of people who have been in the country a long time and have cottoned on to the new social security system has grown exponentially. The in-country claims are substantial.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I am listening carefully to what the Home Secretary has to say on this point. He will understand that many of us are concerned that the proposal will lead to destitute asylum seekers. We want to be assured that there is sufficient flexibility in the system to cope with the hard cases that arise. Is my right hon. Friend able to offer any reassurance on that point? I acknowledge all the points that he made, but I would still like to be assured that those who fall through the system for whatever reason do not end up sleeping on the streets.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I think that our proposal to respond if people give us a complete and accurate account of their circumstances covers the point that my hon. Friend rightly makes. People are right to be concerned. Given the sparsity of time owing to the previous votes, I shall just show one commitment of good faith.

Considerable concern has been expressed about the amount that we provide to sustain mothers with young children and small babies. The Minister of State and I are announcing tonight that, from February, we will increase the amount by #3 for mothers with children between the ages of one and five, and by #5 for those with children under one, so that they can have healthy food and milk on the same basis as the Department of Health provides elsewhere. If new mothers can show that they cannot breast-feed, we will introduce their top-up immediately. We are desperately trying to provide a sensible balance.

Iain Coleman (Labour, Hammersmith and Fulham)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I shall give way to my hon. Friend because I know that he has a particular concern.

Iain Coleman (Labour, Hammersmith and Fulham)

In the past, I have heard my right hon. Friend make comparisons between an intentionally homeless local authority case and the circumstances in these proposals. He asked if we do not offer this provision to the indigenous population, how, we can justify giving it to asylum seeker. I put it to him that if someone is intentionally homeless—every hon. Member will have had an intentionally homeless case in which the decision has been wrong—a number of possibilities are open to him. First, there is an appeal or a review. The briefing that some of us have received advises that there would be an appeal. Can my right hon. Friend clarify whether there would or would not be an appeal? Secondly, if I am an intentionally homeless person given that decision and I lose my appeal, I have the right to claim housing benefit and income support. The comparisons that my right hon. Friend made between the intentionally homeless member of the indigenous population and the destitute asylum seeker who is refused support do not hold up when we look at the facts.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

Under our proposals, we are presuming that the people who claim late are accommodating themselves or are accommodated by others. They are not turning up as people who are homeless by dint of being thrown out would turn up and ask for accommodation. We are dealing with late application for asylum, not destitution per se.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

rose—

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

rose—

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn).

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

When this proposal was debated in the House of Lords, consideration was given to cases in which the situation in the country from which the person was fleeing had changed dramatically and they made a late application that could be considered. Could the Home Secretary explain to us under what circumstances such late applications would be acceptable?

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

If the in-country circumstances had changed, perhaps because there had been a coup, the individual presenting an asylum claim would legitimately believe that he was at risk of death or torture if he returned to his country of origin. It is the change that has taken place in-country that makes the difference in respect of the judgment. I think that that is fair and reasonable. If someone's home country has been taken over or the regime has changed to one that would threaten them, we do not intend to send them back. They would automatically have a legitimate right to claim asylum and to be supported from the moment they made that claim.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

I was interested in what my right hon. Friend said earlier about the fact that the number of people applying late is increasing exponentially and that is why something had to be done. I tabled two written questions that were answered earlier this month, one of which asked about the dates at which people applied—less than three months, six months or 12 months—and was told that the information was not available. I was also told that there were no statistics available on the length of time asylum applicants have been in the United Kingdom before making an application for support. I am not sure where the evidence comes from. If we do not have an appeal as well, what will actually happen is that appeals will take place and they will be—

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I inadvertently gave the House the wrong age groups when I addressed the issue of new additional family support for healthy eating and milk. I was correct in saying that we are going to provide an extra #5 for babies under the age of one, but I should have said that the extra #3 was for those between the ages of one and three, not one and five. My apologies to the House.

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

The whole House will have heard the Secretary of State's correction, which is now firmly on the record.

Clause 69 — Adjudicators

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I beg to move, that this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

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

With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 128 to 153, 154 and amendment (a), 155, 156, 157 and amendments (a) to (f), 158 to 178, 179 and amendments (a) and (b), 180 to 183, 184 and amendments (a) and (b), 185 to 187, 188 and amendments (a) to (d), 189 to 191, and 215 and amendments (a) to (c).

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The amendments in this group are for the most part minor and technical and I do not intend to speak to them, although I will be happy to answer any questions. I should, however, explain why the Government tabled amendments to non-suspensive appeals provisions in clauses 82 and 101 which were fully discussed in the other place but which this House has yet to be able to consider. Without delaying the House, I hope that I can set the provisions in the context of what the Government are trying to achieve through their overall approach to asylum and immigration, as outlined in February's White Paper.

The strategy is threefold, and it is important to remember the three elements. The first is to return asylum to its proper purpose: a route through which people who are fleeing persecution can readily and easily be identified and, once they have gained permission to stay, be integrated properly and helped to settle here. So returning asylum to its proper purpose is a very important part of the strategy. The second element is the need to do a lot better at integrating refugees, including opening a gateway—with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—for people to come in directly from out of country. The third element, because we do welcome migrants generally, is the opening up of managed legitimate routes for economic migration.

Most Members will agree that we need to deal with the very large numbers who seek to remain here on the basis of asylum and human rights claims that are clearly unfounded, and whose motivation in coming has to do not with fleeing persecution but with other objectives—however understandable—that are outside the asylum system. The term Xclearly unfounded" is not defined in legislation, but the courts have held that it constitutes a claim that is obviously without substance, or is bound to fail. An example would be those who come here for economic reasons, or those whose fears—even if true—would not amount to persecution, or to inhuman or degrading treatment. It is essential that clearly unfounded cases be identified and dealt with quickly. There can be no justification for allowing a person who has made a clearly unfounded claim to remain here to pursue a hopeless case.

We debated the arguments for introducing non-suspensive appeals at an earlier stage. The amendments to clauses 82 and 101 build on this provision by introducing a list of countries where a claim will be presumed to be clearly unfounded.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The Minister rightly points out that we had a general debate, and we shall come to the more specific view that the Government have taken in the Lords. Superficially, the argument is very appealing, but will she explain why the Government are proposing such a rigorous response in terms of their definition of manifestly unfounded cases? Throughout the 50 years for which we have been signed up to the refugee convention, people have regularly come from other democracies with cases that were found to be good ones. Most importantly, the Home Office's own statistics for this year show that about 40 per cent. of Xmanifestly unfounded" certificates are being overturned on appeal to the adjudicator. It seems that, when looked at more carefully, apparently manifestly unfounded cases are not unfounded. That would trouble anybody, and it is, I hope, a reason for proceeding much more carefully than the Government's proposals allow us to do.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, and it is a valid one, but he is not comparing like with like. Claims that have been dealt with will not go through the same system that we plan to use for the cases under discussion. I shall outline the system for the hon. Gentleman shortly, but I agree that we must ensure that the quality of the initial decision making, the care taken at that stage, and the building in of additional scrutiny are sufficient to ensure that decisions in cases so certified are robust and defendable. Those are very important points, and in view of the outcome of the cases that the hon. Gentleman outlines, we are building that degree of rigour into the initial decision-making system. I shall explain to the hon. Gentleman exactly what the stages are shortly.

