Human Rights (Joint Committee)

Wednesday 21st October 2026

(began 2 weeks ago)

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14:17
Alex Sobel Portrait Alex Sobel
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Sobel, the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Good afternoon, and welcome to the ninth meeting of the new Session of Parliament of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. This is my inaugural public evidence session as chair of the Joint Committee. The committee is made up of 12 members drawn equally from both houses. Our role is to examine our public policy, including legislation and practice impact human rights of people in the United Kingdom. You can review our recent reports, including on human rights and the regulation of AI and the Northern Ireland Legacy Bill on our website.







































 Our current thematic inquiry is on the impact of security, safety and protest on human rights. This is the first oral session of the inquiry on the Immigration and Asylum Bill, which is our current legislative inquiry. I'd like to welcome our witnesses. Nadine Finch, former judge at the Upper Tribunal immigration asylum Chamber. Imran Hussain, executive director of communications Ternal affairs, the Refugee Council. Professor David Kantor, director of the Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Study, the University of London. I'd also like to welcome Tony Vaughan MP, member of the House of Commons Justice Committee, who will be guesting at this evidence session.



















 I want to remind members and witnesses of the su Subjudice resolutions. As members will be aware, the Subjudice resolutions of both houses means that live legal cases should not be discussed in parliamentary proceedings. Please, would members and witnesses avoid referring to any live legal cases in our discussions today? I will ask the panel first question. The Bill would bring into effect some of the reforms announced in the Restoring Order and Control Policy Statement last November. Is the bill making major changes to the law on asylum, immigration, or are there more significant announcements in the policy statement being brought in by other means?

Can we start with you, Professor Kantor?
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti
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I think I was slightly disagree with Davidson that obviously the way that policy is implemented in terms of immigration is through the statement of changes to immigration rules, which is an easy and quick way to do it. I think it's. Quite a dangerous way to do it as well. And I'd actually prefer to see more in legislation. But what has happened in this bill is it's only things which really have to go through the legislative. So things which are creatures of statutes like the first tier tribunal. And I also think the changes to what they require lawyers to talk about and take into account terms of article eight is arguably something that has to go through a statute.



























 I'm not sure about the call protection one, but they obviously decided it was. So we have things which they feel have to go through statute. So that is the difference. But when you talk to people and I often give talk to groups of immigrants, they're very confused because they think everything has to go through, but it doesn't. So they'll ask me what's in the bill? And I say, you also have to look at what's in the immigration rules. And that's what your settlement and that's what's going to impact on you. So I think it is and unfortunately, when the Secretary of State for the Home Department talks quite often, I find it difficult to know what she's talking about, policy or prospective legislation.











So it's even more difficult. So the people who are most impacted by what are gargantuan and very complicated legislation and rules are left really confused what's happening. It's also important because in the many things which are happening, the penalties attaching to not complying in the act, an immense and it could be as much as not understanding, you have to send something into certain office or having moved to a different place of detention so a letter doesn't get to you. So the implications for not understanding are huge.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Thank you. I spent the first thing to say is that we've already seen big changes in the last couple of years. In 2024, the system was on a point of meltdown. Decision making had, you know, really kind of slowed down since then. Decision making was prioritised. The numbers, the speed at which cases are being made has gone up as well. And, and that's why we're seeing things like the numbers of people in hotels being reduced. And we've already had that in a sense of big changes. There are changes happening, as Nadine has alluded to outside of the bill, the most obvious being around protection.



















































 We I think in March, we saw some of the provisions kick in there about refugee status being limited to to 30 months. There are big changes in the bill and we may get on to those kind of issues, but clearly we're concerned about what's happening around appeals. And the Refugee Council is also concerned about the the policy of charging refugees. I think the other thing is what's missing. There's something big that's missing in the bill and what the government is doing outside of of primary legislation, and that's about tackling the issue of poor decision making.





































