Clause 2 - Entering United Kingdom without passport
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
10:00 am
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
This debate has been important and useful. I intended to find out from the Minister what her intentions were with regard to prosecution. I hoped that she might have said explicitly that the enforcement and prosecution guidelines would clearly state when it was appropriate to use this offence against someone who was under 18. I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee agree that there are many circumstances in which such a use would be entirely inappropriate.
I share the concerns of the hon. Member for Woking about people who are fleeing from areas where it is impossible to obtain travel documents—the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Somalia come to mind—although that matter is outwith the precise terms of the amendment. We will return to it at a later stage in our consideration of the Bill.
There is an uneasy connection between clauses 2 and 4. We have already outlined one of our principal concerns—the ability to apply duress to a vulnerable person, be that a person who is under age or someone who is vulnerable in other ways. The result of that would be that the person who destroyed the documents—the victim of duress—became the offender. There are wider arguments about consideration of someone's true age. In such cases, the credibility of the applicant would be the better way of dealing with the matter. I understand that that is the way in which that difficult matter is dealt with under Canadian legislation—a country with a legal system that is not dissimilar to ours—without recourse to a provision such as this.
I understand the problems, and although some of the arguments that were advanced were not entirely cogent, I recognise that it is better not to make a distinction between an adult and a child in terms of offence—the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough. If it is clear that guidance will be given in the prosecution guidelines—the Minister nods, so I invite her to intervene and to say so explicitly, because that would be helpful.