My Lords, I thank the Minister for the care with which he has responded to these amendments. I do not know whether I am right, and I do not want to embarrass him, but I sensed a slight feeling of discomfort with the issues we are having to address. I applaud him for that.
It seems to me that noble Lords have been both practical and principled in this debate. I agree with the analysis about half an hour ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, of the position, but the practicality has been by testing the reality of different circumstances. It was the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who said that, when faced with the situation of somebody one knows well being in this precarious position, it all looks very different. I agree; it is rather similar to feelings about people who come from other cultures. We are suspicious of them—“But not So-and-so—no, she is fine”.
On Amendment 30, I will read the report of what the Minister has said. I was not challenging most of subsection (4). It was simply the discretion, and I take what has been said about the Secretary of State having to act reasonably and so on. Subsection (5), however, says that “exceptional circumstances include”. That, to me, raises questions about what might not be included on the face of the Bill.
The Minister is quite right that I was trying to read “prevent” as someone being put at risk, and I think the Bill should say so because a person is prevented from being removed only if, in his individual case, he falls within the exceptions. That is not the natural understanding of the term. I have to say that I remain very concerned about the issue of a part of a country. A conflict in one part of a country can spread very fast, and can the risk to an individual—if he is persona non grata in one part of the country, that can become known in another part of the country very easily—and we are talking about individuals.
I am still a bit confused about “in general”. I understand that the lists we have are an amalgam of previous lists. The Minister defends the position—I think I am right in saying—by referring to procedures that can be used to challenge a decision. We are going to get to some more of this later in the Bill, but noble Lords have already shown their concern about the very narrow circumstances in which challenges—if I can use the term broadly—can be made.
A couple of things have come up in the Minister’s response that have made me think again about these. I would have mentioned some in any event, but I sure that noble Lords will understand that I am, at this moment, speaking a little bit slowly for reasons of time. If there is to be a negotiation about a home
country and whether to have a negotiation with that country, does that actually raise the risk of drawing the individual to the attention of the authorities in that country and putting that person in greater jeopardy than he may have been?
The notion of acceptance by the receiving country has also been raised. I do not know whether the Minister can answer this tonight; if he can take a couple of minutes to do so, it would be helpful. If the UK and other countries are going to say, “Will you accept this individual?”, does that not, again, put that individual in jeopardy, because the reason for his having sought asylum in the UK will become known? We are in Committee, so the Minister is free to reply if he can help at this point.