Clause 16 - Immigration Services Commissioner: power of entry
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
3:00 pm
Mr Mark Oaten (Winchester, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 95, in
clause 16, page 18, line 14, leave out from 'dwelling' to end of line 21 and insert—
'(7A) Nothing in this section shall authorise the disclosure of documents or information subject to legal privilege.'.
Clause 16 has had widespread support. When the controversial measures in the clause were announced by the Government, there was support from all parties for trying to improve the quality of advice given to asylum seekers and for getting tough on rogue advisers who are ripping off some of the most vulnerable in society. The clause has some sensible measures for setting out the detail of how to track down businesses that are providing a bad service to asylum seekers.
Amendment No. 95 is designed to probe the Government's thinking on one aspect of how that will be done. It is necessary to have in place the power to obtain a warrant to enter and search premises where the police or immigration service have reasonable grounds to assume that bad immigration advice is being given. It will be difficult for the authorities to track down such individuals unless they are able to enter their offices and examine case notes. If an asylum seeker alleged that they had been given bad advice or that emerged in interviews as part of an appeal, and immigration officers had concerns about advice that had been given, it would be important for the authorities to be able to investigate that.
I have no problem with the power to obtain a warrant, but amendment No. 95 would provide that during investigations great attention is paid to the long-standing privilege between a client and their legal adviser. That is a contradiction, because we want to identify rogue advisers while not putting at risk the relationship between a client and a good legal adviser. We are concerned that as part of the search warrant exercise, papers may be gone through that are part of the confidentiality between a client and their lawyer. Will the Minister explain how she can overcome the problem of protecting the right to privacy and the special relationship while allowing the authorities to examine the papers to assess the quality of advice?