Member

To turn to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and to the comments made by him and by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, in responding for the Opposition Front Bench, this would practically mean that we would take next to no one in, and I am not entirely sure that this could be reasonably described as the policy of the previous Government, despite some of the legislation that we saw emanating from them. It is certainly not the policy of this Government. Amendment 203I from the noble Lord, Lord Murray, seeks to amend Section 31 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1999 in the other direction, in a sense, to make it more closely aligned to the wording in Article 31. The Government remain committed to the protection of refugees and to our obligations under the refugee convention of 1951. Article 31 of the convention is already sufficiently set out in domestic legislation through Section 31 of the Asylum and Immigration Act. This Act adequately reflects subsections set out in Article 31, and for this reason we do not consider Amendment 185 to be necessary.