Immigration: Refugee and Migrant Justice

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Avebury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their reaction to the probable closure of Refugee and Migrant Justice.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, since this Question was tabled, Refugee and Migrant Justice has been placed into administration. The Government’s immediate concern was that the clients of RMJ should continue to receive a good-quality service.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, as other practitioners specialising in asylum cases—particularly, although not exclusively, those who operate on a not-for-profit basis—have had similar cash-flow problems to those of the RMJ, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that the LSC may be able to find providers to take on the RMJ’s 10,000 cases? Will my noble friend acknowledge that there will be serious delays in looking after those cases, first, because the new providers will have to get to know what the cases are, and, secondly, because they do not know whether they will be funded in the spending round that begins on 1 October?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I will take the last point first. Yes, there is bound to be a certain amount of disruption if an organisation that covers 7 per cent of cases goes into administration. However, I can assure the House that the Government are giving high priority to minimise that disruption. On whether other non-profit-making practitioners are facing difficulty, it is true that there have been complaints about the change in funding and fees, which was made by the previous Administration with an eye to saving taxpayers’ money. The change is not popular but, as my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor said in another place, the organisations are coping. Trying to balance the good work that these organisations are doing against the taxpayers’ not-bottomless pot is difficult.