HL Deb 12 November 2004 vol 666 cc1163-84

2.42 p.m.

Baroness Harris of Richmond rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the report from the Select Committee on the European Union, Handling EU asylum claims: new approaches examined (11th report, HL Paper 74), what progress they have made in developing their proposals for regional protection areas and what view they take of the proposals of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the determination of asylum claims on an European Union basis, including the establishment of European Union reception centres.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to open this short debate, both because EU asylum policy is an important subject that deserves your Lordships' attention and, on a more personal note, because it enables me to present the Select Committee's report on handling EU asylum claims, before I stand down as chairman of Sub-Committee F of the European Union Committee next week.

Before addressing the substance of the report, I should like to pay tribute to the enormous amount of work that all the members of the sub-committee put into this inquiry, most of whom are unable to be with us in your Lordships' House today and, indeed, to the support that they have given me throughout my time as chairman. I should like to thank our specialist adviser for this inquiry, Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill of All Souls College, Oxford, whose knowledge of asylum law and practice, and practical experience of asylum casework, were of great assistance to us. I should also like to thank—as this will be my last opportunity to do so—the Clerk to our sub-committee, Tony Rawsthorne, whose help and support to me over the period of much of my chairmanship has been quite outstanding. His calm and thoroughly professional advice has been a great source of encouragement to me. I shall miss him as I shall also miss Dr. Valsamis Mitsilegas, our legal adviser, who has also given outstanding service, both to the sub-committee and to me personally. We are indeed blessed with such superb officers in your Lordships' House.

As it is some time since our report was published, it may be helpful to recall the background to it. Last year the British Government put forward proposals to their EU partners for the establishment of transit processing centres and of regional protection areas—or "zones of protection". Although, in the Government's response to our report, the Minister said that these proposals were only ideas intended to stimulate debate, they had the full backing of the Prime Minister, who presented them personally to his EU counterparts. Transit processing centres would be close to the borders of the EU, where asylum applications would be processed instead of in the country of destination. Regional protection areas would be areas of safety, where refugees and other vulnerable people could be offered protection nearer their countries of origin.

Much of the impetus for the idea of processing centres, and other similar proposals, is the perceived need by western governments to reduce the burdens presented by large numbers of asylum seekers. It is argued that such arrangements would enable applications to be decided more quickly and economically, that unsuccessful applicants would be returned more speedily to their countries of origin, and that they would deter future asylum seekers without valid claims.

No one can deny the major challenges that large-scale asylum seeking presents for countries of destination, whether the asylum seekers are genuine or not. New approaches to these intractable problems need to be developed, but they also need to be thought through carefully, given the devastating effect of a wrong decision on the person concerned.

In the course of our inquiry, the Government withdrew their proposal for transit processing centres in the face of strong opposition from several member states. They also subsequently dropped the idea of zones of protection. But that does not make our report, or this debate, academic as other similar proposals are still on the table. The idea of asylum centres outside the EU has recently resurfaced in the form of a proposal for camps for asylum seekers in north Africa. That has apparently been put forward by the German Government with the strong support of the Italian Government. The UNHCR has also made proposals, which we discuss in our report, for asylum processing centres within the EU. Each of those proposals has a different focus, but what they all have in common is the idea of sending asylum seekers to a country other than the one in which they made their asylum claim in order for their claim to be determined there.

It would be wrong to suggest that that is entirely unprecedented. Special arrangements have been made in the past to handle major outflows of refugees, such as the comprehensive plan of action for Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s. And, of course, there are also the so-called Dublin arrangements, under which a person who applies for asylum in one EU member state may be sent back to the member state in which he first arrived in the EU for his application to be determined there. However, the comprehensive plan of action was a major humanitarian effort to manage a specific refugee crisis, and the Dublin arrangements, or something like them, are necessary in an area without internal frontiers in order to prevent successive applications to different member states.

However, if an asylum seeker were sent to a dedicated centre, especially one outside the European Union, that would, as our report argues, raise substantial difficulties of both principle and practicality. The 1951 refugee convention places an obligation on contracting parties not to send a person to a country where he or she has a well founded fear of persecution. For one state to transfer that responsibility to another state has no direct precedent. Several legal questions would need to be answered. For example, which state would be ultimately responsible for the applicant? Would it be the state where the application was made or the state in whose territory the processing centre was located, or would some supranational body be responsible for the centre? What legal safeguards would be provided? What standards of legal representation, interpretation and rights of appeal would be available? One cannot avoid the suspicion that the attraction of the idea to governments is that it would enable some of the important safeguards that attach to applications made in the member states to be dispensed with.

Then there are the practical difficulties. The whole idea of a joint processing centre is presumably intended to enable asylum claims to be determined more expeditiously than at present. However, the effect in practice will be to add another difficult and contentious stage to what can already be a lengthy process. It is likely than an asylum seeker who had reached the UK would want his or her application determined here. If they were under threat of being sent to a processing centre in another country, many would no doubt contest the decision vigorously. The case would need to be subject to a preliminary procedure that, if protracted, would defeat the object of the exercise. If the substantive application were successful, the asylum seeker would need to be brought back again.

My committee was clear that the better solution by far was to devote more resources in EU member states to the initial application process, to get the decisions right at that stage. We identified a number of weaknesses in the existing system in the United Kingdom and made recommendations for improving it. Unfortunately, there is not time for me to outline them on this occasion, although I shall be glad to hear of any developments in the area that the Minister can report.

