Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the deportation of illegal immigrants.

Article 8, the right to private and family life, is a qualified right, meaning interference can be justified where proportionate to the public interest. The government considers that Article 8 has been applied too broadly in some immigration and deportation cases, including where individuals cannot meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules.

Article 8 is intended as a safeguard. Yet with 77,000 applications granted on the basis of Article 8 in the past year alone, it is having a significant impact on our ability to enforce the Immigration Rules and tackle illegal migration.

The Government has therefore introduced provisions in the Immigration and Asylum Bill to clarify the application of Article 8 by strengthening the weight given to effective immigration control, compliance with immigration rules and the public interest in deportation decisions. The Bill will also make clear that deporting foreign criminals is in the public interest and will always be appropriate unless the individual impact cannot be justified by that public interest.