 That's a long standing problem in the asylum system. It's corrosive on the whole system because it has a human cost, but also it delays things and it leads to greater costs in the system, whether it's accommodation costs or legal costs. And we know that of the people who appeal about those who have an appeal determined about 4 in 10 win, but many others also win because the Home Office looks at the decision before it passes it on to the appeal authorities and sees an error and withdrawals. And so our estimate is that the kind of real success rate at appeal is closer to two thirds.





















 And and if you look at how many people are in appeals backlog at the moment, it's about 90,000 cases. And and we've estimated that of those 90,000, you know, how many are likely to win their appeal and what. And for those people, what's the added cost in terms of accommodation and subsistence to the system? You know, we're looking around about £1 billion of of the current backlog, £1 billion of savings. If if the people who win their cases and the current backlog had received proper decisions first time around. So there's a huge savings there.



 So I think that's one of the things that I'd urge the committee to kind of to focus on as well, or recognise that that's a big challenge in system, but it's not really being addressed.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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I'm happy to take that first. Yeah, we are worried and we share the views of UNHCR and others about whether this model of protection is kind of consistent with article 34. You know, we're talking about refugee status reviews every 30 months, potentially for 20 years until people get settlement. That's, you know, that's, you know, maybe eight reviews. Again, we've done some estimates of the bureaucracy of having to do these extra reviews. And for ten years, that's a million extra reviews. So is that the best use of resources for a system that's kind of overstretched, I think is, is a question we have.



























 But certainly if someone is having someone's given status for 30 months, then that clearly has an impact on on their stability and their ability to find work, housing. We already know from refugee Council services, which, you know, help refugees find employment, that even with the current five years, employers find that difficult sometimes that lack of certainty. And they sometimes they think it's not worth the risk of employing someone with five year status. I think with 30 month status, then it's going to be much harder for refugees to find employment. So it would be a real barrier to integration.











 And, you know, as we've heard, article 34 uses language like shell and as far as possible. So it's pretty clear what what the obligations on the government are and the kind of suggestion that such a, you know, core protection as the government's talking about is going to help integration. It's really difficult to kind of understand. Thank you.
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Tom Gordon Portrait Tom Gordon
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Article 34 isn't a duty to nationalize refugees, but it does have very, very strong , positive language about the steps that states must take to facilitate integration, assimilation and naturalization . And what it certainly casts against is regressive steps and things that will inhibit that process of refugees becoming assimilated. And the provisions, as they stand on this issue seem to go directly in, contrary to the obligation that we have contracted into under the Refugee Convention, that's made even more difficult. If you think about the context of refugees globally in today's world, where refugee situations, because of longstanding dictatorial regimes, conflicts and so on, inevitably are protracted situations.



























And we know that for the last 30 years, it's nothing new. This isn't a change that's suddenly come about. I think at the last counting, the average refugee was at risk. And in refugee who had 17 or more years, and that was 17 years and counting a couple of years ago. So reviewing refugee status every two and a half years not only inhibits integration, but also seems utterly outwith the factual context in which we found ourselves not suddenly in the last year or two, but for the past decades and the world as it exists at present.















 Of course, the burden administratively on the government, which, as one understands some of these provisions, is looking to recoup the costs of the asylum system will be immense. I mean, if you think of the numbers of refugees in the United Kingdom presently, even for those even if it weren't applied retrospectively and were applied only going forward, you're talking about an immense amount of work for the Home Office or whoever is tasked to do this, and that seems utterly contrary to many of the more sensible aspirations around trying to cut costs and manage an efficient and effective and fair system that the government set out in its statement.
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti
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Could I answer a slightly different way? The Rotary Convention makes absolutely clear what classes of people should be protected and under subsidiary protection, but it also makes clear when that protection comes to an end. But there's been no attempt to actually marry that. Advice from the UNHCR about when it comes to an end and the 13 months is very arbitrary. I mean, why should you review it at 13 months? What has happened to that particular asylum seeker? I mean, they've fallen out of the protection of the Refugee convention. There seems to be no connection between that and every 30 months.









































































