Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

I am grateful to noble Lords for the amendments tabled today. I was pleased to meet my noble friends Lord Rees of Easton and Lord Barber of Ainsdale to discuss these matters outside the Committee. I was pleased also to have discussions with a number of other noble Lords on this matter. Today, the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Ludford, the noble Lords, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord German, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, my noble friends Lady O’Grady and Lady Lister, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester have all spoken broadly in favour of these amendments. I just want to try to put some context to it. The key to all this, ultimately, is for us to be able to speed up the asylum decision-making system, so that individuals either have asylum claims accepted and are therefore integrated into society on the basis of their asylum claim being accepted, or those individuals who have had that asylum claim turned down are therefore then removed from the United Kingdom as a failed asylum seeker. That is the key to all this, ultimately. What the Government are trying to do, as I have tried to explain on previous amendments, is speed up that process very significantly. The question then remains: what do we do with those individuals in the system at the moment? The amendments seek, first, to reduce the waiting period for asylum seekers to apply for permission to work from 12 months to three—a proposal which does not find favour with all those who have spoken today—and to address issues on domestic workers and modern slavery that I will come to in a moment. As noble Lords would expect me to say, the Government’s current policy must strike a careful balance between maintaining the integrity of the asylum system, the speeding up of claims and supporting those with genuine protection needs. Our principal concern is that reducing the waiting period to three months could act as a pull factor. We can debate that; it is a point mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and I share his concerns. It would be a pull factor because after three months you would be able to get work in the United Kingdom. That would place additional strain on a stretched asylum system and divert resources away from those in genuine need of protection. I ask noble Lords: what will happen when a decision is reached on someone who is in work for three months and then maybe finds that they are not eligible for an asylum claim? That is a real issue.