Immigration and Asylum Applications

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I do not have the number with me and I am not sure that the reason for persecution because of faith will be available. However, I will certainly have a look for my noble friend.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, human rights appeals and EU free movement appeals are allowed in more than 50% of cases. Despite what the noble Baroness has said, the former suggests a continuation of the hostile environment culture at the Home Office and the latter sheer incompetence. Why is the Home Office not learning from these cases and adjusting its initial decision-making criteria accordingly? Any learning organisation would see a steady decline in the proportion of successful appeals, not an increase.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Human rights appeals are often quite lengthy and those which end up before the tribunal come with new information to be presented, sometimes just a couple of days before the actual hearing, resulting in the higher number of wins on appeal. However, I totally accept the point and I do not think that I have shied away from the fact that our performance could be better. We are doing a number of things to improve our appeal rate win.