Clause 23 - Documents produced or found
Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill
10:30 am
John Leech (Manchester, Withington, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 113, in clause 23, page 10, line 33, leave out lines 33 to 41 and insert—
‘(b)if on examination of any document so produced or found the immigration officer is of the opinion that it may be needed in connection with proceedings on or for an offence.’.
I welcome you back to the Chair, Sir Nicholas. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my first speech in a Standing Committee. I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if I make any procedural errors. The reputation of the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality goes before him. I am sure that his friendliness and helpfulness to Opposition Members will mean that I shall not get into too much trouble.
In the past week, I have sat patiently and heard the word “brevity” being used many times in many long speeches. I shall try, as I am used to, to keep matters brief and to the point.
Under the Immigration Act 1971, an immigration officer is already permitted to detain for seven days any document that has been found as a result of an immigration search. The Bill extends that power by allowing passports or other documents to be detained for any purpose. We are not happy with that possibility. We must limit the powers to detain passports. Identity documents are necessary in everyday life—for example, to provide evidence of housing or to deal with local councils. For the Government to detain passports for any purpose is too overbearing.
Moreover, the measure may discourage people who wish to leave the country from doing so. I shall give one example: a person from Afghanistan, having been refused asylum, wished to return home, because he could not bear being separated from the rest of his family. He had been refused asylum and was without support, so he went to the International Organisation for Migration for assistance with voluntary return to Afghanistan. His documents had been detained, and he was not allowed to leave the country. The Home Office did not give him approval to go, and he received no further information. That was in January 2005.
In September 2005, the person in question sought advice and found that the Home Office had carried out routine checks with the police, and that there was an unspecified problem with his documents. He stated that to the best of his knowledge he had never been in any trouble with the police, and he had never had any reason to believe that there would be any problem with him returning, but he was still not allowed to do so. The IOM said that it would speak to the Home Office and try to resolve the situation, and it found that the Home Office had removed its bar on him travelling, but had not told him so. He is therefore hoping to return to Afghanistan by the end of October. However, the fact that his documents had been detained stopped him from returning home to his country of origin. Clearly, such incidents do not help people who want to return home voluntarily.