Draft Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Amendment of List of Safe States) Regulations 2024

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 General Committees

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I, too, have a number of questions for the Minister, and concerns about matters on which I hope he might be able to reassure me. I notice that, in his response to the question from the hon. Member for Glasgow South West about the numbers, the Minister talked about percentages, but not about actual numbers. I would be grateful if he gave us the actual number of applicants in the past year from those two countries. Could he also confirm the figures in today’s Times, which said that the number of successful applications in the last year from India was 17 and 14 from Georgia? That would indicate that the overall numbers of applicants from those countries are not as large as the impression he created with his percentage increases.

I assume, as did my colleague from the SNP, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, that all of those cases were subject to the very vigorous Home Office processes and were therefore genuine. I would be interested in the grounds on which those cases were granted refugee status and how many involved LGBT people.

I will confine the rest of my remarks to the plight of LGBT people in both of those countries because, as has been mentioned, UK charities that work with LGBT refugees have provided this Committee with a number of compelling and horrific case studies of successfully resolved applications from both India and Georgia involving LGBT people who have suffered terrible abuse and persecution in those countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. And yes, while the legal frameworks applying to LGBT people in those countries have improved in recent years, the reality on the ground for many LGBT people has not. Persecution and violence against them is still widespread, with the perpetrators often acting with impunity and the state turning a blind eye—and in some cases actively encouraging that violence.

The most recent United States State Department reports on those countries does not consider either of them to be generally safe. On Georgia, it highlights violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and intersex people and activists, and Government-sanctioned impunity for the perpetrators. In the Russian-occupied regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the situation is even worse. The State Department’s report on India raises similar concerns about violence targeting LGBT people and impunity for the perpetrators.

Recent legal cases in Canada and Germany have approved refugee status for Indian and Georgian nationals based on sexual orientation or gender identity and, as others have mentioned, the Home Office’s own CPINs on India, in both June and December last year, highlighted discrimination and violence against LGBT people, particularly in rural areas. That includes arbitrary arrest and detention, and impunity for widespread human rights abuses including rape, torture and death in custody. I would like to hear from the Minister how he and the Government reached the conclusion that both countries are generally safe, particularly when it comes to LGBT people, and what assessment was made of the safety of LGBT people in the face of that violence, often from families, religious communities and the police.

How does the Minister expect that such cases will be dealt with now? Will they qualify for the exceptional circumstances provision that he mentioned? If so, how will that work? There are no guarantees or explanations in any of the papers with which we were provided before the Committee as to how that would work. I am really worried that people who have, quite rightly, been granted refugee status in this country on the basis of LGBT status and persecution—a very small number—will no longer qualify and will simply be turned away and sent back to be subjected to violence and potentially death.

I will finish by saying this: the reason that these questions are particularly important is that there is a great deal of concern in this country that the Government are rowing back on more than two decades of political consensus about the right to asylum for LGBT people based on the real risk of persecution or serious harm. That followed the really terrible comments, I have to say, by the previous Home Secretary, who suggested that the persecution of LGBT people should not be grounds for refugee status, despite the fact that the proportion of asylum claims based on sexual orientation or gender identity is absolutely minuscule. I will be grateful for reassurances on such matters from the Minister and for answers to my questions.

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[Michael Tomlinson]

May I say in response to the right hon. Gentleman’s final point that I think the Committee takes this subject incredibly seriously? That is why we have heard a number of speeches today. I speak for myself, but I suspect I also speak for hon. Members on our side of the Committee, and doubtless on his side as well, when I say that all our proceedings in this House, whether in Committee or on the Floor of the House, are important. Whether it is a Committee on an SI that completes in five minutes, one that takes the full 90 minutes or, like today, one that might be completed in a slightly shorter period, these are important issues. He is right to say that and I agree, at least to that extent, with what he has said.

