My Lords, this was an interesting debate. I thought I was with lawyers, but then, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, I realised that I was also struggling to be a chef.
The serious point was well summed up by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and it was interesting—it answers the point of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, about people who may be watching parliamentary TV, and certainly members of the public who read our deliberations. The legal dissection of the clause done by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Etherton and Lord Hope, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and others is of immense benefit. But the real point for members of the public reading our proceedings will be what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said: there can be no other interpretation of how these clauses are laid out and, essentially, the Government are trying to make it as hard as possible for an individual to stop their removal from the country when they are subject to the provisions in Clause 2. There can be no other interpretation—this is designed to make it almost impossible. The key question for the Minister is: why is that wrong? Why is it not the case that the Government are seeking to make it as difficult as possible for people to leave?
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A couple of points have not been raised. Notwithstanding how you define “compelling”, “serious” and “irreversible”, I want to take the Committee through
the timescales as I understand them. Suspensive claims, despite being a complex part of immigration law, will be given a fast-tracked hearing. Individuals must lodge a claim within eight days of receiving a notice of removal, and the Secretary of State must decide on the suspensive claim within four days of receipt. How have those timescales been arrived at ?
If the original eight-day deadline for the decision-making process is missed and the Home Secretary decides that there are not compelling reasons for this, the person will only have seven more working days to apply to the Upper Tribunal. I know that this may be drifting into points for the next group, but the Upper Tribunal has eight more working days to determine its appeal application. Can the Minister comment on this, or at least say that this will be answered in the next group? It goes back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, about the timeframe. Many of us think that the Government are simply creating a complex legal situation to make it practically impossible for anyone to fight removal, no matter how compelling their circumstances.