It is on the central point of our inquiry that I will particularly welcome the Minister's comments. We were naturally delighted when the Government saw the light and decided not to pursue their proposals for transit processing centres. However, the more recent and worrying proposals for camps in north Africa, to which I have already referred, raise a number of questions to which I would welcome a response. First, what is the status of those proposals? We have seen continuing references to them in the press but no formal proposal seems to have been made. Secondly, what is the Government's attitude to them? Having withdrawn their own proposals—for very good reason—I trust that they do not intend to change tack again and support the idea of asylum processing centres in north Africa. Thirdly, what has happened to the UNHCR's far-reaching proposals for EU asylum processing centres? Those would, in our view, not only be open to some of the objections to which we have already referred, but be a major step towards replacing national determination procedures with harmonised processing at EU level, for which we see no justification.

Finally, I would welcome any information that the Minister could give on the work in hand to improve protection capacity in regions of origin. That was the other element of the proposals that the Government made last year. It is clearly desirable that asylum seekers should, if possible, be able to stay near their countries of origin, but the zones of protection envisaged by the Government seemed to come dangerously close to refugee camps. I very much welcome their change of heart in dropping the proposal, and I am grateful for their detailed and generally positive response to our report. According to that response, the Government now support the work that the Commission is taking forward in the area of regional protection, which we believe is a much better course.

Earlier this year, the Commission published a communication entitled Improving Access to Durable Solutions, which my committee has examined closely. The Commission makes two main proposals, an EU resettlement scheme and the development of EU regional protection programmes. In the committee's view, the development of such programmes is a sensible approach to tackling the sometimes intractable problems. The Commission has rightly not gone for a quick fix, but rather for a longer-term approach. Its proposals are, however, in very general terms. I understand that they were discussed at the recent Justice and Home Affairs Council, and that the Commission is now working up pilot schemes for particular areas. It would be helpful if the Minister could give further details of what is currently proposed.

There are some important lessons to be learned from the events that I have briefly sketched out, and I hope that the Government have learned them.

The movement of asylum seekers across the world presents major challenges to the countries of destination and transit. Those challenges will not be met effectively by headline-grabbing initiatives that have not been properly thought through. It is welcome that the Government have recognised the impracticability of their proposals and now support the Commission's more thoughtful and longer-term approach.

However, it is clear from recent reports about the idea of setting up centres in north Africa that these lessons have not been universally learned. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us today that the Government will not be supporting this new initiative. I look forward to the contributions of the other speakers and to the Minister's response.

2.55 p.m.

Lord Snape

My Lords, the House will recognise the quality and value of the report before your Lordships today. It falls to me as the first speaker following the noble Baroness to thank her and her committee for the thorough job that they have done. They are emotive topics, to say the least. The fact that the committee has worked so hard and long to produce the report reflects enormous credit on the noble Baroness and its other members. Having read the report, I should be hard put to disagree with any of the recommendations.

As I indicated, they are enormously emotive matters. I am well aware that many noble Lords have far more experience in such matters than I have. Anyone who has represented in the other place an urban constituency for as long as I did will be aware of the numerous problems that people bring to one's attention as a Member of Parliament.

It is difficult, years afterwards, to explain my feelings when a woman from Africa, for example, told my female constituency assistant—she did not tell me because she could not bring herself to do so—that she was raped a dozen times by a group of passing soldiers. It is difficult to talk to a person from Asia—Bangladesh on this occasion—who tells you about his children dying for want of medicines that are freely available at any pharmacy in my constituency. Yet, all too often such matters are presented in an emotive way, particularly in some newspapers, and it is made to seem that refugees seeking asylum in this country are somehow unworthy of being allowed on to our shores. It is a humbling experience to listen to the stories that many of them tell.

I hope that the noble Baroness who speaks for the Official Opposition will also reiterate some of the committee's sensible conclusions and some of the conclusions at which the Government have arrived in response to the report, with particular regard to the first and perhaps most obvious conclusion to which the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, spoke; that is, the belief in the future veracity of the 1951 refugee convention. If the Official Opposition is to move away from that provision, I think that the noble Baroness should tell the House exactly what replacement her party has in mind.

I have no wish in any way to personalise the debate, but I listened with interest and with a good deal of respect to the speech made by the Leader of the Official Opposition at the Conservative Party conference. He talked about his own family's past experiences. When we talk of such matters at this stage in the electoral cycle, all too often emotion overrules reality. For the major opposition party to speak now of a finite number of refugees being allowed into the United Kingdom indicates that it does perhaps intend to move away from the 1951 convention. If so, perhaps the noble Baroness will tell us this afternoon.

I cannot help but reflect that if the barrier had fallen down in the early 1930s in the way that the major opposition party now seems to propose, the history of the Conservative Party, and, indeed, the history of the United Kingdom might be slightly different. I cannot think that in Romania, General Antonescu with his Iron Guard, who were every bit as right-wing and as bestial as anything that came out of Nuremberg, would have behaved any better than some of their counterparts in that part of the world, with the obvious consequences that that would have had for the family of the Leader of the Opposition.

Many years ago I went to see the then immigration Minister, the late Brynmor John. His office was full, from floor to ceiling, with files. I said to him, "How do you get in and out of this place?" He said, "With difficulty". It was the pre-computer age. He said, "I am always conscious of the fact that in every one of those files—this is a small number of those with which my department deals—there is a real human problem". When we debate such matters, it is incumbent on all of us to reflect on that, as the committee did in its valuable work.

Perhaps I may refer to one or two of the conclusions drawn by the committee during the time that it laboured on these matters. I start by referring to Chapter 7, the conclusions and recommendations, and paragraph 127. In these emotive times, when we talk about refugees, it is easy to forget—this paragraph reminds us—that something like 50 per cent of the applications for refugee status or a legal equivalent in this country are granted enabling people to stay in the United Kingdom. There is a touch of naivety in the final sentence of that paragraph: The Government should do more to correct misleading stories in the media". I have a great deal of respect for my noble friend the Minister who is to reply to the debate—I have known him for many years—but I suspect that that may be beyond even his enormous capabilities. I have sometimes thought that the best way to dissuade—if that is what people wish to do—refugees and asylum seekers from approaching the United Kingdom, would be to translate the Daily Mail into various languages and distribute it throughout the world. Surely, no one would want to seek refuge in the kind of country portrayed in that newspaper day after day. I do not envy my noble friend's task, if he is to follow that recommendation.