Let me set out again the general point of the regulations. The SI does not look at the inadmissibility provisions, so it is not introducing a new process or a new policy; it simply seeks to expand and extend the list as it stands. I emphasise that the purpose of the SI is to reduce the pressure on our asylum system from those who do not need to seek asylum or protection in this country.

I will deal with as many of the points that were raised as I can. First, I welcome the response from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon, and his support—I accept that it is cautious support—for the regulations. I take on board his points and will perhaps answer some of them. He was absolutely right to say that there is a wider debate about the Illegal Migration Act. Today is not the day for that, but I am sure it will be had in due course.

I reassure the shadow Minister that I have heard what he said about the guidance loud and clear. In answer to his two specific questions, no, it is not yet published; and yes, it will be. As for precisely when, as soon as section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act is in force, the guidance will be there as well.

The shadow Minister asked about the number of returns for Georgia and India. The right hon. Member for Exeter also had specific questions about numbers, which I will come to in a moment. For Georgia, the returns for the year ending September 2022 were 24, and for the year ending September 2023, they were 37. For India, for the year ending September 2022, they were 1,725, and for the year ending September 2023, they were 3,155. The point about the guidance is relevant to what the right hon. Member said about exceptions. That is part of the answer, but I will come back to his broader point in a moment.

As for the shadow Minister’s final point on retrospection, he will have to contain his impatience a little longer. He will find that out in due course. It is not strictly relevant for this SI, but it is doubtless a debate that we will return to.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Glasgow South West does not support the regulations—so far: he might be persuaded by my closing remarks to change his mind, you never know. He still has a chance to do that. He mentioned a number of concerns and reports, which I will turn to in a few moments. I was challenged on the numbers by the hon. Gentleman and by the right hon. Member for Exeter. For the year ending September 2023, applications from India increased to more than 4,700, doubling from the year before and trebling from September 2019. There were 1,340 applications from Georgia in the year ending September 2023. We are talking about figures, not just percentages.

Members are right that there have been critical reports, but they must not be looked at in isolation. I will return to this point in a minute, but it is important to look at a broad range of sources, not just one or two reports in isolation.

I turn to the very serious points that were rightly raised by the right hon. Member for Exeter. The shadow Minister mentioned in passing the evidence that is there in the country policy and information notes. Specifically on the LGBTI community, there were updates in August 2023 in relation to India and, more recently, December 2023 in relation to Georgia. These are public documents on the gov.uk website. You, Ms Bardell, members of the Committee and anyone tuning in can look them up right now. Although there have been concerns, that is not the same as there being a general, serious risk of persecution.

Let me address directly the point about India, because the UK courts considered this issue in 2014 and, more recently, in 2016, and found that India was a safe country. There was not a general risk to gay men in the 2014 case or to lesbian women in the 2016 case. I hope that, when the right hon. Member for Exeter has the chance to look at that data, he will be reassured by the broader nature of the evidence set out as part of that assessment. It is right to say that the test is that, in general, there is no serious risk of persecution there for nationals of that country and that removals of nationals to that country would not contravene our obligations under the ECHR.

[Mr Bradshaw]

In their latest assessment of India, the Government might not think there is a general danger to LGBT people, but there are clearly real dangers to individual LGBT people in both India and Georgia, as is recognised by the fact that they have claimed asylum successfully in this country and the fact that other countries have recognised cases based on sexual orientation and gender as well. What can the Minister say to reassure me that those people will still be able to use his exceptional circumstances route to make an asylum claim in this country and not be automatically deported to potential violence and death?

[Michael Tomlinson]

The point that I am making to the right hon. Gentleman is that a broad range of evidence has been considered. This has been considered by the UK courts. The assessment has been made that in both India and Georgia there is, in general, no serious risk of persecution for nationals. That is what this Committee is considering. I have pointed him to the evidence—which he rightly and legitimately asks for—that was published on gov.uk in December and August last year in respect of India and Georgia, but that should not be taken in isolation.