Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, this Bill seems unsatisfactory if only because it legislates by reference to some 17 other statutes, if I counted correctly. The Government may say that it is only interim and will be consolidated, but that does not make it easier for us to understand and consider now. Just over two years ago, on 14 December 2006, I had the honour to introduce into your Lordships’ House a debate on the human consequences of immigration and asylum law and practice. I have said many times before and I say again now that the following factors are necessary if the asylum system is to work well. First, first-class interpreters must be available to all applicants who cannot understand and then express themselves in English. Secondly, interviewers must be able to gain the confidence of applicants. Thirdly, legal advice can make the difference between the success or failure of an application. Yet we find that legal aid has been drastically cut. Many solicitors no longer take asylum or immigration cases, and in a survey of 125 cases in 2006, 78 per cent complained about legal representation and 50 per cent complained about interpreters. Has the situation improved to any considerable degree since then? Under the new asylum model, the single, continuous caseworker should mean that applicants receive a good explanation of how the system is intended to work. Is this happening in practice? Is there personal communication between the applicant and the case owner? I was encouraged to hear of the Solihull pilot project providing legal advice at an early stage to applicants. This apparently explains the key criteria in the refugee convention and how humanitarian protection differs from full refugee status. Unless such explanations are given, it is foolish to expect applicants to fill in multi-page application forms without, in doing so, prejudicing their own cases. How is this pilot project progressing? Are there already savings from fewer appeals and judicial reviews? How long will the project last? When will this method, or similar ones, be extended to the whole country? On the backlog of old asylum cases, in 2006 these were variously estimated at any number between 150,000 and 450,000 cases. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who is usually very well informed, put the current figure at 200,000. With how many cases is the UK Border Agency now in contact? How many old cases have been resolved in each year since the 2006 report by Asylum Aid and Amnesty? Destitution among both unsuccessful asylum seekers and jobless economic migrants was another agonising subject discussed in my debate and that of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, on 3 February. What is the current take-up of assistance under Section 4 of the 1999 Act? Have the authorities stopped insisting that applicants agree to voluntary return to their countries, even in cases where this is either not possible or extremely dangerous? What is the situation with Section 95 support, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Sandwich? It is well known that refusal of employment, social isolation and destitution often lead to mental illness. This is all too common among failed asylum seekers, those detained and the backlog cases. What is being done to promote early diagnosis of mental illness, community care and admission to secondary care whenever this is necessary? Early care will usually save later costs, as well as preventing the spread of diseases into the wider population. As has been mentioned, detention without trial, whether on arrival or prior to removal, is another most unsatisfactory feature of asylum and immigration policy. The London Detainee Support Group last month concluded that detention is inefficient and ineffective. It is also extremely expensive. Are the Government studying the report Detained Lives? Will they set a maximum length for immigration detention? This is the practice in several EU states. Will they agree never to detain women responsible for young and school age children? These two improvements could surely be made very quickly. Attention should also be focused on how private contractors used to carry out deportations go about their work. I urge the Government to ensure that they are properly trained, as has already been asked for, and supervised and that they respect the humanity of all deportees. I have deliberately concentrated on the inhuman consequences of asylum and immigration policy. In doing so, I commend to your Lordships and the Government the campaign ““Strangers into Citizens”” and, in particular, its work on regularisation of those who have been here for many years. I trust that the labours of the Independent Asylum Commission, of which we have heard already, will be rewarded with major improvements in case work, which is so much more important than the dry bones of legislation. But I hope that even these bones can be improved by amendments during the passage of the Bill.