This country has a long tradition of considering every asylum claim individually to see whether a person would face persecution in his or her own country, and that will continue. In tabling these amendments, we do not rule out the possibility that a person from a generally safe country could be a refugee. However, the fact is that the vast majority are not refugees. This is true of the 10 countries that are the first in the queue to join the European Union. These countries—they are listed in the amendments—are all democracies. They have functioning criminal justice systems, respect for human rights and a commitment to dealing with elements in their society who target minority groups. For these countries, more than 90 per cent. of those who appealed against a refusal to grant asylum had their appeals dismissed. As Members will know, at a recent meeting in Luxembourg the Justice and Home Affairs Council adopted a declaration that member states should start from the presumption that any asylum application from a national of one of the 10 states is manifestly unfounded. We are therefore in step with our EU partners in adopting this measure. A significant number of asylum applications from these countries contributes to the total number that we are dealing with.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Do not the Minister's own figures make it perfectly clear that 10 per cent. of people who applied from white list countries did have a valid claim? Under this system, how will they be protected?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

People will enter into the non-suspensive appeal process, but that will not remove the possibility of their seeking judicial scrutiny of their case by applying for judicial review. If an application were made, such a person would not be removed until the application was determined. If the application were approved, they would not be removed pending the determination of the judicial review itself.

We must recognise that the fact that tens of thousands of people are using the asylum system has a serious impact on our ability to identify and integrate refugees. That introduces a degree of chaos into the system, and we really need to rationalise it. If we do nothing about these problems now, they will simply get worse as our EU partners take a firm stance, and the United Kingdom perhaps becomes a more attractive destination.

The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey mentioned safeguards. Those affected by the measure will have safeguards to ensure that their claims are properly considered. They will have access to legal advice while their case is being considered. Their application will be considered by a specially trained officer. The decision to refuse—if that is the decision—will be checked by a senior officer. And random quality testing of decisions will be carried out by a legally qualified person. However, the measure will make it clear that very few applications from those countries will have a valid claim.

Circumstances change, and there may come a time when other countries achieve the settled conditions that are enjoyed by those on the list of 10. In that case, if large numbers from one of those countries continue to seek asylum, it may be appropriate to add that country to the list. Clause 82 has constraints to ensure that other countries could only be added appropriately.

Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool, Riverside)

What powers will a Minister have to add other countries to the list and what scrutiny of that decision would take place?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

My hon. Friend will be aware of other provisions in the Bill for the establishment of an advisory group on in-country conditions. The Home Secretary has already made it clear that when he considers the range of evidence on the circumstances in particular countries that might justify inclusion in the list he will take the views of that group into account before reaching a decision. That decision would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Therefore, no country could be added without Parliament having debated and agreed its inclusion. Additions cannot be made unless the Home Secretary is satisfied that there is no serious risk of persecution in that state, or part of a state, and that removal to the country of the persons entitled to reside there would not be in contravention of the European convention on human rights. The opposite also applies: if circumstances change for the worse, the country can be removed from the list.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I sit with the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) and other colleagues, pointed out that the documentation considered by the European Commission, in its assessment of applicant countries, contained good reasons for concern about human rights matters in all those countries. For example, the Minister will remember that for Estonia the Joint Committee listed the following causes for concern:

Xposition of stateless persons, who constitute about 12.5% of the population; use of force by police; treatment, including arbitrary detention, of disabled and mentally ill persons".

For the Czech Republic, the causes for concern include:

Xtreatment of people in police custody; legislative discrimination against religious groups, especially minority religious groups; and widespread discrimination against Roma in education, housing and employment, despite attempts to improve the position".

Those are just two examples. Although those countries are applicant countries, they will not satisfy human rights tests for all their citizens or residents. I share the Joint Committee's concern that we are making presumptions that are unacceptable on human rights grounds, because they will be rebuttable in theory but not in practice.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The hon. Gentleman has provided the answer to his own point. The presumption is for the generality of people in a country, but it is rebuttable. The terms of the measure acknowledge the possibility that any particular individual may be able to establish, on grounds of his or her experience, that the general presumption does not apply in that case. As I have explained—and I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept my assurances on this point—we want to certify only clearly unfounded claims. We do not want to certify individuals whose cases reach the European convention threshold. That is why we are taking great care in providing how certification decisions should be made, so that that eventuality is covered.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

If the Minister could give the House an assurance that she does not intend to certify the cases of Roma from the accession countries, many of us would have our fears allayed. I have cases from Women Against Rape and the Refugee Legal Centre involving Roma from many accession countries who have had their cases certified, but under the present arrangements, that certification has been overthrown and they have been granted asylum. It is the situation of the Roma in the accession countries that is causing the greatest concern to many of us.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I have different experiences and I could cite different examples. In this country in the past few months, not a single application from a Czech Roma person has been successful. I do not claim that the Roma's circumstances are not difficult in some countries, but only in very limited circumstances will their claims reach the threshold of persecution or torture and inhuman treatment under the convention, or prove that the state in question cannot or will not protect them.

The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey will wish to speak on the amendments he has tabled, and I will be happy to give specific responses to any questions that he has. However, I shall make some general points now rather than address each amendment individually. There are two groups of amendments, one relating to clause 82 and one to clause 101, which seek to achieve the same objective. They try to remove the human rights claim from the clauses. As was acknowledged by some Liberal Democrats in the other place, the amendments are wrecking amendments, because the clauses could not work if the potential to make a human rights claim is taken out. That would undermine the purpose of both clauses, because anyone making a clearly unfounded asylum claim could get an in-country appeal right simply by lodging an equally unfounded human rights claim. Therefore, we will not accept those amendments.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

I shall not detain the House for too long, but I wish to pose one question to the House. What is a safe country? Hon. Members will have been on holiday to countries that were perfectly safe for them but which might not have been so for some of their nationals. Equally, I suspect that we will have been to countries where the reverse applies—where we might have been in some danger, but nationals were not.

