Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Shadow Minister, Home, Constitutional & Legal Affairs; Conservative)
My Lords, Amendment No. 3 looks at a very different aspect of the proposals for directed labour and concerns what the Government have done to look at the way in which breaches of the conditions imposed by the Secretary of State will be handled. New Clause 10 gives the Secretary of State the right to make it a condition of a failed asylum seeker receiving accommodation to participate in community activities.
I made it clear in Committee on recommitment, at col. 656 on 15 June, that the Government should explain to the House how they will deal with breaches of any requirement that is imposed as a result of subsection (6). Who will make the decision in the first instance about whether a person has properly performed their directed labour? Will there be guidelines to cover all organisations which take on the management role? Who will monitor the application of those guidelines? Will it be the IND? Who will do that?
I have in mind the debate on 17 June 2004 on the statutory instrument that brought into effect the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Conditional Cautions: Code of Practice) Order 2004 (Hansard: col. 908). That code prescribes stringent monitoring arrangements. It also puts the burden of proof on the offender to prove to the police that the condition has been met. That raised in my mind where the burden of proof lies in that. Is that the kind of approach that the Government intend with regard to the imposition of conditions in Clause 10?
Does the failed asylum seeker have to prove that the conditions have been met? Or does the Secretary of State have to prove that they have not been met? Where does the burden of proof lie in this respect? I beg to move.
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