UK Borders Bill

moved Amendment No. 22: 22: After Clause 20, insert the following new Clause— ““Legal aid Where the procedure for an appeal is governed by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (Fast Track Procedure) Rules 2005 (S.I. 560/2005), the Legal Services Commission shall provide funding as part of the Community Legal Service regardless of any assessment of the merits of the appeal for so long as those Rules continue to apply to it.”” The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, this amendment seeks to ensure that asylum seekers whose claims for asylum are dealt with through the detained fast-track process at Harmondsworth and Yarl’s Wood can secure legal advice and representation throughout that process. I am particularly grateful to the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association for raising this concern and to others who have written to me about it. Their concern comes from an awareness that standards of justice in the fast-track procedure are in danger of being inadequate. The amendment seeks to ensure proper legal representation in this process and in doing so to protect the judicial system with which we work in the asylum process. Only some 50 per cent of appellants in the fast-track process are represented at appeal according to both Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons and Bail for Immigration Detainees. There is agreement that it is important whenever possible for appellants to be legally represented and this is a problem in the whole asylum process. This amendment seeks to tackle it in one limited area where the dangers of injustice are particularly acute. Many asylum seekers lose their right to legal aid through the merits test whereby the lawyer needs to assess that the appeal has a better than 50 per cent chance of success. In the fast-track system there is very little time to make that assessment effectively; typically, the decision needs to be made within a couple of days of the lawyer and client meeting. We are dealing with people’s lives and their whole future. We must make proper provision for their legal support in a complicated and, at this point, surprisingly speedy system. Lawyers have a strong disincentive to provide this legal support. The Legal Services Commission has a performance indicator which expects lawyers to achieve a success rate on appeal of 40 per cent. Perhaps it is a good thing that we do not have such a merits test for amendments in this House. The failure to achieve that may prejudice a lawyer’s chance of bidding for such work in the future. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal can do its work only if people are properly legally represented. The number of unrepresented people in such tribunals is increasing and many of them are unable to access the safeguards which are designed to provide due process for them. This very simple amendment would enable lawyers to provide the service appropriate for such serious cases. It would defend the fast-track system against the accusation that it is simply a ‘refusal factory’ and would affirm our desire for a legal system which provides the manifest justice for which we all look. I hope very much that it can be added to the Bill. I beg to move.