Lord German:

Moved by Lord German

119: After Clause 40, insert the following new Clause—“A three-month service standard for asylum casework(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, implement a three-month service standard for asylum casework.(2) The service standard must specify that 98% of initial decisions on all asylum claims should be made before the end of three months after the date of claim.”Member's explanatory statementThis new clause would require UK Visas and Immigration to reintroduce a three-month service standard for decisions on asylum cases.

I will be as brief as I possibly can, given the hour. What is important in this Amendment is to try to return to having a service standard. The amendment proposes a three-month service standard to determine asylum decisions. I know that the Minister, and others in the past, have looked at the issue and whether it might be six months. The important question here is whether there should be a service standard for dealing with these matters.

The history of this is that a service standard to decide 98% of straightforward asylum applications within six months was introduced in 2014 after a report which criticised delays in asylum decision-making. Of the claims that were submitted from March 2014 to the end of the year, only 8% received a decision within six months. In the second quarter of 2018, 56% of decisions were received within six months. In the third quarter of 2018, 25% received a decision within six months. Subsequent to that, the service standard was abandoned.

The reasons given by the Government at that time were:

“We have moved away from the six-month service standard to concentrate on cases with acute vulnerability and those in receipt of the greatest level of support, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. … Additionally, we will prioritise cases where an individual has already received a decision but a reconsideration is required. … the current service standard does not always allow us to prioritise applications from the most vulnerable people in the system if their claim is ‘non-straightforward’”.

That told me that there is a sort of on-off switch and a whole range of categories, and the Home Office would move the arrow to whichever one it thought was the most concerning at the time. I know that, in the context of things such as accident and emergency departments in the health services around this country, having a service standard is an important way—though it may not be kept—of having that focus.

Therefore, this seems to be an issue of prioritisation. The Home Office says that it can prioritise different targets or different circumstances rather than having a service standard. There was a large backlog of 91,000 at the end of 2024, with the associated costs to the taxpayer and slow decision-making hampering integration. Of those waiting for an initial decision, around 50,000 people had been waiting for more than six months. Arguing for a new service standard means that we could speed things up, because people would have a standard in mind.

I know that the Minister has dealt with this in the past in response to questions, but I would be grateful if he could say whether the Government have reviewed the potential benefits of reintroducing a service standard, what the current prioritisation is for asylum decision-making, and, of course, what the Government are doing to reduce the backlog.

My Lords, I have added my name to my noble friend’s Amendment. I was not proposing to speak to it until recently. I may well have it wrong, but I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm the position. I think I read that arrangements have been put in place for bonuses for caseworkers who meet a standard. As I recall it, it was a very small amount of money, but if the Minister could tell the Committee what the standard is for asylum applications and say something about that bonus, it would be helpful. I am trying to ask that in a very neutral fashion.

I have Amendment 195, to which my noble friend has his name, relating to the use of artificial intelligence in the system. Obviously, artificial intelligence is going to be used. Asking whether it is used is probably like asking whether electricity is going to be used—of course it is these days. As this is about data as well, we start from the position that migrants are not criminals, and they should not be treated as criminals. Immigration, asylum seeking and refugee matters are civil matters, and any interference with privacy must be proportionate and subject to safeguards. I think we would all agree that our data is valuable, it is very precious, and that generally it needs regulation and oversight, and transparency is hugely important.

When I chaired the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, every Home Secretary we questioned assured us that the human would remain in the loop. Frankly, we were sceptical about what that really meant and the efficacy of it. The data subject must know what the authorities know, or think they know, about him. There is a lot more public discourse now about training of AI, but I doubt that we are all completely reassured about that. Immigration decisions are hugely impactful; they are life changing. The amendment would ensure that no machine alone may determine a person’s immigration fate, and that personal data remained insulated from algorithmic training.

Just to take one issue, it must be obvious that the scope for bias must be large if algorithms and systems are trained using data where there is any concern about the basic information—I am editing what I have written, but not very successfully—being used. Without knowing what that basic information is, it is difficult to assess how successful it is and to know what is going on.

I came across another issue regarding transparency related to AI and that is in—I may have mentioned this to the Minister—the initial interviews which are conducted, where the applicant is sitting alone in a room with a screen, not knowing who is on the other end and how many screens that person is looking at. In other words, what is the supervision of interviews and discussions that are going on? How many people are involved? Applicants do not know who is conducting the interview—I know that there are concerns about this—and are not told, generally, that they can request a copy of the interview transcript. Of those who do, who have good English, too many have found significant errors. In a sense, this is an anecdote, but my conclusion from it is of the importance of using AI properly and in a way which is transparent. This is a probing amendment on how the detail of one’s personal information is used, what guidance is given to caseworkers and how the use is monitored and evaluated.

