Immigration: Appeals

Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps the Home Office will take to ensure that fewer decisions on immigration matters are reversed on appeal.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, UK Visas and Immigration is focused on improving the quality of all decision-making. While appeals are allowed for a variety of reasons, and many of those appeals being heard now are fairly historic, we recognise that continued improvement is necessary. That is why investment is being made via a stronger assurance regime, better and more frequent training, strengthening feedback loops and creating new governance and structures. Additionally, we are working with HM Courts & Tribunals Service on reducing the number of outstanding appeals and the time taken through the appeal system.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

I thank the Minister for those comments. She will be aware that whereas 17% of those who went to appeal in 2005 won their appeal, this year 35% won and last year the figure was 40%. This is totally wrong, as even the Government must understand. One thing we could do is record every interview from an applicant. Then we would not have disputes over what was said—whether the language was understood, the interviewer was hostile or the questioning was aggressive. We could go some way towards remedying this problem by keeping voice recordings of each of the interviews.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I appreciate what the noble Lord is saying, and on face value it looks sensible, but quite often new evidence is presented just before the tribunal which is not available to the original decision-maker. For that reason, the noble Lord’s point would not be valid. The consequence of information being presented too late is that it is often too late for the Home Office to then withdraw the case.