 And as David just said, if you look at the list of refugees and where they come from, a huge amount come to places like Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, which have had really protracted. I mean, I was a a barrister and then a judge for many decades. The same places still produce refugees, and there's no real realistic view of them not producing refugees. So again, why 30 months? You know, the people who are caseworkers, lawyers, judges know that these people are not going home any time soon. So, as David said, they're causing themselves the Home Office money and time and manpower, a woman power, but they're not actually making any real legal.





















































 So why don't they look, at one time they were talking about places they could fast track because they knew they were going to be like Somalia, certain clans in Somalia or certain places in the Middle East you knew you couldn't return to. There are other ways of dealing with accepting this very rough way of, okay, every 30 months we'll churn. Now, they're also not taking into account that there are places where things have resolved and the vast majority of refugees have gone home. It's not that people people don't necessarily want to live in Britain. They don't necessarily want to leave their homeland, their culture, their family, their career and stay here.





































 And there seems to be no pilot projects. There's been no research into why people go home. So I find a 13 months temporary protection devoid of any real research. I cannot understand why this arbitrary. I would mention in passing that of course, the government also confuses the Ukrainians as refugees. Ukrainians aren't refugees. They are here under temporary protection. And if there was another situation like Ukraine, they could use the temporary well, they could model themselves and take protection directive of the EU and say, okay, we're going to offer protection because we think this is going to be a short term just yeah, situation.











 Actually, I think they thought Ukraine would be solved. But there is that possibility in other places, there may be something which they think will soon be resolved, and they could offer people temporary protection, but they haven't even discussed that. They haven't put temporary protection and asylum together. .
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti
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I thank you, chair. I declare a non-pecuniary interest as a council member of justice, whose legal director speaks on the next panel. Before I ask my my planned question, I can't resist following up on that point. Because I think it's very interesting. The, you know, the avenue of exploration that you've opened up as an alternative to what you see as an arbitrary period. So, for example, would you feel comfortable with a statutory trigger, a statutory opportunity for the Home Secretary to trigger the potential end of refugee subject, subject to appeal and so on, on the basis that there's been a change of circumstances in a particular territory?



























































 So not on the basis of a particular period of time, but on the basis of a discretion, a finding of fact by the government, subject to safeguards and appeals, where the government presses a button and says, we are of the view based on the following facts, that things have changed in whichever jurisdiction, and we are proposing to end on a certain date to end refugee protection, subject to appeal or whatever. Is that something that can you be comfortable with, or would you be concerned about potential problems there too? Well, I'd actually have two two other asks now you ask me.















































 One is that I think with children it might be slightly different, right? I used to represent a huge amount of unaccompanied minors, and I think it is different because children, especially children who have been orphaned or they really have only lived in their adolescence. And it's different. And I think for children, it may not be at all fair to say, okay, I have to go back because what would they go back to? They would not be education there. They'd have no language. They might have lost language skills. So I think children would have to be another category category.































 And also, I think as well as the appeal, I'd want to see some expert advice in the Home Office. Having been embarrassed and a judge such a long time, there used to be expert groups in the Home Office that were country specific, and they had a much better grasp of what had happened. Now you just have people moved around, as far as I can see from maybe the EU one day, then deportations, and they haven't. They're not enabled to build up an expertise. So I think it would only work if there were expert teams and experts called upon to call when time was.

















 Yeah. Thank you for that. So my plan question . So the relevant provisions of the bill would allow for the introduction of a single definition of a protection claim and protection status, rather than an asylum claim or human rights claim and refugee or humanitarian protection status. Would this change affect the UK's compliance with the Refugee Convention and or human rights law? Perhaps Professor Kanter would like to go first.
14:38
Tom Gordon Portrait Tom Gordon
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Thank you. The point of reference for the UK's obligations. Obviously the 1951 Refugee Convention. But also there are obligations that apply from human rights law that substantiate the category of humanitarian protection. I think the bill, as originally drafted, was concerning in talking about a soul core protection status, without giving further definition to that concept. There's been a move, I understand, with a recent amendment by the government last week, to introduce text onto the face of the bill that does speak to the UK's obligations under the Refugee Convention and also gives a nod to humanitarian protection, although that language is is welcome and it's right that that should appear on the face of the bill, rather than simply being left to to regulation and politics.





































