Baroness Ludford (LD)

My Lords, I do not know whether the Opposition want to come in on this, but I may as well jump in. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. Her amendment is simplified from her one in Committee. She is quite right that this Government ought to wish to stick to Article 31 of the refugee convention. That is what they maintained over the last few years, and it would be sensible and right to come back to that position. As she said, we can rely on the common law position, which I think was contributed to by the late Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and rely on the court to understand what “directly” means. It can sometimes include short stops in transit— I think we can all understand why that might be—but it is a question of assessment in any individual situation. It is important to go back to the refugee convention definition and understanding for reasons of fairness and justice. In the closing part of her remarks, the noble Baroness picked up on something that I was keen to ask the Minister. She repeated the statistics that she gave us in Committee: 556 people arriving by small boat were charged with illegal arrival and 455 were convicted, and the vast majority of those charged and convicted had ongoing claims for asylum. In her remarks just now, she added that a lot of these people who were prosecuted had refugee status. I wonder: what is the point of adding new pressure on the criminal justice system, particularly in the light of all the demands on it that we heard about in this House yesterday? It cannot cope. Surely the important thing is to get on with assessing someone’s claim so that you can decide whether they have a valid refugee or other humanitarian claim and are allowed to stay—or not, in which case they ought to be deported. What is the point of wasting time, resources and energy, and putting people who may well get refugee status through that process, when you go on to grant them refugee status anyway? What is the point of the diversion? I have never understood this, to be perfectly honest. The noble Baroness is offering a way to get back to a sensible position. Of course people who are guilty of smuggling and trafficking offences might still get caught by this, but we have a baroque arrangement at the moment. We need to cleave to the refugee convention, which has been the traditional position of the Labour Party in opposition—and ought to be in government—and not waste resources, time and everything else in prosecuting people instead of just getting on with the asylum determination and removing those who have no claim. The present situation does not make any sense, in justice or in practicality. I hope the Minister can give a positive response to the noble Baroness’s amendment.