Illegal Migration Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 12th June 2023 Lords Chamber

I finish by saying that almost half of main asylum applicants in England and Wales who claimed asylum in the year to June 2022 did not have a legal aid representative. Without a clear duty being placed on the Lord Chancellor and the Government to guarantee legal aid for those subject to the Bill’s provisions, the Bill will drastically worsen this situation. In his reply, will the Minister address this point? A lack of adequate legal aid and representation is not actually a good thing. It clogs up the system and has no doubt contributed to the asylum backlog of 160,000, which the Government claim they are somehow going to magically wish away with the Bill. They will not but availability of legal aid and good representation would help them, if they could only see it. I beg to move.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I am proud to have signed Amendment 120 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. I will address my own Amendment 120A, as well as the Clause 4 stand part notice, which is part of this group.

There are many who believe this Bill to be the worst introduced by His Majesty’s Government, formerly Her Majesty’s Government, since they came to power 13 years ago. I agree, although, in my view, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act—LASPO, as mentioned by the noble Baroness—which achieved its 10th anniversary on 1 April, comes a close second. That Act, as the Committee knows, took away ordinary people’s ability to access justice in the whole field of social welfare law and offended against fundamental rule of law principles. One of the few areas that retained legal aid in scope was asylum and, to an extent, immigration—even though that has been whittled down over the last 10 years, with dire consequences for the provision of advice and lawyers dealing with asylum cases.

Clause 54, introduced on Report in another place, allows for legal aid to be given to asylum seekers in respect of the Bill; in other words, it brings it within scope. No doubt His Majesty’s Government will claim that this is the act of a principled and caring Government, even though it should be noted, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, just mentioned, that, as drafted, it ensures the provision of civil legal aid services to P only on receipt of a removal notice. It does not confirm or secure access to free legal aid in relation to an asylum or HR claim.

More important than that, however, is the dangerous lacuna in Clause 54. There is an overwhelming danger—almost a certainty, I argue—that the right to legal advice and legal aid will cover up the reality of its actual provision. This is the reason for my amendment. Thanks to the organisation BID, my amendment would impose a duty on the Lord Chancellor to secure civil legal aid services within 48 hours of detention. Without the amendment, there is very little chance that those detained will receive the advice that the law says they are entitled to.

Why do I say this? Here, I am grateful to Jo Wilding. Figures published following a freedom of information request by the Ministry of Justice suggest that in 2021, there was a gap of at least 6,000 people between the number of new asylum applications and the number of new immigration and asylum matters that were actually opened, and for which legal aid was given.