The noble Baroness referred to the lack of real agreement in the EU on minimum standards of asylum procedures. I would like to know from my noble friend what action we are taking to achieve common agreement on basic standards on asylum procedures.

Like the noble Baroness, I would not support the idea of the third world being used as the third party, in effect, for the holding of refugees while their applications are processed. Wherever such centres are placed, we could well see a re-run of what I call the Sangatte philosophy, where journalists squat outside and prepare, for their readers, stories of how many thousands of refugees are behind the fence waiting to burst upon an unsuspecting nation. Such reception centres are likely to garner that kind of publicity. I hope that my noble friend can give us some reassurance about the future as regards such matters.

The recommendation in paragraph 146 of the report refers to the need for an independent body to consider such matters. In their reply, the Government set their face firmly against such a body. I do not know why. When my party came to power in 1997 and we wrote to Ministers in other departments about various matters, many of us were somewhat surprised to receive a reply from an agency rather than from the Minister, but we got used to it.

Although the Government's argument is that Ministers must retain responsibility for asylum and entry into the United Kingdom—a fact that I understand and agree with—do they have to make every decision about every applicant? They do not do that in other departments, as I have just indicated. What is so vital about this matter that every decision has to be made by a Minister? Surely the setting up of such an independent body, as outlined in that recommendation, would lead to a shortening of the processes for such matters.

All of us involved are always struck by the length of time that these matters take, even in apparently open-and-shut, necessary cases. I make no criticism of government departments, but, if they are to deal with each individual case, inevitably the time taken will increase month on month as more pile up on the desk—or, these days, in the computer—as in Brynmor John's case all those years ago. So why have the Government set themselves so steadfastly against any independent body?

It would take someone with more courage than me to detain noble Lords for too long at this time on a Friday afternoon, so I shall make my final point. Paragraph 151 highlights the deterrence that an effective removal system would bring. Where cases have no obvious merit and people must be removed, surely they should be removed promptly, not only because of the deterrent effect but because it is a matter of considerable public concern that newspapers—occasionally accurately—report cases of people remaining in the United Kingdom long after their case has finally been dismissed.

I do not underestimate the difficulties that asylum seekers and refugees cause in the United Kingdom, but the vast majority are here for very good reason. Perhaps as a nation we should be proud to say that our country is seen as a beacon of hope for so many oppressed people throughout the world. While doing what we can to remove the obviously false applicant, we should do far more to cater for the many more whom I believe to be genuine.

3.6 p.m.

The Earl of Listowel

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, the chairman of the Select Committee, for her kind words on the members' work. I have appreciated very much her kindness and encouragement since I joined the committee in December, my first Select Committee in the Lords. I notice that she also demonstrates that kindness and encouragement to our witnesses. One of the reasons why the report contains such good evidence is the way in which the noble Baroness manages to encourage full and confident dispositions from our witnesses. I am sure that all my colleagues would agree that her chairmanship has brought us all together to work on these difficult issues in the most effective way possible.

I should like to concentrate on three main issues arising from the report. The first is the need to be careful in policy development in this area. We must think through proposals as carefully as possible. The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, drew attention to the concern about the consequences of the Prime Minister being in a perhaps difficult situation, with the highest-ever level of asylum seekers to this country when these proposals were made. One can imagine the pressure that that brings on the Prime Minister. There is also the need to produce some policy. One always hears that something must be done, but the danger is that one must think very carefully about where one moves in this area.

I wish to outline my concerns about the proposals for transit-processing arrangements and the regional protection areas. I also wish to highlight the importance of communication, a point which the noble Lord, Lord Snape, made. We must convey to the public the very difficult situation that many asylum seekers face. This week we were strongly reminded of that by reports on what is happening now in Darfur. On Monday evening, noble Lords may have seen a report on the 10 o'clock news about how the Sudanese Government seem to be permitting their police forces to go into villages in Darfur and rape the populace to coerce them from those areas. We need to bear that in mind. We must ensure that the terrible problems in many areas of the world are linked to the numbers of asylum seekers.

I welcome the good work that the Government are doing in that area. I acknowledge the difficulties. Just last night, I spoke to a manager of a charity that provides support for people leaving care: he spoke about how difficult it is to find move-on accommodation from his hostels. That is a real problem which is faced by many homeless charities. There is not enough housing for their clients to move on to, which blocks up the whole system. Shortage of resources creates problems that might have been addressed if we had got a more strategic view of likely future housing needs. Nevertheless, there are real problems.

There is also the danger of falling into scapegoating people. I am reminded of an eminent Austrian physician who came home to his daughter in the late 1930s and found her among several Brown Shirts or Black Shirts on two occasions. Eventually, he decided that he had to move. He was dying of cancer and he had hoped to die before he would have to move; but he had to move. The Gestapo came along before he finally exited to England and asked him to sign a form stating that he had been treated well by the Gestapo. He wrote, "I have been treated well by the Gestapo. I could recommend them to anyone". Those are perennial problems that face us now.

When I studied A-level politics many years ago, we looked at the processing of asylum applications. What a state it was in. I think that we all agree that it has been in a dreadful state for many years. So the Government are to be applauded for having reduced the number of applications earlier this year by one-half; to have reduced the initial processing of claims to two or three months and thus reducing that by half; and to have doubled the level of returns. That is so important, as has been emphasised by speakers in the debate and in the report, in order to build public confidence by having a good processing system that works effectively. That certainly came through in the evidence given by our witnesses.

