Lord Bach (Lab)

My Lords, now for something completely different. I am not absolutely sure why my Amendment 100A is in this group, so I apologise for coming in at this stage when we are talking about such important matters. The debate is really around those matters, but it is important that this amendment is at some stage debated—it has been put in at this point, so I apologise for that. I thank the Law Society for supporting my amendment and for the help that it has given. I also thank Zoe Bantleman for her assistance. The Government’s asylum statement Restoring Order and Control: A Statement on the Government’s Asylum and Returns Policy makes it clear that reforms within the Sentencing Bill will “make foreign national offenders”, which is what my amendment is about, “eligible for immediate deportation from the first day of their prison sentence”. In the interests of access to justice, this amendment probes what access to legal advice and representation will be available to foreign national offenders, who may now face immediate deportation. Clause 32 removes the requirement that a foreign criminal must serve a minimum pre-removal custodial period before they can be deported from the UK. In practice, this means that the Government will be able to deport a foreign national offender upon sentencing. The House will know that there was an early returns scheme which allowed foreign criminals to be removed from prison before the end of their custodial sentence for purposes of immediate deportation, yet previously, deportation was not immediate. The minimum custodial period was the longer of 50% of their requisite custodial period or 18 months before their earliest release point. Last year, secondary legislation reduced this pre-removal custodial period from 50% to 30%. The Bill will now reduce the pre-removal custodial period to zero per cent, meaning that a foreign national offender will not need to serve any of their sentence here, or only a very minimal portion, before deportation. Despite the consequent tight timeframes, no provision is made for access to legal advice and representation. It is known that there are significantly more barriers for foreign nationals in prison to access legal advice and representation. The prison environment relies upon restriction and isolation from the outside world, hindering an individual’s ability to access justice. His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons highlighted this in 2022, when reviewing the experience of immigration detainees in prisons. He said: “An inability to access and contact legal representatives … created a risk that detainees were unable to fairly challenge the Home Office’s decision to remove them”. This amendment therefore probes what access to legal aid advice and representation will be available to foreign national offenders, who may now face “immediate deportation from the first day of their prison sentence”.