UK Borders Act 2007 (Commencement No. 7 and Transitional Provisions) Order 2011

My Lords, I did not expect my noble friend the Minister to be able to respond to that question from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, knowing that there are already actions before the courts that have not yet been heard. She obviously cannot predict the result of those actions. Nevertheless, it is worth underlining that legal advisers of some applicants believe that they have a chance of success; otherwise they would not have been able to launch their actions in the courts. The precedent and the lawfulness of the order are still under review. We will not know the answer to the noble Lord’s question until those cases have been determined. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and all others who have spoken in this debate—my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Hylton, and particularly the right reverend Prelate, who made the extremely valid and useful point that to do justice to applicants, all the evidence must be heard. By this order, we deny that to many people who would otherwise be successful, as illustrated by the Government’s own figures, which were just cited by the noble Baroness. Sixty-three per cent of those who produce fresh evidence after being refused were successful on appeal. I understand perfectly well her point that 92 per cent of the applicants found the process easy to understand. However, looking at this the other way round, 8 per cent had some difficulty with it. As I said, even those who are very used to filling in forms occasionally omit a document or make a mistake on the statement that would invalidate the whole application. These minor errors cannot then be taken into consideration at the appeal stage because the documents must stand on their own merits without exception. As the right reverend Prelate pointed out, this means that any applicant who is in that position will have to formulate a new application simply because he omitted a document or made a literal error on one of the forms. This seems an unnecessary burden on both the applicant and the tribunals. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for her comprehensive answer to all the points that were raised in the debate. She gave full value for money in her reply, and answered many of the points that we dealt with. We look forward to receiving answers in due course to those that she did not manage to squeeze into her time, particularly to the question about the number of people who were affected at the time. Needless to say, I did not accept my noble friend’s point when she said that my suggestion would have led to further difficulties if it had made it into the transitional provisions. With respect, nor do I think that she answered adequately the question about why it was necessary to bundle this order before your Lordships with such haste over a weekend, with no adequate opportunity for either consideration by your Lordships or consultation with outside interests that might well be affected by it. I wish my noble friend had been able to give me the assurance that I asked for: that this would not happen again on future occasions, and the Government would not make retrospective orders unless doing so was given express authority in the parent Act. However, I look forward to these points being dealt with by my noble friend in the reply that she has kindly promised to give. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion withdrawn. Sitting suspended.