HC Deb 21 January 1992 vol 202 cc247-52

Amendment made: No. 25, in page 1, line 14, at end insert— '(1A) Nothing in the immigration rules (within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971) shall lay down any practice which would be contrary to the Convention.'.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]

Mr. Peter Lloyd

I beg to move amendment No. 26, in page 1, line 15, leave out subsection (2).

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean)

With this it will be convenient to consider Government amendments Nos. 27 and 28.

Mr. Lloyd

Some concern was expressed in Committee about the definition of an asylum seeker being linked to the recording of a claim. There was considerable suspicion about what that meant. I explained in Committee that it was relevant only to clause 2 on fingerprinting and to clause 3 on housing and that there was no question of failing to treat someone as an asylum seeker and of denying access to the normal determination system on the pretext that the claim had not been recorded. I undertook to consider whether that could be clarified by means of a change of wording. I am happy to move the amendment. I believe that all these amendments will do just that.

An asylum seeker will no longer be defined generally. Specific provisions are included in clauses 2 and 3, where they are needed. The concept of recording is now clearly limited—as it was, in practice, limited before—to the housing provisions of the Bill. It is essential for the proper handling of inquiries from local authorities that changes in entitlement, which no doubt we shall debate in the next group of amendments, should be triggered by information that is made available unequivocally from a central point in the Home Office. The result will be the same as that which was provided for in the initial wording, but I hope that hon. Members will find that the wording is now considerably clearer. Although it is still fairly complicated, it is now much easier to follow than before.

I ought to draw the attention of the House to one side effect of the change. It will benefit asylum seekers in a very small way when it comes to the fingerprinting power. The power to fingerprint will cease not when the asylum seeker has his name taken off the record but when the asylum application has been either decided or withdrawn. There will be no delay on account of having to wait until a record has been made of one or other of those outcomes.

I hope that the amendments will be welcomed by hon. Members. They clarify what led to a considerable discussion in Committee.

Mr. Corbyn

I want to deal with some of the points raised by the Under-Secretary. First, let me deal with the recording of information at the point when the person becomes an asylum applicant. The procedure now is that they apply and are interviewed and a file is made up which, at some point, arrives at the central registration. At what point are such people considered to be asylum applicants? If there is a delay in obtaining the information at the recording point and its being received at Home Office, that can cause problems for applicants or their families when they seek, as is their right, income support or housing benefit payments. That can cause difficulties for the families concerned, because, inevitably, people who arrive here seeking political asylum tend to be extremely poor or even destitute. I raise this matter because I know from experience that Kurdish people with whose cases I have been dealing have been unable to obtain income support payments for months because of that difficulty.

I am concerned also about the security of the information. As the Under-Secretary said, we shall he debating this later in the section dealing with housing. Information about someone seeking political asylum can be of interest to the regime from which the person is fleeing. Some years ago asylum applicants from Iraq faced activities by agents of the Iraqi forces who attempted to attack them physically. Therefore, the security of the information and who has access to it are important matters. If, in that context, housing departments around the country are to be required to check with the Home Office whether an applicant has been recorded and is an asylum seeker, due care must be taken to ensure that the information is being passed to a proper representative of the local authority and not to somebody ringing up purporting to be such a representative. I know that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment may deal with that later.

In Committee we discussed the fingerprinting of asylum applicants, which is something that I and many of my colleagues find distasteful. Can we be assured that the fingerprinting will be kept entirely separate from any criminal records held by the police or the Home Office? At what stage are children too young for fingerprinting? The Minister refused to be drawn on that in Committee. He merely said that, where appropriate, older children will be fingerprinted. He did not give a minimum age limit below which that would not happen. This is an obnoxious section of the Bill and I should be grateful if the Minister would deal with those points.

Mr. Darling

The terms of amendments Nos. 26 and 27 are generally welcome and acceptable and are in line with the amendments that we tabled in Committee. However, in light of the amendments, can the Minister tell us when someone becomes an asylum seeker? Is it when the claim is lodged or at some other time? Logically, in terms of clause 1, it would be when the application is lodged.

When does someone cease to be an asylum seeker? It is clear from amendment No. 27 that it is when the claim has been "finally determined or abandoned". Would that apply universally throughout the Bill? That is not just important for housing; other matters may arise when it may be relevant to know whether someone is an asylum seeker.

Amendment No. 28 is not as welcome, because it is adding rather than subtracting from the terms of clause 3. The result is that people cannot be considered for housing under clause 3 until their claim is recorded. In other words, it is the same as the provision in clause 1. The guidance notes to which I referred earlier say in paragraph 9: Where applications are forwarded from the ports or submitted by post there may be a delay of several days before the application reaches the Asylum Division for initial assessment. During this period the asylum applicant is protected by the provisions of the 1951 UN Convention and may not be removed from the country. At the point at which the Asylum Division consider the documents and determine that an asylum claim has been made, the claim will be deemed to be 'recorded' by the Home Office. In other words, there may be a delay of several days—in Home Office talk that is a euphemism for a considerable time—in some cases.

8.15 pm

That is relevant in that if someone seeking housing is not an asylum seeker within the meaning of the Act—as it will be—they will not be housed. As we said in Committee, I understand the Government's anxiety to deter people and make life as difficult and unpleasant as possible—the Government made that clear in Committee—but once they are here and have submitted a claim, we cannot expect them to sleep on the streets. We must house them somewhere. I am concerned that amendment No. 28 may cause undesirable difficulties. The Under-Secretary will tell us whether those difficulties are intended. Unless he can assure us that the Home Office is likely to speed up its recording procedures, the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) will remain. Will the Under-Secretary comment on that?

