Clause 10 - Unification of appeal system
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
9:10 am
Mr David Lammy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Tottenham, Labour)
I shall make some progress and deal with the issues that the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) raised. Clearly, the Government believe—I think that it is also the perception in our constituencies—that the many layers of justice and tribunals in this field mean that those who are disingenuous in their applications can play the system, which slows it down.
We believe in and support the fundamentals of our system, and it is right that we should continually revisit the system to ensure that it is working to best effect and in the way in which taxpayers in our constituencies would expect. It is a balancing act. We must have a fair system but we simply cannot provide disingenuous claimants with the opportunity to abuse the appellate system.
I should point out that only the immigration and asylum system contains an incentive to delay. As hon. Members will know, in every other area of law, the claimant wants to reach the judgment, and with it finality, as soon as possible. Immigration and asylum is the great exception. Hon. Members will know from constituency cases that many who are able to stay in this country do so ultimately on the humanitarian or compassionate grounds that they have been here for some time. We need a system that is speedier but which balances that with fairness and justice. It must deal with the incentive to delay, which exists only in this area of law.