My Lords, we on these Benches agree to a degree with the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. We may not agree on everything, but we are, in this small way, united. I shall speak briefly on the other amendments in this group, before turning to those in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Cameron.

On Amendment 119, it is right that asylum casework should be completed as quickly as possible. Delays are costly to the taxpayer and to public confidence in the asylum system. When cases drag on for extended periods, it not only increases the financial burden but undermines the perception that our system is effective, fair and controlled.

However, while I support the principle behind the amendment, I have concerns about the rigidity of imposing a legal service standard. What happens when the limit is breached? Would this create a new legal avenue for challenge, further delaying removals and adding yet more strain to the system? The real solution lies not only in faster processing but in reducing the pressures in the first place. While I support the intention behind the proposal, I believe that our priority must remain on addressing the root causes of the pressure and not just on setting ambitious targets that may ultimately prove counterproductive.

We also have some sympathy for Amendment 195. It concerns a matter that this side has raised in relation to other Bills currently going through the House, such as the fraud, error and recovery Bill. When decisions are being taken that greatly affect the life of another person, we need to have some guarantee of human involvement. I therefore welcome this as an opportunity for the Minister to set out how AI will be used in this process.

I turn to the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend. Amendment 201 would compel the Government to produce a report into the cost of providing asylum support. The British people engage with the principle of asylum in good will; they want to see those who are genuinely in need of protection given the support they require. That is a national characteristic of which I am proud. However, part of maintaining that good will is being open and honest about the costs involved. We have all seen what happens when there are information gaps: mistrust grows, narratives fill the space and confidence in the system is undermined; the Government then lose control, and it does not matter what they have done or delivered as it all becomes noise in a vacuum. Our amendment therefore seeks to address that by ensuring that the Government provide a comprehensive report on the cost of providing asylum support. Transparency should not be something that the Government resist; it is a hallmark of good governance.

Finally, Amendment 202 would require the Secretary of State to commission a review of proposals for the establishment of third-country removal centres. We, on this side of the Committee, have been clear that we are facing a massive, escalating and serious problem with illegal entry into the United Kingdom. If Ministers are serious about ending the crisis in the channel, they must be willing to consider the full range of options, and this review will be a vital step towards that.

Taken together, our two amendments are about realism, transparency and ambition: realism in recognising that our current approach is not working; transparency in being honest with the British people about the costs and consequences of our policies; and ambition in being prepared to consider tougher, more effective measures that match the scale of the challenge we face. The public’s patience is wearing thin and their confidence in the system will not be restored by half-measures. These proposals would give the Government the tools, evidence and mandate to act decisively.

I am grateful to the Liberal Democrat and His Majesty’s loyal Opposition Front Benches for their amendments.

The noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, tabled an Amendment to introduce a new service standard. I want to thank them for the amendment, as it helpful to look at that. We absolutely agree that there needs to be a properly functioning, effective immigration system. Our asylum processes should be not just efficient but robust. We are committed to ensuring that asylum claims are considered without unnecessary delay. We want to ensure that protection is granted as soon as possible so that people can start to integrate and rebuild their lives, including by obtaining employment when they have the right to do so. As such, I want to provide reassurance of the important steps we are already taking to achieve this aim.

As I have said on a number of occasions, during the passage of the Bill as well as in Questions and Statements, we have inherited a very large backlog, which we are trying to clear at pace. We are delivering the removals of people with no right to be in the UK, and we want to ensure that we restore the system very quickly. By transforming the asylum system, we will clear the backlog of claims and appeals. We have taken steps to speed up asylum processing while maintaining the integrity of the system. We have put in resources to ensure that we can do that at pace. That is why we are also looking at the efficiency of appeals and decisions, which we see to be of paramount importance.

The Bill proposes setting up a statutory timeframe of 24 weeks for the First-tier Tribunal to dispose of supported asylum appeals and appeals from non-detained foreign national offenders. The measures aim to speed up the appeal decisions, to ensure that we increase tribunal capacity and have a timely consideration of appeals. I hope that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness agree with me that the work that we are conducting at pace is appropriate and is having a real impact now on the size of the backlog. Although we cannot discuss the three-month time scale proposed in the amendment, I can reassure them that it is certainly on our agenda.