The Government have to perform a difficult balancing act. They want to speed up procedures and at the same time they want to be fair. I understand that. I have a high regard for the Minister, so I shall tell the House that the Opposition have no difficulty with the Government's proposals on these matters. However, we do have a few queries.

We discussed non-suspensive appeals a little in Committee, with the Minister's predecessor. Matters have progressed since then. The Bill reached Report stage in the House of Lords in a slightly different state. The so-called Xwhite list" is set out in Lords amendment No. 188, and the prospect of the Secretary of State adding a state by order is very much in line with Conservative party thinking.

As always, however, the devil is in the detail. No hon. Member would want to send a person abroad to conduct an appeal if that meant that that person was being sent to severe danger and possible death. No decent person could ever want that, but it also makes absolute sense to speed the procedure up, so that a person whose case is unfounded can be told that he or she will be sent back to conduct an appeal from a country that is safe. Do we have bilateral agreements with the countries set out in Lords amendment No. 188 that mean that, following certification, we are able to send people back to those countries in the certain knowledge that they will be received and able to conduct an appeal from there?

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that we have bilateral agreements with Norway and Iceland. Do we have such agreements with any of the other countries? I do not think so, but I should be grateful if the Minister could tell me a little more about that.

We do not have long tonight for discussion of the nuts and bolts of these matters. I always enjoy discussing nuts and bolts rather than theory, but I hope that the Minister will give me—either this evening or in writing—a step-by-step guide to how the proposals will work in practice. All hon. Members feel strongly that we must make sure that a person who is certified and sent back to one of the listed countries should not be grossly disadvantaged. Such a person must be able to conduct an appeal, without prejudice or unfairness. If that person is not scuppered in that way, he or she will have a chance of mounting a proper appeal. I therefore want to ask the Minister a series of questions regarding the mechanics of certification and how the appeal procedure will work.

I shall deal first with certification. The phrase

Xif the Secretary of State is satisfied"

crops up all over the Bill, but the House knows that the Secretary of State does not examine all the cases. He cannot do so. He delegates, and so the person who must be satisfied is the determining officer. The initial decision maker will be a Home Office official, and that is the person who must be satisfied in these matters.

The Minister has mentioned the special training and expertise that initial decision makers must have if they are to deal with these difficult matters. I asked a series of parliamentary questions earlier this year about initial decision makers. In January 2001, there were 761 initial decision makers in asylum cases in post, but the number had fallen in January this year to 697. I am sure that the number will have increased by now, and that the Minister will be preparing for the future by seeking to recruit more initial decision makers.

In Committee, and subsequently, many hon. Members have told the Minister and the Home Secretary that it is vital to make high-quality initial decisions in asylum cases.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

indicated assent.

Humfrey Malins (Conservative, Woking)

The hon. Gentleman and I agree on that, as do all hon. Members. It is very important to get matters right at the beginning, to avoid long-term problems. Getting matters right first time is very much in the interests of the Government and the country, and it is certainly in the interests of the asylum seeker.

In July, I asked the Minister what plans she had to increase and improve the training of initial decision makers in asylum cases. I was disappointed to be told that, at that stage, there were no such plans. I think that the position may have changed. Indeed, an answer that the Minister gave me later in the year suggested that there were moves afoot to Xmaintain and improve" the quality of initial decision on asylum applications. I am pleased about that. All the non-governmental organisations involved in this matter place great emphasis on getting the decision right at the beginning. Nowhere is that more important than in cases where the stakes are high, as they are for people who are to be removed from this country so that their appeals can be heard from abroad.

I want to ask a few questions about how the appeals will work in practice. In this country, if my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) or I were convicted of an offence in the court, we would go to our appeals in person. That has always been the tradition. We understand and agree with what the Government are doing, but the Minister must accept that the proposals represent a departure from the norm. It is not what we in this country have got used to in the legal or asylum systems over many years.

I want to put myself in the position of a person who arrives in this country and makes an asylum application. Let us say that I am from the Czech Republic, which is on the white list. I assume that an initial decision about my application will be made. How does that work? If the Minister cannot answer that tonight, I should be grateful if she could write me a note. After the initial refusal, I suspect that there will be a removal. Let us assume that I do not make any applications but that I am removed in any case. How quickly will that removal take place? Will I be at liberty in the period between the initial decision that goes against me and my removal, or will I be detained?

After the initial decision has gone against me, will I have the opportunity to take competent legal advice, either straight away or in the intervening period, however long that may be, about the prospects for my appeal and how it should be undertaken? Will I have to lodge all my appeal papers before I go? I will get a chance, I am sure, to see my lawyer before I go, but what about after I am removed, when I am in the Czech Republic? Are there any circumstances—I think that the Minister will confirm that there are not—in which the adjudicator can say, XI demand to see this person personally"? I do not think that that can happen, but we need it spelled out. What about my legal help and advice after I have gone, if I have gone?

In October, I asked the Minister about the circumstances in which asylum applicants from abroad who had been removed would be entitled to advice from lawyers, how they would get it, whether the lawyers over here would be publicly funded to give advice to people abroad and whether they would be publicly funded to travel abroad to take instruction, talk to witnesses or talk to the appellant himself or herself. That is a narrow question, but it is important for those who give legal advice and help to know, when someone is certified and removed, what the scope is for providing, in a sense, a full legal service. I was told in a written answer by the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), that the Legal Services Commission would authorise expenditure only in exceptional circumstances if an interview was absolutely necessary and there was no reasonable alternative such as communication by telephone, post, fax or video link. Sponsors, relatives or friends of a client based in the UK could also be used as a channel for instructions. Lawyers abroad could also be used as agents and paid out of public funds. Is the Minister saying that I could go back to the Czech Republic and consult a local lawyer in Prague who would then be paid by the Legal Services Commission? That is what seems to be suggested. In that case, what about the Legal Services Commission quality mark and standards?

These are not flippant questions but real ones. It will not be very long before, under these procedures, people become certified. When that happens, they will have to go abroad and make their appeal from there. It would be helpful for the House to have answers to some of these purely practical questions. If the Minister could write to me, a copy of the letter could be put in the Library. These questions are raised quite frequently with me by NGOs such as the Immigration Advisory Service, which I had the honour to found some 10 years ago. They could matter very much to people who might be affected by the Bill. I notice the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) nodding in agreement. I hope that means that I have not overstepped my mark in speaking from the Conservative Benches. I am sure that I have not. I pose these questions to the Minister because Members on both sides of the House are approaching the issue with humanity, fairness and decency.

