Lord German (LD)

My Lords, I will make just a brief intervention from us on this matter, which was raised in Committee. I am grateful to the Minister for telling me what reasons he had for not taking out Section 12 of the Illegal Migration Act. It raises some further questions, which I guess the Minister might have been expecting. Essentially, the noble Baroness’s amendments aim collectively to inject greater protection of civil liberties and to ensure proportionality in the use of detention powers, and they demand clarity regarding the mental element required for the new immigration offences in the Bill. In his letter to me, the Minister said of Section 12 that “policies to differentiate in line with the provision can be resumed if required”. He said that they “are not currently in use”, and they have not been in use since this Government took office. He said: “This Government is prioritising steps to restore order to the asylum system”, et cetera, as one might expect. But, he continued: “While the Government reviews the approach, it would not be appropriate to remove these provisions from the statute book”. Can the Minister tell me what review of what approach will determine whether this provision should be removed, and whether, in the immediate future, there is any intention to recommence Section 12 of the Illegal Migration Act? In conclusion, having some clarity on this matter would be useful. The Law Society, as noble Lords might expect, says that the retention of Section 12, by removing the “court’s ability to decide for itself whether the detention of a person for the purposes of removal is for a reasonable period”, risks increasing unlawful and prolonged detention. There is currently a legal aspect to retention; I know that it is not being used, but we need to ensure that the fallback described by the Law Society is in place. I look forward to the Minister’s response to those questions.