Immigration Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Starmer]

I accept that, and I would accept the wider proposition that some cases will succeed on appeal without that necessarily meaning that the decision can be retaken with the same result, but it is still a high success rate compared with other areas of the law. It may well be that information has not been provided in the way that it should have been; equally, it may be bad decision making by the Home Office. I am trying not to overuse the 42% figure, but it is high.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I have an ongoing case involving constituents of mine in which the quality of their immigration solicitor’s advice was, frankly, shocking. The hon. Member for Rotherham and I have had a conversation outside this place about this case. It amplifies the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General that a lot of legal advisers see this process as a gravy train: if they can provide slightly dodgy advice that does not get the person through the first time, hey presto, here is another piece of advice, another bill and another instruction to act on. Surely to goodness either the Bar Council or the Law Society should provide better and tighter guidance on quality for those people who are often advising under-resourced and vulnerable people.

[Keir Starmer]

I recognise some of what the hon. Gentleman has said. As he indicated, where that is a problem, it is for the professional bodies to regulate better or follow up in individual cases, and nothing that I say should stand in the way of that, but I do not want to step outside the human aspect. Ultimately, in cases where that is an issue, it is the individual who is removed who suffers as a result; if children are involved, it is the children who suffer. If an appeal is successful because bad advice was given months or years earlier and something relevant was not put before the decision maker or court, but it has come to light and been put before an appeal court, the impact on the individual who is not at fault should not be lost.

That is one difficulty with the proposed scheme for removing individuals. However, I recognise some of the picture that the hon. Gentleman has painted, and I agree that where professional follow-up can take place, it should as it would help in such cases. It is, however, also a fact that many appeals take a long time. If decision making were of a higher quality and decisions were quicker, a lot of the concern would evaporate, and we would not be debating the need for deport first, appeal later provisions.

I come to the practicability of appealing from abroad. We are familiar with the notion of a hearing in this jurisdiction. In some ways, a hearing is not dissimilar to the exchanges we have across this Committee Room, where physical human beings make submissions and listen to what is said against those submissions. Here, we have you, Mr Owen; in court, we would have a judge. That judge listens to the exchanges, takes into account the evidence and comes to a decision. Anybody who has ever been in any court of any form will know that many cases are determined through those exchanges, with the decision maker making their mind up as the process unfolds. Attention can be drawn to a particular piece of evidence, a point can be rebutted and additional evidence can swiftly be put before the court or the tribunal, if it is necessary to do so. If a judge has questions, they can be dealt with there and then by the parties.

That is how we have been doing things for 200 years —certainly in the criminal context—and it is a highly effective way of resolving differences between the parties. It is a very different experience if someone is appealing from abroad. In the first place, their submissions will probably be made in electronic or hard, written form way before the hearing. There is no prospect of the sorts of exchanges that get to the truth or resolve the critical issues between the parties. Until recently, it has been possible for some individuals to have representation in the proceedings, notwithstanding the fact that they are abroad. I have a question for the Solicitor General: if the proposed residence test for legal aid comes into force, will that effectively mean that, for this large, extended category of individuals, the prospect of any representation is gone once they are removed, unless they have private money? That is a serious consideration. That proposal would fundamentally change how the scheme operates, when taken with the proposed change before us.