Draft Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2018
(5 years, 11 months ago)
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 15 / Noes: 1 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2018.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I hope not to detain the Committee long, as this draft statutory instrument concerns a procedural issue of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, although it is important.
I will start by explaining what the Special Immigration Appeals Commission is. More generally known as SIAC, it is a specialist tribunal that deals with challenges to immigration and asylum decisions made by the Home Office. The decisions that come before it concern cases where an immigration decision is made—for example, detention or deportation—for reasons of national security or international relations, or cases where a decision is made relying on evidence that it would not be in the public interest to disclose. SIAC is different from other immigration tribunals, in that it has the ability to operate the closed material procedure, which allows sensitive material the Home Secretary intends to use in his response to the appeal to be protected.
There are three matters before us today in relation to SIAC’s procedures: changes to bail conditions, changes to appeals and changes to the time limit. The changes are designed to bring SIAC proceedings in line with other similar types of hearing in other tribunals.
The first change relates to bail. This draft statutory instrument is designed to bring the bail conditions imposed by SIAC in line with schedule 10 to the Immigration Act 2016. That legislation simplified the previous framework with a single power of immigration bail. That allows for illegal migrants, including foreign national offenders, who are awaiting removal to be released subject to conditions if detention is not appropriate. That legislation simplified the law. For example, financial conditions were also introduced to replace recognisances, which are undertakings to pay a sum of money in the event that bail conditions are breached. At its simplest, it was a change to the language, making it more comprehensible. “Recognisances” is simply an outdated term. There were other changes to simplify the bail framework, and we are bringing SIAC in line with those.
The draft statutory instrument seeks to allow cases to be leapfrogged from SIAC to the Supreme Court. That will bring SIAC in line with other courts and tribunals where leapfrogging is possible. For example, leapfrogging is already possible for appeals in the upper tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal. There are safeguards, because it can be done only in certain circumstances. The appellant must demonstrate that their appeal raises a point of law of general public importance that will ultimately end up in the Supreme Court.
The final change brought about by the draft statutory instrument is an amendment to increase the time limit for making an application for permission to appeal, which will bring SIAC in line with time limits in the High Court.
To conclude, the draft statutory instrument makes technical but necessary changes to the procedures used by SIAC to ensure they are consistent with measures already set out in primary legislation, namely the Immigration Act 2016 and the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. We have also taken the opportunity to make time limits for permission to appeal consistent with those in the High Court. I therefore commend the draft statutory instrument to the Committee.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I should say at the outset that it is not our intention to divide the Committee. According to the information provided by the Ministry of Justice, there were only 14 cases in 2017. It is not a huge number, thus we regard the measures as affecting only very exceptional cases.
Can the Minister assure me there are no plans to extend the rule changes for very exceptional cases more generally across cases in our immigration system? Does she have any plans to introduce any further statutory instruments in this parliamentary Session regarding the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997? Does she have an estimate of the number of cases the changes might affect in the first year following implementation?
Legal and judicial safeguards in all cases, including those under discussion, are vital at all stages. For us, this is an issue of fairness. We of course want to see cases disposed of as efficiently as possible. Similarly, we do not have any issue with the technical change regarding bail. I note that in the 14 cases I have mentioned, nobody had bail in any event. We will not, therefore, seek a Division, but we would appreciate reassurances from the Minister.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I understand that this is a technical statutory instrument. Nevertheless, it is being debated in the wider context of the Home Office policy on immigration, and the so-called and highly problematic hostile environment. I am afraid that we want to express slightly more concerns in a slightly stronger tone than we have heard.
The concept of bail is a difficult issue. It may be offensive to some people because it might make them seem like criminals or suspected criminals when they are not. Appeals and the number of appeals are also at issue. I understand that a lot of the work at SIAC relates to appeals related to matters of national security but that the national security clause has been used against highly skilled migrants more than 1,000 times for minor tax issues. Although an increase in time limits might be welcome, we still have an issue with the overall range of the time limits.
Bringing things in line with other tribunals might make technical sense, but we have considerable difficulties with the operation of some of those tribunals in the first instance. I am happy to listen to any reassurances the Minister might want to give us, but we will register our concerns through a Division.
Lucy Frazer
I am grateful for the important points raised by Opposition Members. I can confirm to the hon. Member for Ashfield that we have no intention to extend the SIAC position that she outlined in her first question. We do not intend to bring forward any further issues in relation to SIAC. The Tribunal Procedure Committee has already updated the rules for the immigration tribunal. It is difficult to say how many cases will be affected, but we think the number will be very few.
On the points raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow North on behalf of the Scottish National party, we are not increasing any hostile environment in relation to immigration. The measures are intended to ensure that we have a streamlined process, and to improve the position for those who want to appeal and the conditions for those on bail. We are ensuring that the bail conditions are no longer as confusing as they were. They were simplified in the Immigration Act 2016 and are now simpler to understand for everyone.
On the issue of leapfrogging to the Supreme Court, it is in the interests of both the Home Office and the appellant that decisions are made swiftly and that, when required, rights are determined through a process. Where there will be an appeal to the Supreme Court in any event, there are advantages in that case going straight to the Supreme Court, rather than through a lengthy procedure. I hope that I have satisfied hon. Members that this is an important, necessary streamlining of the procedure.
Question put.