I am very concerned about the proposal to introduce a transit arrangement, which would shunt people around within the EU or on its borders. I am concerned about where responsibility lies in those circumstances. We are talking often of very vulnerable people, including children and young people who have come to this country unaccompanied as asylum seekers. My noble friend Lord Alton has pointed out how often such children have disappeared without trace from children's homes. Who will take responsibility to ensure that things like that do not happen in such circumstances?

There are issues for young people and children about determination of age. Between November 2003 and September 2004 at Oakington, Cambridgeshire social services looked at 50 or so cases. It found that in about 30 cases children had been designated as adults. That is terrible; those children will have also suffered the difficulty that when they said in their interview that they were a child, they clearly seem to have lost credibility with their interviewer when they were assessed.

In particular, some 16 to 17 year-old children do not come within the full care system. So many frightened, lonely, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are being placed still in accommodation where they will see social services only once every two weeks when they go for their benefit. Otherwise, they are just left on their own. So those problems happen here, now. At least we know who to hold responsible for that. But who will be responsible in those distant transit arrangements? That is a very real concern.

I hope that the Minister will be able to comment on the recent German proposal to reintroduce the idea of transit arrangements. I hope too that he will be able to reassure us that he will look critically at such a proposal, given all that has been said in the debate so far. It is so important to communicate well in this area, and I recognise the sensitivities involved.

A while ago I got to know a young woman of 17 or perhaps 18 years of age who was living in a hostel. I saw her over several months. She was from Afghanistan and did not speak a word of English. It was difficult to find an interpreter for her particular regional dialect. She was always sad when I visited her once a week. One day I found that she was particularly unhappy. Her home town was being shelled and she was deeply concerned that her parents might be under attack.

I should mention a young man from Sierra Leone who had been held for several months in the jungle by the militia. He was an excellent scrabble player and a most agreeable character, but it was clear that his experiences had twisted him somewhat. One could see that in certain things he did.

In conclusion, I welcome the investment the Government have made in improving the processing systems for asylum. Members of the committee saw that when they visited the processing centre in Croydon. We were pleasantly surprised at the high quality of the interviewers. I welcome also what the Government have been doing in Africa, and their investment in the developing world. Our leadership in the area is well recognised. Today, of course, Mr Blair is visiting President Bush and we hope that that will mark a step towards improving stability elsewhere in the world, thus reducing the need for asylum flows.

I ask the Government to take great care in this area and to look critically at the German proposals rather than succumb to the pressures that we know will be exerted as the general election approaches. It is important to maintain communication and to connect what is happening in the developing world with the experience of asylum in this country. I hope that the Minister will remind his colleagues in the Foreign Office that, when they speak about what is happening in Darfur and other areas, they note that many asylum seekers in this country come from those places. That might be a way of putting the message across to the public.

3.18 p.m.

Baroness Williams of Crosby

My Lords, I welcome this short debate and I add my warmest congratulations to all members of the committee and to my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond on her brilliant chairmanship of a highly distinguished and hardworking group. The report clearly gives us much food for thought in an area which in many ways is difficult and not satisfactory. I shall begin by referring to the Unstarred Question and then say something about the report itself.

First, with regard to the issue of European co-operation in the field of refugees and asylum, there is much to welcome in the concept of closer co-operation between the European Union member states. That greater co-operation does not arise only from the importance, for example, of co-operation in working out areas of common policy—in particular I welcome the approach to try to harmonise the protection of refugees and asylum seekers which has been proposed by the EU and is now being operated upon—but also in some areas where there is clearly an extension of good practice.

In that respect I refer to the new European directive under which Article 11, laying down requirements for a European level of reception standards, specifically states that those asylum seekers whose cases have not been resolved after one year should be given the opportunity to work. Some of us would say that a year is a long time to wait before that opportunity is made available, but the directive makes a move towards offering a degree of protection to those whose cases have not been resolved, which is important. Incidentally, by February 2005 it will oblige our own country to fall into line. At present we have some asylum seekers and refugees who have been here for more than a year—quite a bit longer than a year in some cases—waiting for their cases to be resolved. They are not allowed to work, which to be frank is extraordinary and rather absurd. It does nothing to promote a better image of asylum seekers in our own country.

It is important that we should co-operate over the issue of borders. Noble Lords may wish to consider the implications of 2002—when the single largest source of asylum seekers was Russia—and the relative weakness of the EU border between the new eastern states and Russia. Obviously a common asylum policy must bear in mind the fact that far more resources are devoted to protecting borders in the western and older part of the European Union than borders in the eastern and newer part. The whole of any common asylum policy could be easily undermined if we do not consider the possibility of a common approach to the problem.

I completely agree with my noble friend Lady Harris—supported by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—about the great drawbacks of the proposal for regional protection centres. I would add to that the slightly better proposals—although they have not been well thought out—from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees for what it describes as processing centres within the EU.

The UNHCR proposal is somewhat better than the dreadfully foolish proposal for regional protection areas—which, as my noble friend said, has been largely dropped—because regional protection centres in places such as North Africa, Moldova and Ukraine will have the huge drawback of distancing the wealthy, comfortable western world from the agony of the poorer world. That does not make any sense in a global situation where it is crucial that the first world should understand more and not less of the problems of the third world. I cannot imagine anything worse than a regional protection area which merely distances us from the consequences of the huge inequalities in the world.

The proposal completely disregards the marvellous role that friends and visitors have played—in this country, in Scandinavia, in the Netherlands and in Germany—in trying to ease the position of refugees and asylum seekers, in trying to help them and in trying to establish personal relations.

