UK Borders Bill

moved Amendment No. 3: 3: Clause 19, page 12, line 23, at end insert— ““(aa) was submitted no later than the notice of appeal was lodged in order to correct a mistake or misunderstanding at the time the application was made,”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, when the Minister confirmed in answer to my question on Report that a 28-day grace period would be provided in the Immigration Rules, thus allowing applications for renewal of leave to remain to be submitted within that period after the expiry of an existing leave to remain, I thought that it would take care of the mischief that we had identified. On further reflection I am afraid that it does not seem entirely to cover the matter. As the Minister will recall, we are concerned about the person who submits an application in time which, through some mistake or misunderstanding either by that person or by his legal representatives, does not include an essential piece of evidence that is necessary to grant the extension sought. I thought that the Minister was saying that in those cases, after being refused because of an error or a missing piece of information, the person would be allowed to lodge a new application within the 28-day period that we were discussing. I am now informed that the existing extra-statutory concession which the Minister said would be incorporated into the Immigration Rules allows for the application itself to be lodged within the extension time, but not for corrections to be submitted to a document bundle that has been properly lodged within the permitted leave to remain period. It therefore does not cover the examples we discussed in earlier stages of people such as students or work-permit holders whose original application was refused because of some mistake or misunderstanding in putting together the application itself or its supporting documentation, but which is out of time to correct the error in a new application. I draw your Lordships’ attention to a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on 18 July. She raised the particular case of a person who is refused as a result of producing in good faith a document containing a significant error. On that occasion the Minister said in his reply: "““Proposed new Section 85A(4)(c) allows evidence to be submitted at the appeal to rebut a decision by the BIA that a document is not genuine or is invalid … We would envisage evidence being produced by the applicant to correct that kind of clerical, typographical or administrative error. I think that it would fall within that exception. The interpretation is sufficiently broad to enable that to be the case””.—[Official Report, 18/07/07; col. GC 74.]" As I read the let-out in Clause 19(2), new evidence can be produced—I should be grateful if the Minister would pay attention to what I am saying, because I hope that I will have an answer from him. If he could defer his conversation with the noble Lord for a few minutes I would be extremely grateful. As I read the let-out in Clause 19(2), new evidence can be produced only if it, "““is adduced to prove that a document is genuine or valid””," whereas in the noble Baroness’s example, which I have just mentioned, the document was clearly invalid because of the errors. I respectfully ask the Minister to consider that his interpretation of proposed new Section 85A may not have been correct, because it does not allow the application to provide information that the original document failed to give in error or to expunge incorrect information that the document gave also in error. The difficulty that both we and the Government seek to address is best achieved by adding to the list in proposed new Section 85A(4), as in our amendment, so that it is included in the Bill alongside the other rules on the circumstances in which the tribunal may consider new evidence. In many cases, that wording would allow the matter to be disposed of earlier than under the 28-day extension because, if there is an error of the kind that we are thinking about, the BIA would presumably spot it and refuse in good time for the applicant to correct it well before the 28-day limit. I beg to move.