Clause 15 - Support for destitute asylum-seeker
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
9:00 am
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
We should not have statutory limits in the Bill, for the reasons that I have set out. I hope that the hon. Gentleman equally accepts the good faith of what I said about the time that we intend and expect people to be in accommodation centres.
We must consider how fast and how effectively we can complete the asylum process, which we all want to be carried out quickly and efficiently. It has been
suggested several times in Committee, as it was on Second Reading, that it could be completed much faster—that is our aspiration for all cases—but three months is pretty rapid, according to our experience. Five weeks, which has been suggested by the official Opposition, is so rapid that it is difficult to see how, given the current structure of the appeals process, it could be achieved except in very straightforward cases.
I hope that we shall be able to reduce the six months through the changes and appeals streamlining under the Bill and some administrative changes that we are making on the personal serving of decisions, reporting requirements and much closer contact with asylum seekers, whether in accommodation centres or dispersed in the other systems. Hon. Members have rightly said that 48 per cent. of applications have initial decisions served within two months and that 45 per cent. of appeals go through both tiers of the Immigration Appellate Authority in four months. That is the ''two plus four'' six-month period that we are talking about.
We have managed to get first-tier decisions and appeals heard faster at Oakington, but cases go there because they are straightforward. Other cases are not as straightforward. The hon. Member for Woking knows from his previous experience that the caseworker may have to seek other documents if an asylum seeker presents with a particularly complex history. If the individual has been tortured, an extra report is needed from the Medical Foundation on what may have happened. Individual doctors will consider what happened and examine the individual. Then we must wait for the report before we can progress the case.
There are all kinds of scenario in which thinking that we might achieve five weeks is fantastical. There would have to be an initial decision in all cases in one week, which is what we achieve at Oakington with straightforward cases, but that is not achievable in all, due to their complexity and the difficulty of establishing what has happened. We would then have to hold an appeal within a month. Again, we can do that in some cases, but not if there are complications.