Clause 2 - Entering United Kingdom without passport
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
2:30 pm
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation, and to some extent I understand it. However, there is still a problem with the definition of what constitutes a first interview. That problem of definition exists not for the potentially accused person in terms of their offence, but for the prosecution in terms of establishing whether the interview in question was the first interview with an immigration officer. As the Bill is currently drafted, it might be a defence to say, ''No, the occasion on which I was found not to have my documents was not my first interview with an immigration officer. I had already spoken to an immigration officer in another respect.'' That is a potential difficulty, although not a serious one.
The second difficulty is that the offence is different from most criminal offences, because it deals with what transpires in the course of an interview. Normally when a person is held at a police station and is interviewed, the interview takes place under clear rules of conduct, with clear guidance about self-incrimination. In the present circumstances, that would not be the case. I therefore question the evidential value of what may be said or done in the context of that first interview if those precautions are not taken.
I understand what the Minister says about the difficulty in the way in which the provision is framed because the point of arrest is the point of non-production, and it is nonsense then to say, ''But actually, it is not; it is at some point in the future when you hold the first interview.'' That is a conundrum that we have yet to solve.
If we are to prosecute the offence successfully, following the first suspicion that a person does not have their documents on them for the reasons outlined in the Bill, it would be appropriate to move rapidly towards holding a formal interview under caution and with legal representation, which would form the evidence on which a future prosecution was based. The Minister came quite a long way towards that position when she described what she expected the process to be, but I shall give way to her so that she can say more about it.