Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, quoted at significant length from the transcript of Fiona Lindsley’s examination by the Select Committee on Home Affairs and from the reports she had written. I am a bear of very little brain and I cannot claim to have done either of those two things, but I did sit next to her during the admirable briefing arranged by my noble friend Lady Anelay. She spoke for 10 minutes with extreme eloquence and articulacy and conveyed an immense amount of information in a very short space of time. If my notes incorrectly render what she said, I apologise to her as well as to the Committee. Fiona Lindsley alluded to the fact that the number of monitors was being expanded, and that is to the Government’s credit. She also said that the monitors have few powers, so that it is not a significant advance in terms of the process of checking. I understood her to say that a monitor was expected to take into account 50 cases a day which is a 25 per cent growth on the 40 cases a day which an entry clearance officer takes. Forty cases a day is a substantial number to go through in the course of a working day. Anybody who has dealt with surgery cases in a constituency knows that it is a very weary process to do effectively. She had looked at 4,000 cases during the course of her work, which is a pretty substantial universe on which to draw. The rise in refusals which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury quoted, from 6.5 per cent to 19 per cent since 2000, means, because it is a larger figure, that the refusal figure of 25 per cent is also much larger than it was in 2000. It is not merely 6.5 per cent, it is now 19 per cent. I have a simple question for the Minister: what is the Government’s explanation for what has happened over the past five years, as reported by an extremely vivid and vibrant witness?