New Clause 7 - Interpretation of Refugee Convention
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
10:00 am
Ms Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Citizenship and Immigration), Home Office; Stretford and Urmston, Labour)
As the hon. Gentleman said, the new clause defines ''directly'' for the purposes of article 31 of the 1951 refugee convention as meaning
''without transit through or landfall . . . in''
a country listed in paragraph 2 of schedule 3, or any other country that the Secretary of State may designate. That would mean that refugees who travelled to the UK through one of those countries could, when applicable, be prosecuted, or penalised, for illegal entry into or presence in the UK, without having the option of a defence under article 31. It would not affect the assessment of the asylum claim, but it would mean that a prosecution could be brought even if someone was given refugee status, and it would mean that they would not have a defence if they had travelled through a country in which they could have claimed asylum.
I do not think that there is that much between us. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, in the past, article 31 has been interpreted very widely by the courts, and that those refugees who have had the opportunity to claim asylum in a safe country en route to the UK should do so, and should not be able to rely on the convention as a defence for entering the UK illegally. We dealt with this matter in section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, where we defined defences based on article 31 of the convention for the purposes of UK legislation. Subsection (2) provides that:
''If . . . the refugee stopped in another country outside the United Kingdom [the defence] in subsection (1) applies only if he shows that he could not reasonably be expected to be given protection under the Refugee Convention in that other country.''
I think that this approach to the definition is very similar to that proposed by the hon. Gentleman in his new clause. As far as I can see, his definition differs slightly from ours, in not providing the ''reasonable excuse'' defence for not seeking protection in a third country and in providing a definition for a ''safe third country''. There might be some situations in which that defence is appropriate—for instance, as we have seen with tragic results, if someone is locked in the
back of a lorry and transits another country, but literally cannot physically get out, that may be a reasonable excuse that we should provide for. I think that is the only sliver of difference between our definitions. I hope he will agree that the broad thrust is much the same, namely that a person can hope to benefit from the protection of article 31 only if they did not pass up an opportunity to apply in another country which they reached before arriving in the UK. I hope he will be assured that the definition that we already have in legislation is sufficient for his concerns to be met and that he will withdraw the amendment.