 It is, I think, something that should be looked at much more carefully by Parliament, by this committee, in terms of the way in which those provisions are phrased. Some of the provisions don't go as far in terms of the scope of protection that's offered as the current law stands, and there may be a question as to particularly whether the provision relating to serious harm is outwith interpretation in international law, of how human rights law might prevent people from being sent to countries where they have a serious risk of harm. So it would be worth looking very carefully, I think, at that provision again, and making sure that the language is right there.























 Just to come back to the earlier question about about cessation, which was the proposal made by Nadine, cessation is what the Refugee Convention envisages. And just as a further ask, I think whilst cessation might very well be a useful way of approaching the kinds of issues being dealt with here, one would have to balance that also by saying, given the length of some refugee situations, is there a point at which there is a need for thinking about settlement routes for refugees? I don't think you can keep somebody, if you like, in limbo, waiting for cessation indefinitely.









So I think there is a balance to be had there on the court protection provision. I mean, clearly there is some concern about the scope of discretion given to the Secretary of State in making further regulations around this, and I think the Joint Committee would want to send a very firm message that any further regulations would need to be very much in compliance with the UK's international obligations under human rights law and under the Refugee Convention.
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti
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Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Finch. Yeah I am I'm concerned about having one single definition because I don't really understand why they want to do it. It was seen to me that both refugee convention status and protection is actually quite difficult to to grasp in its entirety. And putting them both together may seem simple and may save money, but it, it concerns me, might be a downgrading of international protection. It might be saying this is a much easier way. And in the regulations, you may suddenly find some slightly different descriptions. You're concerned that it's a way of obfuscating the actual legal obligations on the state in relation to the to what are currently different legal categories.







































 Yeah, I think you're just worried about the motivation or you're worried about the outcome outcome. I think, and I'm particularly worried in the context of the abolition of the first tier tribunal and the lack of legal representation, because and I should say the humanitarian protection isn't used very much here, but it is used much more in Europe. And I was part of the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges, and we did a series of guidances for the the EU. And the most tricky one was the qualification directive, which is like the protection. And it's a very large guidance because actually it's a very difficult concept to grasp.























 It's when you don't fall under the classes of the refugee convention, but you're clearly are at risk. You might be at risk for things like civil war or some kind of attack within your own family, but it's a much less known protection. And having worked on that guidance, I'm I am worried about us just saying, okay, we can put on the vote together. Because I was surprised how different they were once I worked in it. And and also, of course, human protection is used here for people who fall out of the refugee convention because of things of wrongdoings they've done.







And we're going to come on to other repercussions for those people. So I think there may be a connection between that, because humanitarian can be a very good thing, but it needs to be well defined to give people protection, because it's not as easy to understand as not the case law on it as it is in refugee status.
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Tom Gordon Portrait Tom Gordon
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I'll answer the question a slightly different way, probably a drier, more legal way, which is that lawfully staying is a concept in the refugee convention. And it appears what the legislation is trying to do is to say that anybody who falls within the exclusion from Refoulement protection. Article 33, two other words anyone who is a danger to society is therefore classed as not lawfully staying. The impact of that, if that were followed through, would be that a refugee, a recognised refugee who was seen as a danger, would not have access to about 5 or 6 entitlements under the Refugee Convention, which are given to refugees who are lawfully staying.



























