Clause 15 - Electronic monitoring
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I want to make a few random comments and to ask a few general questions on the group of amendments on the basis that I shall not try to catch your eye on any stand part debate, Mrs. Roe. I have only a little to say.
There are two purposes of electronic tagging in the criminal justice system. The first is to establish where a person is at the material time, and the second is to ensure that, at the material times, they are not free to commit crimes. When bail and sentences have been considered in the criminal justice world, tagging has by and large been something of a success. I planned to ask the Minister how many people she envisages being electronically tagged under the clause and what the total cost will be. However, she could rightly reply that tagging is an alternative to custody, which is even more expensive, so it may save money. Tagging is an alternative to custody for the criminal courts and is to be applauded because it does not involve deprivation of liberty.
At the beginning of a criminal court process, the court and police must consider bail. A recent change has been that, in addition to a judge or magistrate, a policeman can grant bail. Police bail can carry certain conditions, including one of residence, or a doorstep condition, which means that someone must answer the door when it is tapped on at night to prove that they are there. Courts and police take bail very seriously.
Tagging will have a role in the immigration world, but someone, somewhere will have to take a decision about who will be tagged and in what circumstances. Will the Minister say a little more about that? Does she envisage an asylum applicant appearing before, say, a district judge? Will such a judge, in his or her court, or lay magistrates have a power to impose a tagging condition on an asylum seeker? I doubt it because, by definition, people appearing in those courts have committed a criminal offence, and the asylum seeker has not. I do not see how the asylum seeker would find his or her way to a district judge or magistrate in relation to either the imposition of a tagging condition or an appeal against one. However, I should be glad of confirmation of that. I suppose that a person will be tagged on the instructions of an immigration officer or a Home Office official. Again, perhaps the Minister could say more about that.
The age point raised by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) is fair. I think that a case
involving the London borough of Merton in 2003 had something to say about who decides how old a person is. Tagging is meant to be for over-18s. Under the clause, someone is over 18 if they appear to be over 18
''in the opinion of a person who . . . imposes a residence restriction''.
Who will have that opinion, and is there any back-up? I think that, in the Merton case, the court said quite clearly that, whatever the Home Office said about someone's age, in truth the local authority should rely on its own inquiries, possibly involving a paediatrician or whoever, to make it plain what the age was. The question of age is interesting.
We should like just a little more explanation of cost, numbers, who will impose the measure, and age. That said, any right-minded person will broadly welcome the clause, not least because by doing so we may be ensuring that more people have their liberty than might otherwise be the case.