In conclusion, we have no difficulty with what is proposed. We support the white list; we support the white list plus. I pay tribute to Lord Kingsland and to Baroness Anelay for the work that they and others have done in the other place. They found support and sympathy for many of their arguments from members all around their lordships' House. I hope that the Minister will accept our support for what she is doing. However, I hope that she will be prepared to say loud and clear that the Government will do everything as we would want it done to ensure that the system, which may be fast, is also patently and clearly fair.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

I have two issues of concern relating to certification connected with white-list countries and people who may lose their rights of appeal under clauses 82 and 84.

I raised the matter of certification in June and was reassured to some extent by the response of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who said that he wanted to ensure that the possibility of review was readily available. He continued:

XWe 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." —[Official Report, 11 June 2002; Vol. 386, c. 802.]

I referred to Roma in an earlier intervention. I have had a number of cases presented to me by the Refugee Legal Centre and by Women Against Rape. I do not know the dates of all these cases, but most of them are of recent origin because in all cases—and the episodes complained about happened in countries including Poland, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia—there have been certificated appeals which, under the present law, can be appealed against. The applicants have appealed and have been granted asylum. In many cases, applicants have been subjected to rape and their assailants have colluded with state forces, including the police. That seems to be exactly the sort of pattern to which the Home Secretary referred. There is an issue about the way in which the power exists to mediate the exercise of the certification process. Were the Home Office to do that in the case of the Roma, I believe that much concern would be mitigated.

I am further concerned by the way in which clause 84(2)(c) is interpreted. Can the Minister give an assurance about its interpretation? Under this provision, if someone had had a right of appeal which they had not exercised, they could lose that right of appeal. At present, there is a way of testing that earlier before an adjudicator. Under this provision, someone can lose their right of appeal if they

Xwould have been permitted or required to raise on an appeal against another immigration decision in respect of which he chose not to exercise a right of appeal."

That would apply to someone who made an application, then made a fresh application and did not appeal against the refusal of their earlier application.

I understand why the Home Office has introduced this clause. Some people exercise their right of appeal in a flawed way and use that to get more rights of appeal. I am fundamentally in favour of only one right of appeal. The present arrangement whereby people can spin out many appeals is ineffective; it creates cynicism about the immigration and asylum appeals process and is wide open to abuse.

In some cases, however, people were not aware of their original right to appeal and I am concerned about them; for example, they might have moved—we all know how asylum seekers are pushed around the country—or they might have had a bad adviser. Some advisers are corrupt and cheating.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Many of our constituents receive incompetent legal advice at the start of the process, so the damage has been done, however good their legal advice at the appeal stage. Justified cases are lost at appeal owing to the incompetence of earlier lawyers. People need the right of access to good-quality advice at the very beginning, but increasingly that does not happen.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

My hon. Friend makes a slightly different point, but he is right: we need to ensure that people have better access to advice. I hope that they can receive that advice in accommodation centres not only because they need it but because it helps the decision-making system to work well.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The hon. Lady is an expert in this matter. I am sympathetic to her argument about a single appeal, but does she agree that an appeal cannot be exercised fully and properly if, in many cases, it is made from abroad? The appeal will have to take place in this country if we are to ensure that it is properly carried out, wherever it comes in the process.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

I agree, especially as regards people who, if they lost their appeal, could be removed to countries that are not even on the white list and where some groups are subject to the most grotesque violence. That is why I am concerned about these provisions.

At lunchtime today, I received a letter from a colleague of the Minister in response to questions that I had raised. The letter stated:

XMany of the people whose situations you describe should be making late appeals. The Home Office is bound to pass such appeals on to the adjudicator for an independent review of the timeliness issue and may in appropriate cases treat the appeal as in-time so that it proceeds directly."

I shall be overwhelmingly happy if the Minister assures me that the interpretation of paragraph (c) will always be that if people chose not to exercise their substantive right of appeal earlier, the Home Office will allow an adjudicator to determine whether the appeal should treated as out of time. People who had well founded fears but who did not exercise their appeal at an early stage could thus have their appeal considered.

Neil Gerrard (Labour, Walthamstow)

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The critical point seems to be the immigration officer's leeway in deciding whether to certify the case. Perhaps some guidance could be produced, so that if there were failings on the part of the legal adviser that had nothing to do with the applicant, they could be taken into account when deciding whether to certify.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

In effect, that is what I am suggesting. The clause provides that one of the grounds for certification is that the substance of the appeal could have been raised at an earlier stage had the applicant chosen to do so. The decision about that issue of choice does not have to be dealt with in the Bill; in practice, it can be covered by instructions to immigration officers. However, the point is substantial. We need to ensure that the interpretation of the Bill is such that cases that ought to have a right of appeal can have that right. If the Minister can give us that assurance, the serious injustices to which the measure might give rise will not occur.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

This debate is important. As the Minister and the Conservative spokesman observed, we debated the principle of a non-suspensive appeal that would have to take place outside the United Kingdom during earlier stages of the Bill, but there was never a white list proposal.

Like other colleagues, I remember debates on this issue when the Conservatives were in power and the Labour party was in opposition. The Labour party was very critical of the principle of a white list—the idea that one listed countries in advance with presumptions—and opposed it, as we do. I have not changed my view with the change of Government, and I know that some colleagues in the Labour party have not done so either.

I am not convinced that the argument that the Government have given their Back Benchers is terribly persuasive. A parliamentary Labour party briefing on the amendments came into my hands yesterday, as these things sometimes do. It poses this rhetorical question:

XIs this a White List just like the Tories'?"

It then gives an answer in an attempt to persuade Labour Members:

XThe situation is quite different. We are living in a very different world now, where we are seeing large flows of asylum seekers from countries which are just about to join the EU and where there can be absolutely no doubt about their safety."

There is some truth in that, in the sense that there are new applicant countries to the European Union, but there are not many more asylum seekers. The number of those seeking asylum in western Europe has dropped by half over the past 10 years. So the argument for having a white list now, which was opposed by the Labour party only five years ago, is not borne out by the facts.

The Minister was right to say that some of the amendments tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends and me go to the heart of the principle of whether appeals should occur outside the country, and to the heart of the principle of a white list. That is because we are opposed to appeals abroad and we are opposed to a white list. We have not changed that view, so we shall try to amend the Bill to create the legislation that we wish it were.

For the record, I should like to list the Liberal Democrat amendments, as the Minister referred to the amendments generally, although that is not a criticism. We have tabled amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 154, amendments (a) to (f) to Lords amendment No. 157, amendments (a) and (b) to Lords amendment No. 179, amendments (a) and (b) to Lords amendment No. 184, amendments (a) to (d) to Lords amendment No. 188 and amendments (a) to (c) to Lords amendment No. 215. Some of them are parallel, in that they apply similarly to similar clauses. I shall not go through each in detail.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

Hallelujah!

