§ Mr. Whitfieldasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether, when a right hon. or hon. Member has notified his staff of interest in an immigration case or is in the course of making inquiries of the immigration officer concerned with that case as to the grounds upon which entry has been refused, he will make it his practice not to entertain any application from any other right hon. or hon. Member on the same case at that stage;
(2) if he will make a statement on the operation of the current guidelines on the handling of representations from right hon. and hon. Members in immigration cases;
270W(3) what steps he expects right hon. and hon. Members to take to satisfy themselves as to the prima facie existence of new and compelling evidence before making representations to him in immigration cases.
§ Mr. WaddingtonThe guidelines on the revised arrangements for handling representations by Members of Parliament in immigration cases which were introduced on 1 May reflect the convention that right hon. and hon. Members do not take up cases involving other Members' constituents. The guidelines also recognise that a Member may deal with another Member's constituency business on his behalf if he is absent or ill and that a Member may have a known specialist interest in the problems of particular national groups. In either circumstances it is assumed that the Member making the representations will have consulted the constituency Member.
In any other case where substantive representations from a Member are awaited or are under consideration and another Member notifies an interest the latter is told that representations have already been made. A copy of the substantive reply is sent to the second Member if he says he wishes to maintain an interest in the case. Where initial representations have been considered, and rejected, further representations will be considered only if they contain new and relevant facts. They should be new in the sense that they had not already been taken into account and compelling in that they should be sufficiently material to point to reconsideration of the decision in question. How right hon. and hon. Members apply these criteria when considering whether to press for the reconsideration of a case is a matter for their judgment.
The new guidelines which have been in operation for little over a month appear to be working satisfactorily, but it is too early to form a final judgment.
§ Mr. Whitfieldasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, during the period 1 January to 31 May, in how many cases in which right hon. and hon. Members requested his office to defer removal of a passenger refused entry by an immigration officer he overruled that decision.
§ Mr. WaddingtonForty-one up to 9 June out of a total of some 2,500 such cases, a large number of which have yet to be resolved.