 They include things like waged employment, certain aspects of welfare, travel documents and so on. And it's not particularly clear to me why we would want to strip those particular entitlements from that class of individual. So I think there's a question there about about why this is being done and what the intended effect of that is likely to be. The second point is that lawfully staying is a term that appears in an international treaty. In other words, it's defined by international law, and it has an autonomous meaning in international law. And countries can't simply legislate domestically for whatever they consider that term to mean.









 Now, broadly speaking, the commentary and doctrine around the Refugee Convention sees lawfully staying not as whether you are lawful or not, but simply as a question about have you been recognised as a refugee, and have you been living here for a period of time? That, in essence, is what it means in French , it's a residence regular. In other words, regular residence is kind of what the concept entails.
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti
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I'm not sure it's reasonable. I because I've been practicing such a long time. If you turn back before 1999, refugees were dealt with through the Social Security system. They got 90% of 9% because it was thought they wouldn't be here very long. Therefore they didn't need winter clothes, etc.. They were spread out through the country and they were in ordinary housing. There were some people who didn't like them being in their street, but the antipathy towards there was nothing like it's now, if you put a whole load of young men in a hotel, it's different to having a young man in your street and you see them at the shops and you get to know him.



















































 So I think the way that it developed, and also it's incredibly costly. The privatisation of the immigration and asylum support system has enabled 2 or 3 huge firms like Mitie, and struggle to remember the others, to make a huge amount of money by acquiring hotels no longer in use, charging a home office, a huge amount of money for them, providing very poor conditions. And there is a hotel just down the road from me, which was quite a nice hotel, but it hasn't been maintained by the the company. The food they provide is really poor. Now, in some ways I'm going to say to you, it's the refugees are not being asked to pay the Home Office back or the taxpayer.































 They've been asked to mainly pay the privatised companies who have benefited from privatising asylum support, whether it's on a in a hotel, in individual houses, they don't really happen now in acquired military barracks, in barges, none of which maintain an article three standard, in my view, but all of which are really, really costly. And it seemed to me that actually there should be a real review of what is needed. Because if you leave aside the cost of the accommodation, what's actually given to the individual refugee is minute. If they are in a hotel that has.















 A food as well, they're given is it £9 a week? And if they are somewhere without food, they are given the princely sum of about £1,449 a week. Now, if it was just that and you see, that's probably what your constituents are thinking, that, you know, perhaps what they're giving themselves, but what they will be charged is a huge amounts of money paid to the privatised big companies who are making money out of the government. And if you if your constituents ask them to repay, they'd be repaying these big companies. They wouldn't be paying the government.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Come on.
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Tom Gordon Portrait Tom Gordon
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I think there's a real question here. And if you look at the measure in context, what is the government asking for powers to do? The government has not allowed people to work, and that's been a decision that the government has taken. They're not able to maintain themselves. Therefore, they are forced into a situation living often in substandard accommodation with nothing to do all day. Of course, you know, if I you know, as neighbors, no doubt, sir, Sir Desmond, that that is something which is strikes leaps to the eye. I can well understand that. But these are people who have come here to seek protection.



















































 They are being asked to pay for costs, for something, for being in a position that they don't want to be in. And I think that there's a particular unfairness here. I'm not sure it's been noted yet, but we're asking, as I understand it, only the genuine refugee to pay these costs. So the person who is accommodated and found not to be in need of protection, presumably they're removed. And, you know, the bill is wiped clean, if you like, whereas the genuine refugee is forced into a position to pay for the fact of being found as a genuine refugee.









































Now, there is a distinct unfairness there. Before we even get to the question of distinct legal obligations before getting to those obligations, I think there's a real question about how this facilitates integration or assimilation. I mean, going back to the earlier questions, do we really want to be pushing people who seek protection in our country into marginal positions where they feel like whatever they earn, they can never quite pay off the costs of what they've come to, to owe to the government, in a sense, through no fault of their own, through being unable to work again.





























