Citizenship

My Lords, I welcome the intention of the Green Paper to provide us with a better and clearer system for the future. I also welcome what the Statement says about the reunion of close family members of those already entitled to live here. There remain serious concerns about the past and what has happened up to now, in particular in regard to the backlog of asylum application cases. Can the Minister say what progress is being made in processing these and what backlog of cases will still remain to be dealt with? As regards past unsuccessful asylum applications, what is the situation in regard to destitution among these people? In cases where an asylum application has failed but it is not possible to return the person to their country of origin, will the Government ensure that reasonable access to healthcare is available to these people? Is progress being made in dealing with overstayers, who may well be visitors or students? Finally, there is considerable concern on a point mentioned in the Statement about those who wish to progress towards citizenship but who have been convicted of some minor offence which only entails a very short term of imprisonment for possibly a technical offence. Can the noble Lord say that these people will not be totally ruled out?