Immigration Applications

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

Shall I try? I am afraid that we have to face facts. With the Windrush—

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House to read out what it says in the Companion about Questions at Question Time?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not have the Companion with me, so I will leave that for another time. The noble Lord rightly makes a point about the number of appeals increasing. Actually, they went down slightly in the past year, but the number of applications is increasing over time and that is something to be mindful of. He also asked about better decision-making. I have several things to say about that. First, the average age of appeals being determined by the First-tier Tribunal is, according to HMCTS statistics, 50 weeks. That is a considerable length of time. The latest data on win rates is certainly not where we would like it to be.

Appeals are allowed for a variety of reasons. Often it is because new evidence is presented before the tribunal that was not available to the decision-maker at the time. Often, the information is presented very shortly before the hearing and too late for the Home Office to withdraw the case. But one specific reason for the higher rate of allowed appeals is that many cases going through the appeal system are now quite old. The average age of a human rights case is over a year. In that time, often appellants have built up new rights.