Contribution
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 203E, to which the noble Lord has just referred. I certainly do not seek to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Browne.
I appreciate that we are in very topical territory, and I confess that I found it quite difficult to know how to approach this Bill following the Statement on Monday, because there is a lot to come—and I know that the Minister will tell us that we will have the opportunity to debate it, but of course we do not have that much detail and we are being asked to consider a Bill written before that Statement. We will have opportunities to consider the Home Office’s proposals, and today’s debates will give the Minister a flavour—if he needs it, because I do not think that he will be surprised by very much that is said today—of what is to come by way of our responses.
I, too, am grateful to the various organisations that have briefed us on Section 59. They have clearly spelled out the distinction between asylum and human rights claims and, as they say, human rights claims in many cases have nothing to do with a country’s general safety, or perceived safety. They are about someone’s connections to this country and their dependency and family ties here—as I said, this is topical—and are made by people seeking lawfully to enter or remain with their UK-based family. Among other things, this means that there is no right of appeal, because claims are not refused, they are just not considered. Of course—and it is “of course” to me, as the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, said—a country may be safe generally, but not to particular groups or sections of the community. The Supreme Court has recognised that a serious risk of persecution can exist as a general feature of life that applies to a recognisable section of the community.
This amendment takes us back to the 2002 Act, which Section 59 amends. That Act allows for exceptional circumstances, and what they may include is a subject of my amendment, in what would be the proposed new Section 80A(5A), which would provide that they include where
“the claimant is at substantial risk of significant personal harm, either as a member of a minority group or as an individual”.
The amendment would also omit Albania, Georgia and India from the list of countries that are automatically “safe” for everyone.
Noah has been mentioned—and, in fact, he was my example for Georgia, where there is a lack of effective state protection for LBGTQI+ people in the face of considerable violence. To add to what has been said, he said:
“No one can know you are gay. If you are gay, your two options are either hospital or exorcism”.
This man was attacked by his own family, forced to stay in a hospital for people with mental illnesses and subjected to exorcism.
The Home Office country note for India refers to gender-based violence, with women and girls in rural areas or from certain castes and tribes especially vulnerable. Institutional prejudices—violence against Muslims, Christians and certain castes and tribes—go unpunished. Indeed, the country note describes the active involvement of the police. In Albania, trafficking is rife. It is one of the top three nationalities—whether you regard that as the top three or the bottom three—of people referred to the national referral mechanism and recognised to be victims of trafficking. It is internationally recognised that domestic and international trafficking, including trafficking to the UK, is rife, and the families of victims themselves are threatened.
I have been involved with the case of a young man —he was young when he came; his application has not been determined yet—where the threat to his family has been a major factor in his response to what has affected his life. Sexual and domestic violence is widespread in Albania. Wherever we are going in legislative terms with this, we have to recognise the situation that noble Lords have already described.