I have the honour of being one of the two presidents of the Gatwick refugee centre. I am also very closely associated with one or two other refugee centres—for example, Oakington. It is terribly impressive to see how some of our fellow citizens give up their own leisure time—day after day, week-end after week end—in order to talk to, comfort and advise refugees. If I may say so in the presence of the right reverend Prelate, the same is true of many of the Churches. I cannot think of anything more foolish in terms of creating ethnic divisions and pain than removing the wonderful work being done, in our country and other EU countries, by distancing refugees and asylum seekers, by hundreds of miles, from the very people who are in a position to help them.

I turn now from the Unstarred Question part of the debate to the report itself, which does us a great favour by looking closely at the processes by which we currently decide the fate of asylum seekers and refugees.

I cannot stress too strongly the significance of the need to strengthen the initial decision-making process, an issue to which the report draws attention. What is so wrong with the current British system—and I do not blame any government because it has been in place for at least 15 years—is that we have a weak and often inadequately staffed initial decision stage. Decisions are taken by relatively junior officers with very little experience of the people or the countries with which they are dealing. This has led to a long, expensive and complicated system of appeals where, in no less than 20 per cent of cases, it was decided that applications had been wrongly turned down initially and should be reinstated. So we move from a 12 per cent acceptance at the initial stage to a decision to allow between 32 per cent and 42 per cent of people to stay at the outcome of the appeal stage. This means that the initial stage is very inefficient, expensive and weak. We do not decide to strengthen that initial stage, to put in more resources, to provide proper legal aid for refugees, to ensure that they have good translators and that their cases are properly heard. No—instead, we try to remove the appeal process by deciding that judicial review shall no longer apply, and then to remove a tier of the appeal process. It is a crazy and very expensive way to go about creating a fair, decent and less costly refugee system.

The report refers also to the fact that in this country people are not allowed to work—I have made some reference to that already—until they have been here for a very long time. Yet the whole problem that the report draws so eloquently to our attention about the perfectly awful media image of asylum seekers and refugees relates in large part to their being seen to be living off us, drawing benefit—although, of course, under Section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 it is increasingly difficult to draw benefit and therefore in many cases they become beggars and mendicants—because we refuse to allow them to work. Again, that is crazy.

Why do we not review the skills of asylum seekers when they come into the country, find out whether they have skills that we badly need—some of them are nurses and doctors; I can think of little other area where we need people more—and then decide to allow them to have temporary work permits, a system that works throughout Europe, in the United States and elsewhere, until such time as their case is finally determined? That would, among other things, build up good will in the community from those they serve in their capacity, whatever it may be.

One of the extraordinary things we also do is to show a remarkable level of blindness towards the real situation in the countries from which refugees come. They mostly come, as we know from the report, from countries in conflict, but even that does not, apparently, satisfy the authorities that their case is well made out. In that context, I repeat what was said only yesterday in this House by a Minister for whom I have the greatest respect, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland. When asked about whether we considered Iraq to be a safe country for refugees, she said, they can in our view return safely to Iraq. We also consider it safe for refugees to return to Iraq where, for example, their previous fears were based on the Saddam regime".—[Official Report, 11/11/04; col. 1013.] How strange that the noble Baroness felt able to say that, when on the very same day, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees put out an advisory that said Iraq, is currently in no position to offer any type of accommodation or other assistance to returning Iraqis". It goes on to say: UNFICR strongly advises States to suspend the forced returns of Iraqi nationals to all parts of Iraq until further notice". There seems to be a certain amount of distinguished blindness in the Home Office towards the real reasons why people become refugees.

I turn to a few ways in which we could make the situation better. I have referred to the importance of strengthening the initial stage, a point that my noble friend Lady Harris stressed. I have referred to the need to allow people to work at a much earlier stage than is now possible. I have referred to the importance of trying to provide adequate legal aid at the initial stages. I conclude first by quoting something from the Home Office and then saying a word about one or two of the new proposals we might make.

I refer to the Home Office's own study, commissioned and published internally in June 2003. It says: There is strong circumstantial evidence to show that restrictive measures have led to growth in trafficking and illegal entry of both asylum seekers and economic migrants". It could not have said it better. We are driving legal, decent and proper asylum seekers into the arms of traffickers and crooks because of the extraordinary way in which our asylum entry system is run.

Finally, I have a couple of ideas about what we might do. I mentioned the possibility of assessing the skills of asylum seekers and allowing them to work on temporary permits, subject to regular reports to the police—or even, in some cases, to a daily report to the police—so that we know exactly where they are. That happens in other countries, and it works reasonably well.

I have a final point to put to the Minister, in the hope that he might consider it. One way in which we might turn around the bad image of asylum seekers, which is deserved in some cases and utterly undeserved in others, would be to consider a fast-track approach for those whose cases are clearly founded. The European Union diplomatic embassies could keep a record of those asylum seekers, or citizens in countries under dictatorships and the like, who have played an outstanding role in fighting for democracy, human rights and the freedom of the press. All of us meet such people regularly; I am sure that the Minister has met them. I have met them in Gaza, Kashmir and Sierra Leone, and I am sure that many other noble Lords have met them as well.

Why cannot we provide information, kept on an EU database, which would enable genuine asylum seekers to ask when they arrive in the UK or Paris, or wherever it may be, for their data to be looked up? If necessary, it could be kept on a microchip, which would be very hard to detect, worn on their person. It would then be immediately clear that these were founded cases, which could be subject to a fast-track procedure. That would begin to change the image of asylum seekers, some of whom are among the bravest people to be found on the face of the earth, who have fought very hard for the values that we deeply believe in.

3.31 p.m.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for giving us the opportunity to ask the Government to put on record their response to the committee's inquiry into the viability of proposals for extra-territorial processing of asylum claims. The committee has considered a variety of proposals.

