My Lords, the Bill’s system of penalisation includes curtailing appeal rights, as set out in Clauses 22 and 23. These clauses create an expedited appeal route for those who have been served with a priority removal notice and who have provided evidence or a claim after the PRN cut-off date. Most importantly, the right of appeal would be limited to the Upper Tribunal. However, where a person provides a good reason for lateness, they will not be subject to this clause.
Clause 23 wraps certain other appeals a person may have into the expedited appeals process, further restricting appeal rights. The Government say the reason this clause is needed is prevent delaying tactics, remove incentives for late claims and protect the system from abuse. It is probably fair to say that in this Bill, where so much of it is driven by the party-political considerations of the Government, they will be part of the so-called lefty-lawyers amendments—we have one or two others—who seem to have become the bête noire as far as this Government are concerned.
As has been said, I have added my name to the clause stand parts to Clauses 22 and 23, to start, at least, to probe concerns that have been raised about these provisions. The Law Society, the Public Law Project and Justice have recommended that these clauses be removed from the Bill. The UNHCR has raised legal concerns. I suggest that these are not concerns the Government should take lightly.
The UNHCR has said the expedited appeals process, as designed under Clause 22, risks “miscarriages of justice”. Its legal observations agree, as do we, that accelerated processes can be appropriate for
“manifestly unfounded or repeat claims, as long as they are sufficiently flexible and contain adequate safeguards to ensure that they can be determined fairly and justly.”
The UNHCR is, though, entirely clear that appeals
“should not be accelerated … for reasons that are unrelated to their merits.”
The widespread expediting of appeals under these sections is, in the words of the UNHCR, “arbitrary” and
“unrelated to considerations of justice or efficiency.”
It risks people having their human rights violated as a result of a truncated appeals process for asylum claims. The incorrect decision can cost an individual their safety, security and livelihood.
Clause 23 is particularly troubling on the “arbitrary” point as it joins certain pre-existing appeals to the expedited process, even where they pre-date the priority removal notice and were made entirely on time. I ask the Government: what in this clause actually targets the expedited process on vexatious and unmerited claims? That is the reason Ministers give for why the clause is needed but, as far as I can see, it is not what the clause as drafted achieves.
I will make a couple of further points. First, the Public Law Project has said that making a system quicker is patently not the same as making it efficient. In order to be efficient, a system must move both more quickly and more accurately.
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Similar to my first question a moment ago, I must ask: can the Government point out to the Committee which provisions in Clauses 22 and 23 are specifically designed to make the decision-making process more accurate? The point has been raised, in this debate and in earlier debates, but it is particularly pertinent in this one. In recent years, almost 50% of appeals have been allowed. In 2019-20, only 52% of First-tier Tribunal asylum appeals were dismissed. That means that there are an exceptionally high number of decisions that the system is getting wrong first time. Should it not be the aim of this Government, and of any Government, to improve the rates of first-time decision making? Should that not be the focus of this Bill, rather than a package of provisions that require evidence to be taken less seriously—there appeared to be a bit of back-pedalling at the end of the discussion on the previous group—and limit opportunities to put decisions right?
Secondly, but still on the point of efficiency, concerns have been raised that far from making the system faster, this will lead to a backlog of cases in the Upper Tribunal. Can the Government say what estimation has been made of the impact of these provisions on the upper tribunal?