Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I am always grateful to noble Lords for going into detail on the issues that they want me to cover. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for the customary generosity with which he described his mistakes—I would not call them that. I completely understand what the noble Lord was getting at on Monday, but he has corrected the factual point. He made the point very well that he was genuinely concerned, and remains so, about the gap. It may be a shorter gap than the noble Lord thought, but in his mind it is none the less a gap. There is concern too that when someone is doing a very good job it is always a point of interest to know why they do not continue with that role. The noble Lord is right, as I, too, checked that it is full time and not part time. I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting that straight, because it is important. I will not waste the Committee’s time by going over what I said about administrative review. I am mindful that I have started some conversations already with groups outside and with noble Lords on the Committee, and I will continue those this evening to talk further about what I mean by administrative review. To reiterate one point, the context is that in looking across all the information and evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that came to me on the Bill, it was clear that the big concerns related to mistakes being made. Therefore, it seemed that an efficient process should be put in place that could quickly deal with cases where a mistake had been made on a form, information had been misread or whatever. It would be a better system than an appeal because it would be speedy and efficient. I await more information on cases that would not be resolved in that way because all the cases that I hear about would be. It is important to get that right in a way that addresses those concerns effectively, so I reiterate my desire to involve others, including my honourable friend Tony McNulty, who is responsible for this policy area, not me. That should largely answer the concerns raised. Objectivity, transparency and high quality are very important; noble Lords have reiterated their importance in initial decision-making, and I agree. It is our aspiration and our evidence base for the system that we are bringing into play. The system will enable the applicant to see as much of the information and to be as crystal clear about what is required as the entry clearance officer. My honourable friend said in another place that it was probably impossible to achieve 100 per cent objectivity in any system. That is true in applications to universities or for a job; you get different applicants, you make choices. But I accept that the closer we get to objectivity, the better. I have not read all the documents of the independent monitor but my guess is that some of the issues that noble Lords are raising are those that the independent monitor raised in previous reports and that we have addressed. As I understand it, historically the position as regards the independent monitor has been that a report is submitted and a formal response given. I have been notified that a response is outstanding from the last report. I would like to have a conversation with my noble friend Lord Triesman, as I have not had time to do it since Monday, although I can write to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and other Members of the Committee with any further comments I might have. That is my understanding of the position regarding the independent monitor to date. I should like to go through the amendments and deal with the role of the independent monitor in the future, both to remind noble Lords of where the independent monitor comes from and to describe the work that will be done. I accept the underlying principle that, as noble Lords have indicated, it is important that the individual has the resources available to him or her. I do not have a budget figure to give noble Lords, but if I can find one I will give it. Equally, I have no idea who the successful applicant is. It would be wholly inappropriate for me to know and probably deeply inappropriate for me to tell the Committee if I did know. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, it is for my noble friend Lord Triesman to determine. It is important to note that moving to a full-time position was recognition of the future importance of the role. When I read this group of amendments I thought that the underlying question was: when is an appeal not an appeal? The noble Baroness has cleverly sought to demonstrate different ways in which one could have an appeal. It will not surprise her that I will resist the principle of trying to bring in an appeal by a different route. That does not mean that I do not understand and recognise her points, and I am very open to discuss how we have defined the roles, particularly that of the independent monitor. I would be loath to suggest that dealing with individual cases is an appropriate approach in terms of individual complaints. In response to Amendment No. 20, the noble Baroness will not be surprised that I am not desperately keen on requiring very hard-worked and extremely good judicial officers to visit different places in order to do I am not sure what. I take the noble Baroness’s point that it is a very good judicial resource available to us, but I do not think that we could use immigration judges in that way. We want to use them effectively and efficiently in the tribunal system, where they have an important role to play. The noble Baroness will not be surprised that I say that; I can see that she is looking for different opportunities to suggest alternatives. Let me look now at the role of the independent monitor. I have already said that we have made that role a full-time post in order to make sure that the availability has moved from 40 days to full time. Full time is full time—except for holidays, which people are entitled to take—so the incumbent will be someone who is able to do that. The incumbent will travel for three months of the year to a cross-section of the posts, which we hope will identify any training gaps, for example, because particular patterns are emerging, or whether there are particular issues that are unique to individual posts. It is important that the monitor is able to take a broad-brush and a specific view; he will have the opportunity to do so in the three months. He will report six-monthly rather than annually. The purpose is to try to get sharper, punchier and more up-to-the moment reports, to which we can respond quickly. I use the word ““quickly”” mindful that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will ask me, ““Well, quickly means what, in the light of the fact that you haven’t responded to the last point?””. I have already indicated that I will pick up that point. The role encompasses all the entry clearance posts. A sample will be drawn from those posts to enable us to look across the piece in a random way. The posts will not know which cases are being chosen; they will be picked randomly so there will be no opportunity to simply present cases that these posts wish to have presented. The purpose is to look at the standards being applied to the refusal of decisions. The purpose of the role will be to cover the overall quality of decision-making, particularly regarding consistency, fairness and the procedures that have been used leading to refusal decisions. But, as I have already indicated, it is not intended to look at individual cases that are brought forward. We think that a random sampling across the system will enable us to identify issues that we need to pick up quickly and to deal with them appropriately. We are talking about 3,000 to 4,000 randomly chosen entry clearance refusals—those without a right of appeal. As I have indicated, a twice-yearly report will be submitted to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who will submit it to Parliament. The monitor will also provide recommendations to Ministers and to senior Foreign Office and Home Office officials on issues regarding entry clearance. We hope that the existing good links between the independent monitor and the UK visas operations overseas will be maintained and enhanced by the monitor’s opportunity to spend time visiting the different posts. As I understand it, in 2004 the monitor examined 1,791 cases. I have just been given that piece of information. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in particular and other noble Lords will see the scale of the ambition to take up to 4,000 cases across the system. We believe that with this full-time position we have an efficient way of being able to randomly select and monitor across all our posts. The monitor will be able to spend three months a year—a considerable amount of time—with individual posts in order to identify particular things.