I note that the Minister gave evidence to the committee more than a year ago, on 29 October 2003, so it is extremely important that the committee has given us this opportunity to ask the Government how their thinking has developed since then. I note, too, as other noble Lords have, that the recommendations in the committee's report go much wider than the subject of its inquiry and of the Unstarred Question. The committee concludes, in paragraph 47, that there is no need to revisit the terms of the refugee convention, on the basis that it believes that it is still fit for the purpose.

The noble Lord, Lord Snape, brought with hint all his abilities from another place and tried to tempt me to set out the Conservative Party's proposals on how we might look afresh at the 1951 convention. That convention has been further modified by a protocol since then; it has grown, and may grow further. The nature of this debate is for me to ask the Government questions. I look forward to assisting my honourable and right honourable friends in another place to develop our proposals, because they are certainly coming to the conclusion stage. But the noble Lord will have to wait until he can read avidly the Conservative Party manifesto, from cover to cover, to see how we believe we might move away from the convention as it currently is, and what other kinds of legal protection there would have to be for people if any such move were made. The noble Lord will have to wait and see—I am sure that he can hardly bear the wait! This is an Unstarred Question, and by its nature we have to put questions to the Minister. However, as other noble Lords have, I shall try to stretch the scope by sharing one or two of my personal preferences.

Whatever one thinks about asylum, it is clear that the public have lost confidence in the Government's ability to manage the asylum system efficiently and humanely. I very much concur with the views just expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, that it is important that we do not fall into the trap of demonising asylum seekers, as so often happens in the printed media. The problem is, however, that when one looks coolly and calmly at who is claiming asylum, as the Home Office does, it is still predominantly the wrong people. The Home Office itself has conceded that up to three-quarters of those seeking asylum in Europe do not meet, and could never meet, the criteria of being a refugee. So many of them are illegal arrivals and overstayers.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, that to get here most asylum seekers must undertake a long, dangerous and expensive journey, often at the hands of people smugglers. Genuine refugees who cannot afford the cost or perhaps are not strong enough to make that journey will not apply via that route. So I think that there is a danger that the current system is helping to sustain an international people-smuggling network that we all deplore.

As the committee points out at paragraph 12: Since 2000 the United Kingdom has received more asylum claims than any other EU country". I know that the Minister will come back and say, "Whoopee, they have gone down a bit recently", as they have done a bit over the whole of Europe, but the processing system remains elaborate, inefficient and slow. Appeals cause immense delay. As the committee points out at paragraph 108: We are in no doubt that the quality of initial decision-making is the single most important component of an effective asylum system". An additional problem was identified not only by the committee but by the noble Lord, Lord Snape; that is, the Government's failure to remove failed asylum seekers promptly. The gap between the numbers of failed asylum seekers removed and actual failed asylum seekers is massive and increasing. In 2002, there were 55,130 refusals of asylum and ELR, but in that year only 10,740 principal applicants were removed. As the committee points out, although there has been an improvement in 2003, it leaves the Government well short of their own target of 30,000 a year that they initially set but then abandoned. So I agree with the committee's conclusion at paragraph 118 that: Failing to remove unsuccessful asylum seekers casts doubt on the efficacy of the whole system and weakens public confidence in it". It is therefore easy to understand why the committee concluded that the system should be improved and why it was tempted to go down the route of making proposals about how it might wish to see it improved.

Today, however, it is important that the Minister puts on the record what the Government have to say about the proposals that the Prime Minister set out in March 2003 in a concept paper that was sent to his European Council colleagues. As noble Lords have said, the two proposals were, first, to set up regional protection areas in regions of origin, aiming to provide accessible protection for genuine refugees; and, secondly, to set up transit processing centres in third countries as a medium-term action to deter those who enter the EU illegally and make unfounded applications.

It is also important that we hear the Minister's views on the UNHCR proposals for the determination of asylum claims on an EU basis, including the establishment of EU reception centres. The report notes that that raises formidable difficulties—perhaps the understatement of the year. I for one would certainly be deeply unhappy to proceed with proposals that removed decision making on asylum matters from UK Ministers.

In the time we have I cannot go into all the proposals that the committee put forward. However, one did strike me as a familiar friend: the idea of creating an independent documentation centre. I put forward amendments on that matter in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. It was my first Home Office Bill, as I had newly come to that post. It seems a lifetime ago now, as we have had another immigration Bill since then. I am afraid that I failed signally to persuade the Government to adopt the idea then.

I was interested to see the committee propose the idea. I remain puzzled by the Government's resistance to the proposal. It would assist and not compromise Ministers' ability to reach the right decisions. It would simply collect, analyse and disseminate credible and trustworthy information about countries of origin for use in the refugee determination process.

I agree with the committee's view that when the IDC collated the information, it should be required to draw exclusively on verifiable material in the public domain, to use a clear methodology and to employ methods of citation and corroboration of sources consistent with the highest evidentiary standards. That would give its work the necessary credibility. I would be grateful if the Minister could say whether the Government have given further thought to the establishment of an independent documentation centre.

I end on a slightly sour note by saying that I part company with the committee when it concludes that it would like an IDC to be set up on a Europe-wide basis. We need to retain a UK focus and our own perspective on what constitutes a safe country.

I think that all of us agree on the objective; we may differ on the routes we follow in getting there. Overall, we must ensure that we have a fair asylum system that helps genuine refugees but deters those who do not qualify for refugee status, because if the latter come here they and their families suffer long delays before they have to return. Above all, we have to re-establish public confidence in the asylum processing system.

3.40 p.m.

Lord Davies of Oldham

My Lords, this has been a most interesting debate. We have the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and her committee to thank for it. I am sorry that she was not supported today in strength by her committee members. I hope they will not consider that those of us who have participated in the debate are limited substitutes, but probably they have the greatest confidence in the chairman to reflect the committee's views.