 When we come to talk about the law, I think the position is absolutely clear. It's an unlawful provision in relation to the Refugee Convention. Article 29 says contracting states shall not impose upon refugees duties, charges or taxes of any description whatsoever. Other or higher than those which are levied upon nationals in similar situations. The Refugee Convention is absolutely crystal clear. You look at the commentary, I don't see that there's any wriggle room whatsoever in relation to this particular provision. It strikes me as deeply unlawful. I think if we were serious about cutting down the costs.











We come back to my colleague's earlier comments about really making sure that first instance decision making is quick, effective and fair, and that really is the place to focus efforts if we want to have one, a reduction of costs to people going quickly through the system so that people who are found to be refugees or in need of protection can actually contribute through finding work afterwards and paying taxes. And that is how everybody expects to contribute to society economically through work and taxes.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Yeah. Thank you. I think Desmond makes a point about people's notion of fairness. And and for many people, that depends on the concept of reciprocity, you know, sort of getting things in. If, if you put things in. And the point here is that refugees do contribute and have contributed. They need this support not out of choice because they've had to flee persecution that's been recognized. They're not allowed to work. They've had to they have no choice about how long they're in the system for. You know, if the government's put them in a if due to maladministration, the government's using hotels or bad decisions there in the appeal system.

























































































So there's got no choice. And that's why I think these concerns about article 29. John Pound I think certainly the government could do more to help refugees to be closer to employability and employment and therefore contribute more. But the barriers that this would have and other aspects of what the government's doing to employment, I mean, that my worry would be that if this policy goes ahead, that it will not be collecting huge sums of money, and that would be and that would also undermine public confidence. The other thing that I'll say, there's so little detail about these provisions.











































































 I understand there's a commitment from the government to to share some of the regulations as the bill progresses. But how much? That's unclear. There was a press release that said it was 10,000, but we don't know what's the threshold for when the repayments start kicking in? What's the payment rate? What's the mechanism? Who's going to collect this? Is it the Home Office, HMRC? DWP and I think that will be, you know, make a huge difference. Obviously, by definition, the people we are talking about were assessed as being destitute and and the test of destitution was pretty stark.

















































 There is a an exception that this payment won't need to be collected if it forces people into destitution. But, but the destitution test is really stark. So, you know, for that kind of test, they're kind of, you know, they expect you to have things like, you know, you have three sets of pants and socks, two vests, bras, two each a top, skirts, trousers. It goes on like that. So that's in, that's when the government's going to make an assessment of whether or not you're too destitute to pay. It'll be looking at that kind of level of of subsistence.

































 So I think we are really concerned about the legality, but the kind of impact also, of course, the, the behavioural changes, this might drive as well. So some people may seek to avoid a £10,000 debt and not take government support, which might mean they're open to exploitation or they borrow. And that will have a huge risks for , for them. And, and the broader point is that, you know, this this measure and other measures. Refugees already face pretty big barriers to employment because of the trauma they've gone through that disrupt education or disrupted work. The lack of UK work history.













 So this £10,000 debt. Really damages their integration chances. The government has committed to producing an integration strategy, and for migrants is have made that commitment earlier this year. So I think it's necessary for the government to have a strategy. We've not had one for many years, but any such strategy is going to be hamstrung by this by this measure.
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti
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Okay, okay. When answering this question, those of us on the panel, we're not defending our patch as lawyers or judges or academics, but we have practical experience of many years in quite how complex immigration law is. When I first became a lawyer. McDonnell did a very, very slim volume. Now it's like an encyclopaedia. When I first practiced, if you wanted to look at case law, you went into library and the family court building, and there was a tiny couple of shelves. Now you struggle to you need a library for the immigration law, immigration and asylum law has just grown and grown because the issues are very difficult and they're highly contested, not because lawyers are getting paid for it, but because people's lives are at risk and people's families are at risk.







































And it's a very. Very emotive subject. And you have clients who are in deep trauma and had an extremely hard background. So but so there's all this masses of law, and I can speak from experience as a judge because when I went for my first training as a first year judge, I'd mainly practised in asylum law. And it was quite a deep learning curve for me to learn about the immigration, which I'd had really not been instructed in very much before, and certainly when I was an I just I found a lot of other judges came to my advice because some of them hadn't actually practised in immigration, asylum law.

























