Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

That last interchange with the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, is crucial because it goes to the very heart of the problems that I have with the Government’s response to my amendments in this group. On the one hand, I have listened to the cogent argument made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, about the existing problems with the system; and then of course the Minister said, ““Ah! But we are planning this wonderful new system whereby there will be an administrative review which will work properly. It will work hand-in-glove with the recognised institutions””. We all want the system to work. The difficulty lies in what will happen in the transitional period while it is being brought in. Is the lack of an appeal going to be seriously damaging? My answer at the moment would be, ““Yes, it is””. Secondly, is it still important to have an appeal system after this new system comes in? At the moment, in the absence of knowing what the new system will be and the absence of confidence in it working, I would have to say, yes, an appeal system has to be there because of the ultimate rigour that it supplies. I have a difficulty with the generous offer made by the Minister—I know she meant it to be generous—when she said that she wants it to be possible for the Committee to look at what the administrative review might be, how it might work and whether it will be the right kind of review. I am not sure how we can achieve that in Committee because we are now passing the point in the Bill where we might write in clauses. We might try to put on the face of the Bill an enabling clause about having an administrative review but, even if I could rustle up one in the next half-hour—I hope we will finish on this group of amendments—it would be too late to table it for consideration on Wednesday. Even if the Public Bill Office were happy with a manuscript amendment, I am sure other noble Lords would not be so happy. I understand the Minister’s offer—I know it is well meant—but it means that we would not be able to come up with something until the Report stage, and we are now beginning to run out of time. I do not know whether the Minister wishes to comment on that but, obviously, we will look to having constructive talks with her department between now and the Report stage—outside organisations will do the same—to see whether there is some way in which we can take up her offer in a proper manner.