Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I apologise for disrupting the order in which things ought to happen. I wanted to ask the Minister about the previous reports of the independent monitor, which she said that the Government had responded to. My impression from looking at the most recent report of the independent monitor is that responses to a number of reports were outstanding. I refer particularly to paragraph 121 of the report of February 2005, in which the monitor deals with some recommendations based on her examination of the 2002 files on a new format for decision-making. I shall not go into the details, because several elements are outlined in the paragraph. If one turns to appendix C, which is a summary of the recommendations already made by the independent monitor in 2004, you find that the same set of parameters about how the entry clearance officer should handle their cases is repeated. The implication of that is that nothing has happened between the recommendations made in 2004 and the February 2005 report of the independent monitor. There were 52 paragraphs of recommendations in the June report of 2004, which are dealt with in appendix C, and 46 in November 2004. I have not counted the number made in February 2005. We are looking at a list of 100 recommendations. If they have been responded to by the Government, that has disappeared into a black hole somewhere. I am not conscious of having seen them. Had the Government made any firm decisions that were useful in improving the quality of decision-making, we would have learnt about them in the debate, or our many advisers in the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association would have told us about the improvements effected as a result of the independent monitor’s report.