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I agree with that response, and I am sure others do too. The Minister is right that the amendments would omit in part from the purview of the Bill applications for human rights asylum as opposed to other bases of claim. As an alternative, they would not limit the category to serious-only cases, and would prevent the Government from adding other countries—one of the criticisms, this—to the list by secondary legislation.

Of course it is a good idea to have an advisory panel on country information, but it is less of a good idea if that panel does not have an obligation to give advice. There is the hint of a good thing without delivery of that good thing, as there is not as yet any obligation in the Bill to consult. That is also a matter that has been raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and others.

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour, Islington North)

One problem is that when a person is deported to, say, an EU applicant country and wishes to pursue an appeal, there is no individual monitoring of that person's circumstances—the degree of harassment that they might face from local official or unofficial forces, which object to the fact that the person has brought Xshame" on their country by applying for asylum elsewhere. I believe that such people suffer considerable harassment as a result.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The hon. Gentleman is right. One question that I want to ask the Minister—I hope that she will have a chance to reply in her winding-up speech—is: what tracking process will there be of people who return to the country from which they came? I do not think that many would find the following judgment flawed. The chance of someone being able fairly, without influence or disadvantage, to pursue an appeal in this country after having been sent home to the Czech Republic—to take the example of the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart)—without the authorities in that country becoming aware of the people or person being put at risk is very small. The fact is that most appeals will not happen once the individuals involved have gone abroad. For the Government, the blunt truth is that those appeals are not intended to happen—it is intended that a whole series of appeals will be lost. That is why I put my question to the hon. Member for Slough. It seems to me that we could come to a perfectly reasonable view on a single stage of appeal, but only if an appeal takes place—evidence shows how flawed initial decisions often are—and takes place in this country.

I have asked the Minister whether the monitor will be used to track people. My second question relating to the monitor is: what will the monitor monitor? The decisions are not adjudicator's decisions, which result in a decision; nor are they tribunal decisions, which result in a report. What will the monitor have? We are told that they will have a certificate, but will they have any more than that? Will they have the notes of the hearing? Will they independently take notes of the hearing? How can someone monitor whether the job has been done if they have no access to material on which to judge the initial decision? Proper scrutiny of a judicial or quasi-judicial process is not possible unless there is material to scrutinise.

Home Office Minister Lord Filkin, when asked in the other place whether the white list would be the subject of advice from the advisory panel—whether the panel was to be asked about the countries on the list, the countries to add and those to remove—said that he did not think so. What is the point in having an advisory panel on countries if it is not to be asked for its advice? The purpose of having an independent documentation centre—for which the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and others have argued—and an advisory panel is to have independent advice on, say, the state of play in the Czech Republic as it affects the Roma community.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Is it not equally important to put into the legislation a positive obligation on the Secretary of State to have regard to that advice? Currently, it appears to me that the panel is merely one of a number of sources of advice to which he might have resort when refining his decisions, but there needs to be, first, a duty to advise and, secondly, a duty to have regard to the advice.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I agree absolutely. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which the hon. and learned Lady is a member, was highly critical of the Government's proposal. That Committee does an excellent job of examining new Bills, and it produced a second report on the amendments. Its members can speak for themselves, but the Committee was highly critical of the process envisaged and made it absolutely clear that it goes against the advice given by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which says that a state-by-state presumption is invalid and cannot be justified. The Minister in the other place did not give the undertaking to which the hon. and learned Lady refers. Colleagues who advise us—the Immigration Advisory Service is based in my constituency—have specifically asked whether the advisory panel will be asked to advise, but we have received no such assurance.

The hon. Member for Slough gave lots of good examples—most drawn from the Refugee Legal Centre, which is an organisation with an excellent reputation that used to be based in my constituency but has now crossed the river—of people from each of the applicant countries who have suffered persecution and fled, and whose cases have been upheld. All the cases arose in recent years. Let me add one further case, which is relevant to more than just the issue of the white list of applicant countries.

My noble Friend Lord Avebury, who is a diligent champion on these matters, took up the case of Jaqueline Kunan, an asylum seeker from Ivory Coast. I believe that he described her circumstances when the Lords debated the Bill last week. I gather that her case was reported on XWoman's Hour" yesterday morning. She was in Harmondsworth from June, then detained in Dungavel, and then returned to Harmondsworth on 21 October. She has had three solicitors, one of whom, it appears, did not do a particularly good job. She has with her a baby who was born a year and a half ago, and I understand that she is again pregnant.

Jaqueline Kunan's claim is one that would normally be regarded as fundamentally unfounded, on the basis that the judgment given by the authorities was that she had not made out her case for asylum from Ivory Coast—a country where a military coup and takeover have occurred.

In a couple of hours this week, my colleague Lord Avebury was able to substantiate independently the facts that the woman alleged, and in a way that made her case clear. With the assistance of the staff in my constituency office or other people, I have often asked for the facts to be checked, and we have been able to disprove the circumstances asserted against us. I do not yet have the confidence that the system will come to the rescue often enough of people in particularly vulnerable positions. The Minister accepted my point that 40 per cent. of the cases that were held to be manifestly unfounded had been overturned on appeal. When the Home Office did a spot check, it concluded that 85 per cent. of the decisions were satisfactory. By definition, 15 per cent. are not satisfactory, so 15 per cent. of—in that case—250 people, who may have had a terrible time, would be sent home, possibly to face persecution. We have a duty to deal with them.

I hope that hon. Members will be sympathetic to amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 154, if there is an opportunity for us to move it before the guillotine falls, or if not, that they will join us in voting against Lords amendment No. 157. That is a dangerous road to go down. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has advised against it. It is a fair interpretation of the view of our Joint Committee on Human Rights to say that the Committee was very worried about it. We should not sign off the principle of people being sent abroad to appeal, or presume that certain countries will be satisfactory. Disproving that will often be far too difficult to achieve.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I have little to add. I rely heavily on what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), who made most of the points that I had in mind. May I take the matter outside the white list arena for a short time? Suspended appeals were discussed in an earlier debate, but let us not forget that there will henceforward be a certificate from the Secretary of State that somebody's application, either on an asylum basis or on a human rights basis, is clearly unfounded. Such people will have no right to remain while making any kind of appeal, even if they do not come from an applicant country to the EU. There are all the hazards that my hon. Friend the Member for Slough set out in relation to people being returned to applicant countries in order for them to make their applications from there.

Ten or, as Opposition Members have said, 15 per cent. of people have cause for complaint and have succeeded on appeal, even from those countries. That is bad enough, but we will be sending people back to other countries on the basis that their claims are clearly unfounded. In addition, there will be no independent advisory service with any of the duties that would attach to such a service to tell the Home Secretary when a country is safe or not, and there will be no duty on him to have regard to any advisory service before making such decisions. The advisory service is an extra protection, but it comes into play only when the Home Secretary is considering whether to extend the white list.

