Immigration and Asylum Applications

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I know that the noble Lord will understand if I do not answer all five questions now. However, I will answer his question on more appeals being allowed than applications being granted as it is a hangover from a question he has asked before. That figure was slightly mystifying at the time. Many of the appeals that are heard are not necessarily from that given year; there may be a lag effect with applications from the previous year—hence, in any given year, more appeals may be allowed than applications granted. I will leave it there but perhaps talk to the noble Lord afterwards about his other questions.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

Does the Minister accept that the quality of the first principal interview is the most important factor, rather than that of the later decision-making? Endless advice was given to successive Governments, so can the Minister assure me that interviewers will, whenever possible, be of the same gender as the applicant, and that there will be no assumption that all applicants are lying?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I do not think—in fact I am categorically certain—that no assumption is made that all applicants are lying, but where I would concur with the noble Lord is that the quality of the interview is incredibly important in the initial decision-making process. On the cohorts that we discuss quite often in the House such as LGBT people or people of faith, we have well-trained staff dealing with these applications. For LGBT and faith-based applications—I thank my noble friend Lady Berridge for establishing faith as a basis for an application—the training process for the staff has been much improved.