Immigration

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, as the House will be aware, the Chilcot commission is conducting its work but has not yet finished it. I have had discussions on this and I am quite satisfied that the serious work being done by the Chilcot commission needs to be concluded. As the noble Lord knows, we would like to be able to introduce intercept evidence but we have to await the outcome of that work. We will come back to the House.

[Lord Avebury]

In the SIAC judgment to which the Question refers, was there not a substantial discussion of the risk that these two people, if sent back to Pakistan, would be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment and that therefore it would have been a breach of the ECHR? However, did not SIAC also add that if the two people who went back voluntarily were not subjected to treatment of that kind, the question of whether the two individuals the subject of the Question might be deported could be revisited?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the individuals who returned voluntarily did so many months ago, before the hearing. That fact is relevant to the subsequent consideration of the individuals referred to in the Question. The fact that they returned and were not ill treated was one of the reasons for the Government considering that Nasser and Khan would not be ill treated on return. However, the court took the view that this was not sufficiently reliable in their case. The ability to return the two men can be revisited if circumstances change, and we are working on creating the circumstances in which that might be possible.