 So you've got people at the top of their game who are seen by some other people. I struggle to understand how you could possibly expect a non legally qualified person to deal with the complexity and extent of the law. It's not like a magistrates because actually what the number of things the magistrate has to deal with are in the Green Book and the Green Book. If people don't know, there's a kind of advice book about things and procedures in the law, and it's actually quite easy to understand change for years, Green Book quite often. So you can have somebody, a legal adviser, who takes the magistrates out and gives them a bit of advice.









 It's completely this is completely different. You'd have to have an extremely diverse expert if you were going to place them with a unqualified, legally qualified judge, you'd also be double counting. Why have an unqualified person who you need to have another qualified person advising them?
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti
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Yeah, and even then I doubt whether that would be sufficient, because in law, and especially the Human Rights Acts, articles two and six, the Human Rights Act compel the judge to have a duty to comply with human rights, and I don't see how that person could do it. I don't know, maybe the adjudicator won't be subject to the Human Rights Act, but I think they will be, and I don't see how they could actually meet that obligation. It's a nice idea, in theory, to make it more palatable to people say, okay, you're going to be judged.







































 You know, the people who are uncomfortable about migrants coming to the country have more of a say in who comes in and who stays. But actually, I think you're asking a huge amount of unqualified people, and you're also ricocheting appeals up the chain. I think that's another question. But they there will be an upper tribunal, but they will have they'll only be able to look at the law, not evidence. And for people who aren't lawyers, one of the real challenges for people learning the law as professionals is to apply the law to the evidence. So people may think that most of the asylum appeals are quite factual, like who were displaced person come from, what do we know about that place, etc.

















 can it be done by AI? But actually, when you see an individual case, it's much more complex than that. And the law that's grown like topsy around it is much more complex. So even at the first tier, that person would have to have a really strong grasp about the law that they had to apply to the evidence. They're also going to be asking some of these first tier to decide whether there's a grand appeal to the upper tribunal, which may be a complete waste of time and money, but it can be redone in the upper tribunal.



But then, of course, I foresee it will just go up and up in many cases. And also.
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Baroness Chakrabarti Portrait Baroness Chakrabarti
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You're saying? As I understand it, the unqualified people are going to deal with the initial grounds of appeal to see whether they should go, but I don't I don't see how they could , because I think there may be people over time and people talk about the initial adjudicators when I was first a barrister, were not legally qualified in the way that you or I were, but the vast majority of them had been district judges, which was I don't think it was a legal profession. I think it was a civil service, Foreign Office qualification. But they had sat in courts and tribunals in Fiji and Uganda, etc.

























































 so they did actually have some practical experience of adjudicating in a court or a tribunal. Somebody mentioned the Danish system, with which there's been a lot of confusion because I used to work in Europe as well. I phoned up the Danish Refugee Council, who put me in touch with the Danish government as Danish asylum appeal. And I had a long chat with the guy now, which I didn't understand. The Danish appeal system, which has three three legally qualified people on the panel. They don't have any unqualified people. They have a judge. They have the equivalent of a barrister or a solicitor, and they have somebody on the foreign ministry, and I thought they were a civil servant.



































 But the man on the other end said to me, oh no, no. In Denmark, if you work at the Foreign Ministry, you have to have a legal qualification. But otherwise, how could you understand other people's other foreign countries law, which wasn't apparent to me anyway. Obviously he just thought I was silly to think they wouldn't be legally qualified. So they have three lawyers. So the Danish system is not like the one that's being proposed. They did have some unqualified people a while ago sitting on a wider panel, and they said that the problem is unqualified.