Baroness Harris of Richmond

My Lords, they all have very legitimate reasons for not being present.

Lord Davies of Oldham

My Lords, I had not the slightest doubt about that, but I thought their absence also reflected their great confidence in the chair to convey to the House the full impact of the report. It is desirable not for the Government to respond to the report because, of course, that was done some time ago, but to update that response. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, indicated that what was properly required was an update on the report and on the progress that has been made in the subsequent period.

I am glad to take the opportunity to do that and to cover the period since the Prime Minister tabled the UK's proposals for new international approaches to asylum processing, and Ruud Lubbers, the UN High Commissioner, put forward his ideas for a three-pronged approach to improve the availability of protection and solutions for refugees in the region of origin while addressing certain asylum dilemmas confronting host states in the spring of 2003.

Every contributor to the debate today recognised the difficulties inherent in the problems we confront. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, referred to intractable problems with regard to asylum and international migration. It drew from my noble friend Lord Snape a typically robust, not to say challenging, response. We shall have the chance to debate the issues on numerous occasions. Today I want to concentrate on various aspects of the progress that we have made in a European context.

Our original proposals were put forward as a basis for discussion with our European partners and in the wider forum. They certainly stimulated widespread debate. The Government take great pleasure in that. It demonstrates our influence in Europe. We recognise that, while not everyone agreed with every detail of our proposals, we certainly prompted the establishment of a European perspective on the issues, which has helped the European community to look afresh at some of the matters and to make progress in some respects.

At the core of our original proposals was the identification of the need for protection in the region. In its initial response to our ideas, the European Commission endorsed our analysis of the problem but expressed some caution about the possible detailed solutions. That caution was reflected in the debate that culminated in the discussions at Thessaloniki last June. It was clear that some aspects of our proposals would not be supported by some member states. That applied particularly to our ideas for transit processing centres. Like the Commission, we have listened to that debate and to the views expressed, and our thinking has moved on in some clear respects. I take the opportunity to confirm that we have not progressed on the concept of transit processing.

We have also accepted that the idea of establishing "zones of protection" gave rise to unease in some quarters. None of our ideas for solutions was set in stone; they were proposals to stimulate debate. I stress that our focus remains clear: the strengthening of regional protection for the majority of the world's refugees who are unable to access asylum systems in the EU. In such cases, we believe that it is essential to strengthen protection in their region of origin, close to their homes, in order to ensure accessible and effective protection for people fleeing persecution and conflict.

We all know about the tragedies that occur when people who are pressed in the most extreme form in their own country make hazardous attempts to enter Europe. Part of the problem with the German/Italian approach to north Africa, which I shall address in a few moments, is the number of deaths in transit of people who try to make a hazardous journey, particularly when sea passages are involved. None of us can underestimate the problem of people trafficking—although brief references have been made to it in this debate—and the fact that malign and evil influences focus on such victims of persecution and then take further advantage of them. We all know that they are real and very difficult matters which we have to confront.

Following the Thessaloniki summit, we have moved away from from the idea of "zones of protection" which was proposed there. We are now seeking to develop "migration partnerships" with third countries in the region of origin of major asylum-generating countries. Such partnerships aim to reduce the pressure on our asylum system while facilitating our assistance with refugee caseloads in the partner country. We see them very much as modern partnerships based on equality, where the two parties recognise that their migration issues are of common concern and can be productively tackled together.

We fully support the Commission's proposals for EU regional protection programmes, which offer a degree of flexibility and mirror some aspects of our migration partnerships approach. I emphasise that we would not contemplate any proposals—nor would our European partners, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, would rapidly remind us—which contravened either the European Convention on Human Rights or the 1951 refugee convention. Our objective is to put the international protection regime on a more equitable and sustainable footing. Our proposals are in the spirit of the UNHCR's Convention Plus initiative which calls for special, tailored agreements to address specific caseloads. That is what we are looking for and developing.

Our current work focuses on boosting the immigration services of partner countries to enable them to tackle their control problems more effectively. This is based on the belief that issues such as secondary movement are often addressed most effectively in the region of origin.

We support also the European Commission's proposals presented in June last year in its communication on "durable solutions". The Commission's ideas are very much along the right lines, especially the need for a flexible "tool-box" approach, which takes account of the real needs of individual countries and of the region.

Baroness Williams of Crosby

My Lords, I am following the Minister's remarks with great interest. With regard to the "tool box", has thought been given to the concept of temporary periods of short resettlement; for example, the major contribution made by Germany to relieving the problem of refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina? Most of them have now returned.

Lord Davies of Oldham

My Lords, indeed they have. We all recognise that German experience as being a successful one. It addressed an international issue of substantial dimension. That concept certainly exists.

We are not in a position to subscribe to every detail of the concepts that are emerging, but the proposals are developing along lines from which we can all derive considerable benefit. There is no doubt that they reflect a range of measures. Some of them are already in existence; some are still in the process of development; and some still are at a very early stage.

So we have much work to do. But when the proposals first went to the European Commission a year ago it was recognised at that stage that if one provided a stimulus one would receive a response; but quite some considerable time elapses before responses are translated into the really detailed policies that we need. The one thing that everyone in the House would recognise, which has been well expressed in the debate, is that one has to get proposals and procedures right, otherwise real damage can be done and people can suffer the most savage forms of injustice.

For example, regarding the issue of the German-Italian proposals to establish reception facilities in transit countries, I heard the criticisms noble Lords have expressed and I recognise their anxieties. However, there is a real problem that must be dealt with. Therefore, we believe that it is important that such issues are articulated. It is important that the development of solutions to these issues occurs as rapidly as we can possibly manage, because we all know that large-scale immigration through north Africa is a problem for the region as well as for the EU and there is a substantial human cost to the current traffic. Everyone will recognise that the terrain in north Africa across which people must travel successfully to enter Europe leads to substantial death rates.