In a sense, the white list people are somewhat better off. First, they have a 90 or 85 per cent. chance, because they are in a country that we regard as meriting application to the EU. Secondly, there will have been a screening process for that country through the independent advisory service, from which, I reiterate, it seems important to me that there should be a duty on the Home Secretary to accept advice, whereas people going outside the white list countries on the basis that their claims are clearly unfounded will have neither of those protections at all. They obviously will have no appeal in this country. They will have the prospect of judicial review, and I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister was able to reassure me that nobody who had a certificate judicially reviewed would be removed before the judicial review, whether allowed or not, had gone to a full hearing. I framed that question in connection with white list countries. Can my hon. Friend give me the same reassurance that people who are not from white list countries who want to appeal to the divisional court against their certificates will not be removed before the applications have been fully heard?

Beyond that reassurance, I seek a stronger reassurance, because a perusal of other aspects of the legislation seems to show that those who have been certified as clearly unfounded in their claim, even if they judicially review, whether or not they are going to a white country, will not be entitled to any asylum support while they wait for their case to be heard. Judicial review becomes a thin remedy indeed with no means of sustenance and support while trying to implement it. Can my hon. Friend give me some assurance about what seems to be a lacuna in even the scant protection that the divisional court may be able to offer?

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

Is it the hon. and learned Lady's personal interpretation or that of her Committee that the proposals as amended appear to apply to people whether they are inside or outside the UK? That has been a controversial issue. Does she accept that the UNHCR evidence is clear that a presumption against a person can be effectively rebutted only if that person has a right of appeal and is based in the UK? That is important.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I have made it clear that I do not speak on behalf of the Joint Committee in any of what I say. The Joint Committee raised the real difficulty that, on the face of the proposed legislation, the exclusion of the words

Xa person within the United Kingdom"

seemed to mean that no one had a right of appeal anywhere. However, I took that point up with the Minister only recently, and I am now satisfied that a proper reading of the legislation leaves open that appeal from outside the country. I accept wholeheartedly what the hon. Gentleman says about the UNHCR and the need to rebut by having an appeal in the country. It is a thorny area for those who have a strong interest in human rights and ordinary decency.

It seems that there will be resort only to the independent monitor who will produce a report only to the Home Secretary and presumably not deal with individual claims. May I suggest that the independent monitor should instead be answerable to the Joint Committee on Human Rights on behalf of the House?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

In the four minutes remaining to me, I shall do my best to address the issues that hon. Members have raised, and any that I miss I shall deal with in writing.

The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) raised a number of issues and invited me to write to him. I shall write to him on the many questions that he asked about the details of the process and make the reply public. We are still working on some aspects, but it is important that hon. Members should have the information for which he asked and I shall set that out as clearly as I can.

I invite the hon. Gentleman, and any other hon. Member who would like to do so, to visit Oakington. Anyone who saw the process, the circumstances and conditions there might be reassured about the close attention to the issues of quality that we want to bring to bear on the process. For the record, the hon. Gentleman asked me about bilateral agreements, and it is important to remember that these clauses provide for two types of non-suspensive appeal. The first type, on which there has been most focus this evening, occurs where the Secretary of State certifies the claim to be clearly unfounded. In such cases, the person would be returned to their country of residence, so there would be no need for the bilateral agreement to which the hon. Gentleman referred. The second type of case occurs when we refuse a claim and consider that there is a safe third country. The person concerned can appeal against that refusal. Clearly, we would need bilateral agreements to make use of that process. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that no bilateral agreements with other countries have yet been signed, but we need the necessary legal powers to pave the way for them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) expressed concerns about a person who had understandable reasons for not appealing against a refusal, but is denied a right of appeal on making a subsequent application for asylum. Certainly, the powers to certify under clause 84 will be exercised on an individual basis. If a person could have appealed, but did not do so and then applied again, we would consider what reasons they had for not appealing. I cannot give my hon. Friend an absolute assurance that the second application would be successful in avoiding certification. However, it would be judged on its merits and the reasons for not appealing in the first place would be taken into account, again on their merits.

I should like briefly to mention Lords amendment No. 215, to which a number of hon. Members have referred. The advisory panel is an important development. As I said, we will consult the panel about countries that we are considering adding to the list, but I say in response to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) that its job is to cover all countries from which asylum applications come.

It being five and a quarter hours after the commencement of proceedings, Madam Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].

Question agreed to.

Lords amendment No. 127 agreed to.

Madam Deputy Speaker, pursuant to Order [this day], proceeded to put forthwith the remaining Questions necessary to dispose of the proceedings to be concluded at that hour.

Lords amendments Nos. 128 to 153 agreed to.

Clause 82 — Appeal from within United Kingdom: Unfounded Human Rights or Asylum Claim

After clause 13

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

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

With this we will take Lords amendment No. 45 and Government motion to disagree thereto, Lords amendments Nos. 46 to 83, Lords amendments Nos. 85 and 87, Lords amendment No. 88 and Government motion to disagree thereto, Lords amendments Nos. 89 to 97, Lords amendment 98 and amendments (a) and (b) thereto, Lords amendments Nos. 100 to 103 and 110 to 125, Lords amendment No. 126 and Government motion to disagree thereto, Lords amendment No. 192 and Government motion to disagree thereto, Lords amendments Nos. 193 to 213, Lords amendment No. 214 and amendment (a) thereto, Lords amendment No. 216 and Government motion to disagree thereto, Lords amendments Nos. 217 to 223, Lords amendment No. 224 and Government motion to disagree thereto, Lords amendment No. 225 and Government amendment (a) thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 226 to 236 and 238 to 311.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

These amendments refer primarily to the order-making power in Lords amendment No. 225. Most of what has been said about that amendment so far, both in the other place and outside, has been wrong, and much of it has been extremely misleading. We can only conjecture whether that was deliberate or not, but to put the matter beyond doubt we have altered the wording of the amendment. That may have been unnecessary, but the revision was not difficult.

Three issues were raised in the other place in relation to Lords amendment No. 225: timing, scope and what was described as menace. On timing, there is little more I can say other than that we are where we are. As I think we all know, the Bill has necessarily evolved, particularly in recent months as we have reached agreement with France during changes in the asylum system. We have had to develop policy and reflect that in the Bill. It is important that, notwithstanding extra strains imposed on Members, we have managed to produce good legislation in which we respond to reality, albeit a changing reality.

