Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

It is strange that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, picked the two states that I mentioned: Burma and Zimbabwe. As the Minister acknowledged when she replied to the previous amendment, there are many other states that may not be quite as bad as Burma and Zimbabwe to which we would not want to disclose information. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, made a very good point. There are other ways in which one could define a law-based and democratic state. For example, one might say that it was any state in compliance with its obligations to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. That such a formulation is necessary to restrict the power of the Secretary of State to transfer such information to foreign law enforcement agencies has been confirmed by both debates. It would not be satisfactory for the Committee simply to leave it that the Minister has given us an assurance that the information would not be transferred in a way we would not like. We need something more precise than that. I hope the noble Baroness will acknowledge that even if the wording proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is not correct, we need some limitation on this power.