Mr. Peter Lloyd

There is in practice no addition to clause 3. There may be an increase in the number of words in the clause, but they will have their effect from the distance of clause 1(2). There is no change in effect, but I believe that the clause will read more clearly. I was seeking to achieve that greater clarity.

The recording for asylum seeking is relevant only for fingerprinting and housing. We debated these matters for a considerable time in Committee when I was seeking to reassure Opposition Members, particularly the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), that the use of the word "recorded" affects only the power to diminish the housing right by giving greater flexibility to the local authority and would set a term for when it is lawful for fingerprints to be required. It has no effect on the individual's right to have their case considered in this country or their right not to be returned to the country in which they say they have a well-founded fear of persecution. The protection of the United Nations convention is available to them as soon as they say that they want to seek asylum. We should not muddle things up. It must be put in the Bill so that there is a central list that local authorities know is authoritative. There is a delay of a day or two or longer before someone is accepted and given temporary admission as an asylum seeker and put on that central list. It does not undermine their rights under the United Nations convention or the Secretary of State's obligation to them.

The hon. Member for Islington, North asked about security. That is important and it was raised in Committee. Care must be taken that the knowledge that somebody has applied for asylum is not divulged to people who ought not to know it. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment will be able to add to what I have said. I think that what we—the Department of the Environment and the Home Office—are now considering will mean that communication on such issues will have to be by post. Although it may be slower, it is more secure, because the information would at least be directed to the people who should properly have it and who, it is reasonable to expect, will regard it with confidentiality as they do the numerous other pieces of confidential information that come their way in local authority departments.

The hon. Gentleman also asked whether fingerprinting records will be kept separate—I think that he said "separate from the police". They will certainly be kept separately and will be available only—generally—for the purposes of the asylum division. However, if we receive proper inquiries in proper conditions from the police about an individual whose records we have, they will be made available to the police in the fight against crime. That is the case with any other information that the Home Office properly holds and it is what any other Government Department does and, indeed, what any other organisation would do. However, the records will not be part of the police's normal records and we would not expect to give any other organisation—including the police—general access to them, but we shall respond when legitimate and proper requests are made to us by legitimate and proper authorities including, of course, the police.

The hon. Member for Islington, North also asked about the fingerprinting of children. We seek to take powers in the Bill to fingerprint every asylum seeker, including children. As I said in Committee, we do not look to take fingerprints of young children—I shall not say how young such children would be because it would depend on the circumstances. I hope that it will be done as seldom as possible, but the reasons why we need the power are threefold.

First, there can be an argument about whether a young person coming into this country is under 17 or under 18 or over 18 or over 19. Such a power would avoid that debate. Secondly, as has been said, children can come into the country by themselves and I think that it is right in such circumstances that we at least have the power to fingerprint them.

There is a third set of circumstances in which such a power might be useful, so it is sensible to take the power now in primary legislation. There is some evidence of fraud by those who seek asylum under different names moving children between them. Some asylum applicants claim for other people's children. It is necessary for us at least to have the power to take fingerprints to connect particular children to particular adults for reasons of social security fraud and so that when children are brought in at ports and, as the evidence sometimes suggests, abandoned, we may find it necessary to fingerprint children so that they can be connected to particular adults.

We do not want to fingerprint children—especially young ones—but I regret that it is a power which we must take. We shall have to see how our new tighter measures work and what they reveal in the way of difficulties before we decide administratively whether they should be used and, if so, how.

Mr. Madden

The Minister is well aware of the widely held view that the act of fingerprinting inevitably criminalises the person seeking political asylum and that it is offensive, especially when applied to young people and to children. In Committee, the Minister resisted an age limit. We were pressing that no young person under the age of 18 should be fingerprinted, but the Minister made it clear that it would be left to the discretion of immigration officers. Will he reconsider, because many of us believe that the offence would be reduced if there were a clear rule that no child below a certain age should be fingerprinted in any circumstances?

Mr. Lloyd

The hon. Gentleman covers many of the issues with which I have just dealt. I know that there is a feeling that the taking of fingerprints somehow criminalises, but that view is peculiar to this country. It is a normal method of identification in other countries and it is, of course, the effective way which is available to us. I do not suppose that the hon. Gentleman would object to our having pictures of every asylum seeker, but it is difficult to check 60,000 pictures. However, 60,000 fingerprints can easily be matched, collated and compared by experts. The hon. Gentleman is inviting us to abandon the one method which would enable us to check multiple claims, which will either catch people who are being dishonest or clear the names of the vast numbers of asylum seekers who are entirely honest.

The taking of fingerprints is a much more sensible, speedy and comfortable way to ensure that we have a proper record of who an individual is and to connect him with a particular time of entry and to discover with whom he entered than the lengthy inquisitorial questionnaires for trying to establish names and relationships, especially of a group of tired asylum seekers who have arrived at Heathrow late at night.

I understand the objection to fingerprinting, but there is no objection when it is common practice for every asylum seeker to be fingerprinted. The objection is emotional—although understandably so—rather than realistic and practical.

Amendment agreed to.

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