Mr. Stancu Papusoiu (Hansard, 19 April 1983)

§ Lord Monson
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton)
My Lords, Mr. Papusoiu was informed in August 1982 that his application to remain in the United Kingdom had been refused. The London representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the British Romanian Association were both informed of the case in the same month, and, as I told the House on 29th March, inquiries were made about the possibility of Mr. Papusoiu returning to France. Since he was not removed until 16th March 1983, these organisations had ample time to seek his resettlement elsewhere.
There is no fixed period during which action is deferred to allow an unsuccessful applicant for asylum to apply to go to a third country. Each case is treated on its merits according to individual circumstances, but I can assure the noble Lord that any request for such deferment is considered most sympathetically.

§ Lord Monson
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. Would he agree that, while most people will wholeheartedly endorse the Government's view that an overcrowded country like ours cannot accept for permanent settlement every single individual who arrives on these shores, it is nevertheless our duty to do everything in our power to try to find other countries in the free world which may be prepared to accept these people before they are sent back to a totalitarian régime to face imprisonment, and possibly worse?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I certainly accept the first part of the noble Lord's proposition. As to the second, there are various voluntary agencies involved in seeking alternative accommodation. Perhaps I should remind the noble Lord of the undertaking given by my honourable friend in another place on the 31st March at col. 524, when he said: The refugee unit at the Home Office will in future give formal notification to the United Kingdom Immigrants' Advisory Service refugee councillors of all cases when no other agency or hon. Member has previously intervened and a negative decision has been proposed.

§ Baroness Birk
My Lords, when the Home Office refuses an asylum application, would they give full details of the reasons for the refusal, since not only is this justice but it would enable the person refused to get assistance in approaching other countries which might take a different view from the Home Office? While we are delighted that the Home Office is now going to inform the United Kingdom Immigrants' Advisory Service when it intends to refuse an application for asylum, would it not be even more appropriate to inform the service as soon as the individual has been interviewed and before the Home Office comes to a decision?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, on the first question the noble Baroness asked me, I am not certain of the administrative detail. I shall have to write to her. She is suggesting a change, and naturally I could not undertake that on my honourable friend's behalf. On the second question, what my honourable friend has 476 proposed is as soon as there is a decision in principle, as I understand it; that is, very early on. This would have brought forward the point in the case we are now considering, and the information would have been given, from August to about April. I think that is a fairly considerable advance which will be of benefit to those who seek to assist these people.

§ Lord Nugent of Guildford
My Lords, is it a fact that, as reported in the press, this Romanian was convicted in his own country of rape and violence and was convicted of theft in France? Is this part of his record?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I can neither endorse nor contradict statements made in the press, but the statements are fairly current and your Lordships will know by whom they are made.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, would it not have been helpful if the Minister could have given the answer about the United Kingdom Immigrants' Advisory Service councillor in this House when he was asked to do so a few days earlier than Mr. David Waddington gave it in another place? Will he say whether it is not possible to notify the United Kingdom IAS refugee councillor immediately after the first interview, rather than when a refusal is given, bearing in mind that the Home Office frequently needs to conduct several interviews to ascertain whether a person's claim for asylum is valid and that these may take as much as a week or even longer in some complicated cases? Will the noble Lord say what has happened to the second suggestion that has been made; that is, that a non-trivial applicant for asylum should have a right of appeal to an adjudicator even though he or she may not be within permitted leave to remain in this country?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, the noble Lord's first question repeats that asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, immediately before him, as I understood it.

§ Lord Avebury
It does not, my Lords.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, if I may respond to the question as I believe it to be, the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong. He would like information to be passed to the UKIAS immediately after interview, which is what the noble Baroness asked me. I have replied that all I can undertake is that that information will be given as soon as a refusal is proposed. I am not saying it should be when a final decision is taken, which is what happened in this case, but when it is proposed, which is very much earlier.
The noble Lord then referred to an application to an adjudicator. Of course, that right in fact exists, and the man in question is free to exercise it now from his present place.

§ Lord Renton
My Lords, when it has been firmly established after long consideration that a man is not entitled to political asylum in this country and is not a genuine refugee but is an undersirable alien, is there any obligation on the Home Office but to make arrangements for him to return either to his own country of origin or to the country from which he came when he came here in the first place?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, this is what my right honourable friend did in this case. I think it was the right thing to do.

§ Lord Hale
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the source of the allegations made against Mr. Papusoiu after he apparently returned for a time to Romania emanate from a dictator Government which, in the same statement, he accuses of using him brutally and cruelly? The Minister is aware—for he has said so himself—that the allegations made against Mr Papusoiu in the concluding stages of the debate, when no one else could advise him, were based on information that the Home Office had been assimilating for some considerable time, none of which was at any material time communicated to those who were acting on his behalf.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I have taken very great care not to make use of allegations as though they were fact, and your Lordships will notice that I did not even advance what my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford put forward, which was commonly current in the press. I have merely stated the facts as they have come to hand. More have come to hand since this person left this country which further place his credibility into question.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords—

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, I am not sure whether the Minister is being deliberately obtuse, but I did ask him whether the person would have the right of appeal to an adjudicator when he was not within his permitted leave to remain in this country. By that I meant whether he would be allowed to exercise that right in the United Kingdom and not from Romania, or from wherever he was deported.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I never find it necessary to pretend to be obtuse; it always comes naturally to me. In this case the noble Lord is correct, in that the right exists after he has been removed from the country.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Will my noble friend the Minister agree that an appeal to the adjudicator is not appropriate at all, for that fetters the accepted jurisdictional discretion of the Secretary of State in all such matters?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, there is a right of appeal to the adjudicator, but after the person has left the country.