 People could go to two extremes. They could be too punitive or too sympathetic. And it was very difficult for those people. And I know judges who I think oscillate between those. It's very difficult thing to detach yourself when the human person in front of you. So I so I don't know whether I completely answer your question.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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Half of the couple who was with a British citizen and the Home Office, had decided that they were not a genuine couple, that they were claiming to be a couple for the purpose of establishing a claim to stay in the United Kingdom. And if if what the couple said was true, which was that they'd been together in a relationship for many years, then they would the Venezuelan man would have been allowed to stay. It was Home Office policy at the time that if somebody had been in a relationship of more than two years duration, then they would not normally be removed.



































































 And so the issue, the key issue in the case was, was this couple truly a couple, as they claimed, and in the way that such cases are typically done, you have to provide evidence to, first of all, to the Home Office and then, if unsuccessful, to the. tribunal to show that you're a genuine couple. And it's a bit like that programme. Mr. and Mrs.. Where each person is asked questions about their relationship and they compare the answers. But in this case, in order to demonstrate that they were a genuine couple committed to each other, they talked about one of the things that they love doing together was looking after this cat that they had bought.













































 They talked about the cat again, as typical in these cases, they brought along loads of witnesses, people who knew them and were able to say, this is a genuine couple. And these these people in their witnesses also talked about the cat. And the tribunal allowed the appeal absolutely properly allowed the appeal, found that they were a genuine couple. And then, having made that finding, the judge made some comments about pets and how important pets are. And he referred to a Canadian Supreme Court case about pets, and the Home Office did not like this decision. They appealed to the Upper Tribunal.



























 The upper tribunal found that the first tier tribunal had made a perfectly proper decision, was entitled to find that they were a genuine couple and did find that they were a genuine couple. And then, with the benefit of hindsight, the judge. unwisely included in her decision a little joke at the end saying, so now that means that the cat is not going to have to get used to chasing Venezuelan mice, because the couple will be able to stay in the cat as well. So somebody in the Daily Telegraph, there was a some sort of conduit from the tribunal to the Daily Telegraph, so that somebody in that paper got hold of this decision, or rather, it was presented to them, and they wrote this grotesque article about how article eight allows a couple to stay in the UK because they own a cat.









 So that was shocking to see something so grossly. misrepresented by The Daily Telegraph. But what was even more shocking was then quite a long time after that, to see the then Home.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Even if the .
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None Portrait Speaker 12
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Because of .
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Point, we need only .
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Family life .
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None Portrait Speaker 13
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And indeed .
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Exercise required .
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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The moment?
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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There's people who spend years waiting for decisions on their asylum cases, develop private family life during that time. All of those people. No weight is to be given to their private and family life. And I would ask the the that consideration be given to the way in which that interacts with section. 94 of the. 2002 act, which is a provision that allows the Secretary of State or in some. circumstances requires the Secretary of State to certify a human rights . claim as. Manifestly unfounded, manifestly unfounded. Thank you. And the consequence of certifying the claim as manifestly unfounded is that the person does not have a right of appeal.









































 So if the person, for example, the person who's got 30 without ever having had leave. Has an immigration decision, a deportation decision perhaps made against them, the Secretary of State is likely to. certify their human rights claim, because the tribunal will be bound to give no weight to whatever private or family life they may have developed. So it is a a. subterranean way of stripping rights, of appeal. potentially the combination of that. certification power with the no weight to be given. And there is a whole list of countries from which people may come where the Secretary of State doesn't just have a discretion to certify, but must certify.



















 So there's people from those. countries listed in section 94. They will be without access to the tribunal. The other point I wanted to highlight about the the public interest. considerations is the reliance on public health facilities. I mean, I find that really quite a shocking. provision that if somebody is not able to show that they are not going to need to rely on health care, then the public interest
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None Portrait Speaker 3
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Codification and .
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Not a legal.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Whether.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Can be .
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None Portrait Speaker 5
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Order, order!
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None Portrait Speaker 6
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If members can stay.
This debate has concluded
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