The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has had to leave and has left me to speak. I start by apologising to the Committee that I did not speak at Second Reading. I hope that every Member of the Committee will be satisfied that, by sitting here till 10 pm on the Thursday when we are all supposed to be going home, I have done due penance. I shall also be very short.
The Government have expressly and repeatedly asserted, and continue to assert, that they will make sure that the Bill is compliant with our obligations under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees—good. Nevertheless,
for all the assertions, for many of us—I include myself in it, although I only had to listen to the debate on the television—our concern about some of the provisions in the Bill arises simply from the fact that we do not see compliance or even consistency. That is an issue which will have to be resolved when we come back; today is not the time to list the various provisions in the Bill which seem non-compliant or inconsistent.
The purpose of the amendment is first to ask for the Minister to confirm, here at the Dispatch Box, that nothing in the Bill is intended to undermine the obligations of the United Kingdom under the convention. That would be a start. We then would presume that if the Government did not accept the proposals to amend that will come up on Report, that would have been based on the advice of government lawyers. You do not need to be a lawyer to know that there is a privilege position between the advice given by the lawyer to the client, but there is of course nothing to prevent the client saying, “It is my privilege”—which it is—“and I am prepared to disclose the advice that I have been given.”
Speaking for myself, I would need a great deal of convincing that the Bill as it now stands is compliant. If the Government were so advised and prepared to disclose their legal advice, we could examine it. I do not expect them to do so; that would be launching into the unknown in a way that no Government ever would.
In the end, this amendment is down really as no more than a marker, a warning, that the issue of non-compliance with the convention—to avoid its long title—is live and kicking, but it would a great start if the Minister were prepared to accept at the Dispatch Box the words that I have used in the terms of the amendment. I beg to move.