The greatest misunderstanding has perhaps been on the scope of the Lords amendment. I ask the House to agree an amendment to clarify the scope of the power. I make it clear that it was always our view, based on parliamentary counsel's advice, that the power was narrow and limited.

The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) has a formidable skill—I am not sure how long it will last or how soon he will be found out. He can talk utter rubbish and be totally wrong but because he has a soft seductive voice and seems like a nice person, he is believed, even by rather lazy journalists who do not do their research to find out the truth of the matter.

The right hon. Gentleman made two contentions on the XToday" programme about the Lords amendment—that the power would allow for changes to the Bill in future without recourse to a parliamentary debate, and that the power would enable the Home Secretary to change any previous laws. Both those contentions are completely and utterly incorrect. There would have to be a parliamentary debate and approval through an affirmative order if previous primary legislation were being changed, as is made clear in the Government's amendment. The right hon. Gentleman is being deliberately misleading or he has his facts wrong. He is such an assiduous person about detail that I cannot believe it is the latter.

The power would allow changes only to previous immigration laws that are consequential to this Bill to ensure coherence and consistency. That is good common sense and good drafting.

Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Sleaford and North Hykeham)

The hon. Lady said that the amendment would allow changes only to previous immigration legislation, but if she is good enough to look at subsection (2) of Lords amendment No. 225, she will see the words

XAn order under this section may, in particular—

(a) amend an enactment".

That is any enactment. It is not confined to an immigration enactment. Indeed it goes on to say that the order may

Xmodify the effect of an enactment."

That clearly extends to statutory instruments made under any enactment. To say that the provision is confined to immigration legislation is not borne out in the statute.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman reads the first part of the Lords amendment, he will see that it says that

XThe Secretary of State may by order make provision which he thinks necessary in consequence of or in connection with a provision of this Act."

Therefore, the enactment that can be amended or modified has to be consequential or incidental to the provisions of this particular legislation.

Douglas Hogg (Conservative, Sleaford and North Hykeham)

indicated dissent.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have to put forward the advice that he has been given but that is the view of the parliamentary counsel who are assisting us.

Robert Marshall-Andrews (Labour, Medway)

I am sorry to say this, but that is simply wrong. It is not a question of statutory interpretation. The provision enables an amendment to an enactment—any enactment. Is my hon. Friend prepared to say that it is inconceivable that it would lead, for example, to an amendment to a criminal justice Act, an education Act or anything else that is in any way incidental to these proceedings?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

My hon. and learned Friend, despite his experience in this field, is simply incorrect. In order to be amended or modified, another enactment would, by definition, have to relate to the provisions in this Bill—in other words, to immigration—for it to be consequential or incidental. Those are the terms of the amendment.

The order-making power would not therefore allow the Government to make provision that was not purely consequential on, or incidental to, something already in the Bill. [Interruption.] To do so—as I suspect those hon. Members who keep jumping up and down know—would be ultra vires and unlawful.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

Why was this provision introduced at the very last minute in the Lords? As the Minister knows, such provisions are always controversial and always looked at carefully. In keeping with the argument advanced by the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), myself and others, why does the word Xconsequential" not have its normal meaning—something that happens after the Bill and which is related to it? The definition is very wide, and could include almost anything in the Bill, such as accommodation centres and appeal processes.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman in that, had the position been different in terms of the Bill's development, I would have preferred to table the amendment earlier. However, there is a point about which we and parliamentary counsel cannot be clear. Although we think that all necessary cross-references with other legislation have been made—I shall deal with that point later in relation to a question that the right hon. Member for West Dorset asked me privately—we cannot be sure that all the other tidying-up work has been done to ensure that the Bill relates to previous legislation as written, without the need for amendment to make such cross-referencing absolutely clear and appropriate. As with much legislation, once the Bill has been enacted, there will be a need for a power that parliamentary counsel can bring forward, in the ways outlined in the amendment—and, so far as amendments to previous enactments are concerned, through the affirmative resolution procedure—to ensure that different Acts of Parliament are not in conflict with each other.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

Can my hon. Friend help us some more on the meaning of the word Xconsequential"? If, as a consequence of the operation of this legislation, a weakness was revealed and a future Government wanted to introduce new elements of immigration or asylum law to cover it—such a situation would be the consequence of our failings in passing this legislation—would they be able to do so? In other words, through the amendment, could they pass what in effect would be new primary initiatives?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I direct my hon. Friend to the wording of the amendment. He is perfectly capable of knowing what Xconsequential" means in these circumstances.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

I am asking my hon. Friend.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Well, my hon. Friend knows what it means. It is a term that has been used in many clauses and much legislation, and I would have expected him to be familiar with it by now.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

Name one.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I shall certainly name one. I want to get—

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

No, I want to make some progress.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I will not, because I want to make a further point.

Mark Fisher (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent Central)

This is a debate.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

It is, and if, on listening to what I want to say, my hon. Friend wants to intervene, I will allow him to do so. [Interruption.]

Michael Martin (Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

Order. While the hon. Lady is addressing the House, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Mr. Fisher) should be quiet.

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The third issue that was raised in the other place was referred to as Xmenace", which I take to mean precedent. In other words, the amendment was regarded as setting a dangerous and menacing precedent in terms of the way in which business is done in this House. That is the issue that I wish to address tonight and I hope that I will answer some of the points that my hon. Friend has just made.

Clauses containing exactly the same words as the amendment should be familiar to the House. For example, the previous Administration, in the Local Government Finance Act 1992, produced a similar—if not more wide-ranging—clause to that before us tonight.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

Would the Minister read out that clause?

Beverley Hughes (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Certainly. It states:

XThe Secretary of State may at any time by order make such supplementary, incidental, consequential or transitional provision as appears to him to be necessary or expedient for the general purposes or any particular purposes of this Act or in consequence of any of its provisions or for giving full effect to it . . . An order under this section may in particular make provision for amending, repealing or revoking (with or without savings) any provision of an Act passed before or in the same session as this Act, or of an instrument made under an Act before the passing of this Act".

That is from 1992.

We have had examples of similar clauses in more recent legislation, such as the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 and the Education Act 2002. Only this week, we have had the Enterprise Bill, which included the following clause:

XPower to make consequential amendments etc . . . The Secretary of State may by order make such supplementary, incidental or consequential provision as he thinks appropriate . . . for the general purposes, or any particular purpose, of this Act; or . . . in consequence of any provision . . . An order under this section may . . . modify any Actor . . . may make incidental, supplementary, consequential, transitional, transitory or saving provision."