Baron Harris of Richmond

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. Could he answer my specific question regarding the status of the Government's concerns around the German-Italian proposals? Precisely what do the Government feel about them?

Lord Davies of Oldham

My Lords, those matters are under discussion at present. I cannot be definitive about that position. We recognise that what the Germans and Italians are proposing has caused substantial hostility among other European states—not least, Spain, the closest of all. So there are difficulties, and none of us would pretend that we could see our way through those difficulties with the greatest clarity. I am seeking to reflect the fact that here is an international situation that needs to be tackled. We all know the human cost involved in delay and a failure to tackle the issue. I am merely indicating to the House that at this stage we are involved in discussions and we regard it as an important area requiring a solution.

The danger, as my noble friend Lord Snape hinted—he may not have been the only contributor to the debate to mention it—is that we might create a "Sangatte" in north Africa. Instead of there being an effective strategy for ensuring that appropriate claims were dealt with and people were protected while they made such claims, that camp would have a substantial pull factor, with the centre overwhelmed, and would give a new boost to traffickers at tremendous cost to the people who would be placed in that situation.

I assure my noble friend and the House that we are alert to that issue and we have learnt our lessons from Sangatte. It will be appreciated in the House that the solution to the Sangatte problem that we put into effect some time ago is not readily translated to north Africa. We know that any proposals to solve that must not create a replica of that eventually tragic development.

The Commission's proposals envisage close cooperation with the UNHCR, seeking in particular to dovetail with their Convention Plus initiative. The Commission proposes drawing up a plan of action for a pilot regional protection programme by June 2005. The pilot is likely to be based on work already under way in two EU-funded, UNHCR-led projects that we, together with Denmark and the Netherlands, arc co-financing. One will formulate a comprehensive plan of action for Somali refugees; the other is designed to identify gaps in protection capacity in selected African countries. That work is being carried out by the UNHCR. It is planned that the pilots will be launched in December 2005.

We also welcome the possible development of an EU-wide resettlement scheme as a potential vehicle for offering international protection to a large number of refugees. It is essential that such a scheme does not adversely affect existing resettlement schemes run by individual states. We also want to ensure that any EU scheme adds value to our existing programmes.

The UK welcomes the UNHCR's input into the debate on EU asylum policy. There are elements in its paper with which we can readily agree: co-operation on returns, for example, would be very welcome. But, as the European Union Select Committee recognises in its report, the proposal to determine asylum claims on an EU basis presupposes a single asylum procedure conducted by new EU institutions. That goes a long way beyond the minimum standards which we are seeking to establish and which I know will receive widespread approval in the House. At this stage, we are negotiating on those issues, but I think that we shall wait some time before the other, more extravagant proposal is developed.

We are committed to working with our European partners to achieve an effective, fair and managed system of asylum and immigration. Once the Asylum Procedures Directive, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, referred, has been formally adopted, the legislation to put in place the package of measures envisaged at the Tampere European Council in 1999 will be complete at the EU level. Next, it will be important to implement it in each member state and to evaluate its effects properly.

In the context of the debate, I heard the anxieties and concerns expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and other noble Lords about present procedures. We cannot tackle the general press position on asylum seekers directly and readily. But I accept entirely what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said, and we could probably try to emphasise the good aspects of asylum and migration. I entirely take her point. We all know what an enormous contribution has been made to our society—and to European societies across the board—by people who have sought asylum within our borders. Perhaps some of these issues should be translated more effectively into good news stories. However, there are certain areas of the media where even the staunchest heart can at times fail in the face of endless criticism.

It is also true that the country needs to be reassured that our systems are fair, rigorous and appropriate. I want to assure all noble Lords that genuine improvements have been made in terms of the amount of time taken to deal with asylum processes. I heard what the noble Baroness said with regard to asylum seekers being able to work after a year if their claims have not been processed. I think that a more desirable objective is to ensure that their claims are processed a good deal earlier than that. I am pleased to report a substantial increase in the percentage of asylum claims dealt with within two months. Now, 80 per cent of new applications get the initial discussion within two months, compared with an average of more than 20 months prior to 1997. I think that that is a more constructive and appropriate way in which to deal with the issue, although I do not underestimate the more general point which the noble Baroness made and to which I entirely subscribe. Many who have settled within our shores in recent years have made an outstanding contribution to our welfare, and it is a pity that that is not recognised more widely.

I am conscious of the fact that, first, I am taking rather more time than my colleagues and, secondly, that this is a Friday afternoon and one can become a little fractious at over-long speeches. However, in conclusion, I emphasise to noble Lords that we appreciate the fact that the report emerged at a time when criticism of the Government's position was fairly forthright within the European Community. We were bold, and so was the Prime Minister. It was even recognised by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, that he put forward proposals that did not win universal approval. The debate has moved on. We stimulated that debate, are very much in the forefront of it, and are developing ideas that will greatly improve issues with regard to migration and asylum. One always thinks that terrorism and the safety of life is the greatest international issue of all, but we all recognise that, probably very close to it, one of the great phenomena of our time—increased prosperity and increased facility to travel—has produced a challenge for the 21st century. We know that it will be constant and that we need to respond to it in the most effective way.

I apologise to the House. I have a little note to say that I made a mistake. Instead of saying that 80 per cent of new applications got initial discussion within two months, I should have said that 80 per cent of them got initial decision within two months. I hope that the House will accept my apology.

In conclusion, we all very much appreciate the report. We pay tribute to the noble Baroness at the conclusion of her term in office as chair of the committee, but this was a very high note on which to finish. We are pleased that, on the basis of the report, we were able to give a response of considerable encouragement.

House adjourned at one minute past four o'clock.