UK Borders Bill

My Lords, this amendment deals with persons who have been sentenced to at least 12 months or convicted of one of the crimes listed as particularly serious under the 2002 Act who are to be automatically deported. An exception is that if the offender is under the age of 18 at the time of conviction, the automaticity does not apply, although of course he can still be deported under other provisions. The noble Lord argues, as he did in Grand Committee, that the exception should be triggered by the date of the offence and not the date of the conviction, and we agree. The only argument against the amendment is that it is sometimes difficult to say precisely when the offence was committed, and that a person may be convicted on charges that deal with acts committed over a whole range of dates. My suggestion, which I repeated in Grand Committee when it appeared that the Minister was not going to respond to it, was that if the conviction related to acts done between dates X and Y, the problem could be solved by relating the exception to date Y. On the second occasion, the Minister agreed to give that proposal some thought, but I regret to say that in his letter of 26 July dealing with matters raised during the fifth sitting in Grand Committee, he did not mention it. I hope that he has a note about it this evening and will give me an answer when he comes to reply to this debate. I have to assume, in the absence of any comment so far, that there are no valid arguments against my suggestion.