Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Jonathan Brash and Paul Foster

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th September 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Foster]

Q I am just asking for your view on some of the evidence the Committee heard this morning. This is not Paul Foster’s view; it is the view of our witnesses.

Professor Singer: I have not come across that myself.

Jacqui McKenzie: I do not think that is right.

[Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Q You have focused a great deal on Home Office decision making as the primary reason why the process takes a long time and there are a number of appeals, but is the reality not that appeal is the default? Virtually all refusals are appealed; it is nothing to do with the decision making, and as long as that is going to be the case, we have to find a way to speed up the system.

Jacqui McKenzie: What I am referring to are those decisions that are badly made that end up in the appellant system. Those are the ones that I see and that go on, after two or three years, to be allowed, and the person gets to remain in the UK.

Those are not the initiatives where people coming from particular countries have been granted asylum, and there has been a whole discussion on whether that is due process or not. Generally speaking, of the appeals that we see in my practice—my practice is limited; I am not sitting here trying to extrapolate across the jurisdiction—the vast majority, if not nearly all of them, could have had a different decision in the first instance, and did not need to go into the system. Of course, if people’s lives are dependent on them fleeing persecution or maintaining their family ties in the UK and they get a negative decision, they are going to appeal. That is just the way things are.