Only last night, we considered the Adoption and Children Bill, which contains the following clause:

XThe appropriate Minister may by order make . . . any supplementary, incidental or consequential provision . . . any transitory, transitional or saving provision, which he considers necessary or expedient for the purposes of, in consequence of or for giving full effect to any provision of this Act . . . The power may be exercised so as to make . . . any supplementary, incidental or consequential provision".

That is no different from the provision before us. In fact, the advice given to me suggests that the power in the Adoption and Children Bill is drafted in wider terms than that before us tonight in Lords amendment No. 225. It allows a Minister to make supplementary provision, as well as consequential and incidental provision, that he thinks is

Xnecessary or expedient for the purposes of...giving full effect to any provision"—

of the Adoption and Children Bill.

The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said earlier that the House always pays great attention to such matters. However, I have looked through the Hansard for the Adoption and Children Bill, and in the debate last night not a squeak was heard about the supplementary and consequential provision in that Bill by anybody.

I wish to deal with a point raised privately with me by the right hon. Member for West Dorset about the scope of the Bill, so that I may put my reply on the record. He asked me whether the provision would allow us to rectify a direct conflict of law between the Bill and some previous legislation. I can tell him that it will: rectifying conflicts of law is a real priority for any Act. We hope that we have done most of that in the course of this Bill's passage through the House.

We may be left with a more common type of problem, involving consequential issues that are of lesser priority than correcting direct conflicts of law. For example, such cases might include references in other legislation that have been superseded by the Bill and which need to be substituted. Where there is no direct conflict, they might involve a possible lack of clarity if the statute book were not tidied up.

My officials have provided me with an example of a consequential amendment that we know we need to make. The power that we are discussing would enable us to make it, but we could not do so without it. Section 12 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 deals with the removal of asylum seekers to safe third countries, and refers to an appeal under section 65. However, the House will know that section 65 of the 1999 Act is being replaced by the appeal provisions in part 5 of this Bill. We will therefore use our consequential power to put that and similar inconsistencies right.

Hon. Members have claimed that the provision is far beyond the scope of any similar provision in any previous Bill. That is incorrect. The House considered a Bill last night that is wider in scope, and no one objected. As to the claim that the provision is without precedent, I hope that I have clarified that there are precedents in previous Tory legislation and in Bills that have been enacted in this and the previous Parliament. Moreover, the Bills that have come before the House in the past few days have all contained this provision.

I hope that I have reassured the House on the specific point about the provision. I am not sure why the matter gave rise to so much heat and so little light, or why people have been misled about the intention of the provision and about what it allows us to do. I do not like to talk of hypocrisy and fraud, but there has not been much enlightening comment from Opposition Members on this matter.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

I am not absolutely confident that the Minister has made her case in the best way to achieve a resolution of this matter. I find myself in genuine doubt. It is not the case that I sat in the bath tub to read the provision and imagine its meaning.

David Blunkett (Labour, Sheffield, Brightside)

Or the shower.

Oliver Letwin (Conservative, West Dorset)

The Home Secretary helpfully suggests that I took a shower, but I did not even do that. I did not start this inquiry, which began in the House of Lords. I was present for that debate, to which a former Attorney-General, a Labour peer of great distinction, made a contribution, with commentaries being offered by leading counsel. I have consulted administrative lawyers. The Government Benches contain distinguished members of the legal profession. Behind me sits another silk, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), and my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) and the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) are both lawyers.

Lawyers surround us. Lawyers abound, and these lawyers read the words in the Bill as it used to be. There may have been recent precedents of almost identical wording—I do not know. I did not attend to the details of all aspects of the Adoption and Children Bill—we were rather preoccupied with one aspect, as the Minister may have noticed. I do not think that it is a defence of the original wording to assert that, in the words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, this is a serial offence. That does not help us one iota.

The question here is what is the meaning of the original provision and, much more important, the amended provision. I may have been guilty of excessive generosity. I may have been mistaken. I thought this morning when we saw the Government amendment to the Lords amendment—rather late, I may say—that we had made huge progress. I thought that there was a difference between two statements—certainly there appears to be one in ordinary English. Lords amendment No. 225 states

XThe Secretary of State may by order make provision which he thinks necessary"—

I take it that the phrase Xhe thinks necessary" then governs the latter part of the sentence—

Xin consequence of or in connection with a provision of this Act."

That seems to suggest that the Secretary of State could deem what was necessary in consequence of or in connection with the provision of this legislation and having so deemed could amend without restriction any enactment.

There appears to this humble philosopher, and to a large number of lawyers whom this humble philosopher consulted, to be a difference between that and the more typical provision, which I have never liked—the Henry VIII clause is prevalent, as the Minister rightly says. There is a difference between the phrasing of Lords amendment No. 225 and the new phrasing suggested by the Home Secretary, which provides that the Secretary of State may by order make Xconsequential or incidental provision" in connection with the provision of this legislation. That seemed to remove or at least constrain the ability of the Secretary of State to judge whether something was consequential or incidental. It seemed to establish a category of thing that was genuinely consequential or incidental and to allow a modification of an enactment only if such a modification were necessary as a matter of it being consequential or incidental. Let us hope that that is the case.

I was hoping that the Minister would give a learned reply to the next question raised across the Floor and that some jurisprudence would be put before us. I hoped that she would tell us not that parliamentary counsel—one set of lawyers among others—took a view but that there were cases that showed on judicial review the meaning to judges in English law of Xconsequential and incidental". I admit that our researches so far have not identified such cases. We may be fallible in this. I had hoped that the Minister would reveal that there was jurisprudence that made it clear to us—or ought to—that we were now in safe territory again and that we were talking about the very things—and I fully accept her intentions in this matter—that she listed.

If the sole purpose of the clause as currently phrased is to rectify a direct conflict of laws, to rectify minor discrepancies of reference and to clarify matters where a lack of clarity would otherwise prevail, it is of course harmless. The question is whether, as a matter of fact, it gives not to the present Secretary of State tomorrow but to some Secretary of State in future—establishing a precedent that will extend to a wider range of Secretaries of State in who knows which Administrations—the general ability to use what is, in effect, decree law subject to a 90-minute debate, to modify wild uncharted territory or enactments, or whether it simply provides for those Secretaries of State the ability to rectify discrepancies and conflicts of law. If the narrow interpretation prevails, I do not want to make a fuss about it—I see no reason to do so. If, however, the wider interpretation is correct, I see every reason on earth to make a fuss, because it is the fundamental principle of our parliamentary democracy that legislation should proceed through First Reading, Second Reading, Third Reading and a whole panoply of devices to ensure proper debate rather than 90 minutes' worth somewhere, stuck in a hole in the corner.

No doubt my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham and perhaps even some Liberal Democrat or Labour Members will accuse me of being too complacent, too lacking in doubt and scepticism.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.