Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Rea Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Lords Chamber

I can assure the noble Baroness that we will continue to work with the chief inspector to identify any appropriate areas for improvement in the handling of visa applications and build on improvements. There have been considerable improvements over the years that have already resulted from his inspections. In the light of the points that I have made to my noble kinsman and to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I hope that they will not press their amendments and will support, in due course, the passage of Clause 24.

[Lord Rea]

Before the Minister sits down, will he answer a simple question? When an appeal is refused under the new rules, he says that it will be open to the applicant to make a new application, benefiting perhaps from the reasons given for the asylum refusal. But that will surely add enormously to the load on the border control officers who are controlling applications for visas in the first place. Will that not give them a huge overload? Anyway, are there not rules that specify the length of time after the first application is refused before a second one can be made? What sort of period are we looking at? Is it six months, a year or two years? Is there a period at all?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we are finding that, with a large number of appeals, the point that they are appealing on is in effect new evidence that they did not put in their original application. We suggest that it is cheaper to make a new application than to appeal. It does not clog up the appeal system if they make a new application, bringing in that new evidence. Therefore, the appropriate process is to use the new application route rather than clog up the appeals system. That is why I was emphasising that, despite the original intentions of the system brought in by the Government of whom the noble Lord is such a distinguished supporter, it has clogged up the system in a manner that we do not think is appropriate. The new application would be a far simpler, cheaper and better way of dealing with these matters.

[Lord Rea]

Is there not a long period before such a new application can be made? Can be done immediately or does there have to be a period of months?

[Lord Henley]

A new application can be made immediately. That would be far quicker for the applicant than waiting for possibly eight months for the appeal to be dealt with. A new application can be dealt with within 15 days. That is a better deal for all involved, particularly if they are coming over for a family event such as a wedding. In eight months, the whole thing might be over: it would depend on how much advance notice they had for the wedding.