Clause 2 - Entering United Kingdom without passport
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
5:00 pm
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
That is one concern. Given the Minister's protestations, we might have been satisfied on the balance of probabilities, and it might have been the wrong decision. That is what worries me.
I want to make it plain that I am not trying to find an escape route for people who deliberately foul up the system in the way that we are discussing. I hope that the Minister, in the spirit of the way in which the Committee is debating these matters, will not repeat that accusation. I want law that works effectively. My concern, as I said and the hon. and learned Member for Harborough amplified, is that, in the first instance, we have something that would not in any case have been considered a reasonable cause if proven, but that is unprovable except in the exceptional circumstances of a defendant volunteering the information under caution. Therefore, what is proposed is broadly redundant.
Let me explain what worries me about the instructions from the traffickers. It is essential that we deal with this issue effectively. My proposal is not about removing the provision for doing so, but about ensuring that we do not pass a law that is overturned by a court considering the provisions of article 31 of the refugee convention. If we do that, we will have lost all the progress that the Minister is trying to make. That is why I am testing the measure at this stage—that is what Committees are for.
It is bizarre that there is no offence on the part of the trafficker for giving the instruction to destroy or for collecting the passports and doing so. In clause 4, there is an offence of trafficking where the exploitation has to be proven. But going round collecting passports and getting them burned, or whatever, is not an offence by that person under the clause. Perhaps the Minister would like to look at that.