My Lords, the provisions for an admissible asylum claim, where there is a connection —as defined in new Section 80B, which is to be inserted into the 2002 Act—are quite plainly contrary to the refugee convention and a breach of the UK’s obligations under it. In particular, the conditions in new Section 80C(4), which is where a claim could have been made to a third state—the claimant was present in a state eligible to receive and offer a safe space for him or her—and new Section 80C(5), where the claimant should have made a claim to a safe third state whether or not he or she had ever visited or been associated with it, are both plain breaches of the convention and find no place in its wording.
Condition 4 in new Section 80C is really another way of stating the coming directly from the country of persecution requirement in Clause 11 and Clause 36(1). On Monday this House rejected the Government’s interpretation of Article 31 of the convention in relation to that requirement, by rejecting Clause 11 as part of the Bill. With regard to condition 5 there is nothing whatever in the convention to justify rejecting as inadmissible a claim to asylum by a refugee as defined by the convention in the circumstances specified there.
The only explanation, or example, given in the Explanatory Notes, is where the asylum seeker has close family members in the safe third country, whether or not there is another connection of any kind whatever.
Both these conditions are a rewriting of the convention and not a legitimate interpretation of it. The fact that Clause 15 provides, in new Section 80B of the 2002 Act, that a decision that a claim is not admissible because of an asylum seeker’s connection to a safe third state is not subject to a right of appeal, makes Clause 15 an all the more egregious breach of the convention. There is, in effect, no legal redress for the refugee if the Secretary of State has declared the asylum claim inadmissible under the proposed safe third state provisions.
Logically this leads to the conclusion that Clause 15 should be left out of the Bill. I am content, however, to support the alternative approach of the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick, in Amendment 32, which is to fix a start date for the Clause 15 provisions if a formal returns agreement has been reached between the United Kingdom and a third state to which it is said the asylum seeker has a connection.