Amendment 195 from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, looks particularly at generative AI tools to support caseworkers. I want to emphasise that no immigration decision is made solely by automatic decision-making, for there is still always a human eye on the decision-making. It is important that case summarisation and policy search tools, both of which are designed to help decision-makers, mean that we have improvements and efficiency in that process, which is also helping to reduce the backlog, which we want.

We have had an evaluation of the tools to date. We published that on GOV.UK in May. Therefore, we can demonstrate that the new technologies, such as AI, can potentially save around an hour per case, which is allowing decision-makers to access information more easily and to streamline the asylum process without, I hope, compromising the quality of the decisions.

Ethics and data protection are at the forefront of the considerations—the noble Baroness has mentioned that. The Home Office is taking significant steps to ensure that, where we trial and adopt AI in decision-making, we do so responsibly and in a way that maintains public confidence and that any tools are being trialled and are used to assist Home Office staff. With those assurances, I hope that she will not press her amendment.

The noble Baroness also mentioned other issues, which I will return to in a moment.

Amendment 201 from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, addresses ensuring transparency in the asylum system. I hope he will understand that we think the amendment is unnecessary, not because it is not right that he presses us on this, but because, as we have discussed throughout the scrutiny of the Bill, the cost of accommodating and supporting asylum seekers has grown significantly. I have put those proposals before the House as a whole. This is a due in large part to the strain we have had on the asylum system in recent years, including the number of unprocessed claims and a record number of arrivals via small boats. We are taking steps to reduce the cost and ensure public funds are managed responsibly.

I understand the intention behind this amendment; it aims to enhance transparency and provide Parliament with a clear picture of how asylum support is being delivered. But I note that the information that the noble Lord is requesting is published each year in the Home Office’s annual accounts. The figures are publicly available and subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and we remain committed they are as clear and comprehensive as possible.

The amendment seeks a breakdown of the proportion of asylum seekers who have had their claims denied but are still receiving support. It may be helpful to note that failed asylum seekers can, under certain conditions, remain eligible for support, for example if they are taking steps to leave the UK or face temporary barriers. They are all important issues. I appreciate the spirit of the amendment, but that information is already available.

I will touch on this issue briefly, because I have the information on my phone, which will lose its signal and sign out if I do not look at it immediately. On the issue of rewards and bonuses for staff that was mentioned by the noble Baroness, there is a consistent delivery of high-quality work and professional behaviour. We want to ensure that asylum decisions are subject to stringent quality checks, with individual performance targets agreed with managers and reviewed regularly to ensure that the high standards expected are consistently met. I will give her more information about the bonus scheme—as far as I can—after the discussions today.

I should also say, in passing, that all claimants will receive a written transcript of any interview that has taken place, and they can also have an audio recording of that. I hope that reassures the noble Baroness about the issues she has put before me.

They have been entitled to receive the transcript; the problem is that people are not told that they are entitled to have it, and I wonder whether the Minister can take that back. I will have to come back in writing on the details of the use of AI. With regard to performance standards and targets and so on, I asked about some details of the scheme. Can he come back to me in writing on that? What he read out, about keeping up standards and so on, I hope we would all take for granted as being exactly the basis on which the work is done, but the detail of the bonuses and so on—

I hope that we can agree that we will examine Hansard tomorrow to determine the information required from each of us and provide it in the fullness of time.

On Amendment 202, I thank noble Lords for their interest in ensuring transparency in the Government’s approach to third-country removal centres. I think the amendment is unnecessary. On 15 May, the Prime Minister set out that we are actively exploring the establishment of return hubs with international partners. Our approach will be guided by what is workable and what reduces the impact of migration on the British public. The hubs could facilitate the swift and dignified removal of failed asylum seekers. It is not the Rwanda model; the return hub proposal is fundamentally different. It does not outsource asylum decision-making but targets those whose claims have already been fully considered by the Home Office and the courts. Details of any agreements and associated policy would be made publicly available when the time is right. I hope that, at that stage, in the event of any schemes progressing, we could have some scrutiny and take decisions accordingly. I give him a commitment that we will publish such details in the event of any scheme progressing. In the light of those assurances, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.

My Lords, I think I heard the Minister say on the service standard that he would take that into consideration or look at the matter. I also heard him say that there is a standard already, upon which appeals would be completed. In a sense, that is what a service standard is: you are setting targets for what you want to happen. If that is the case and both those things are factually accurate—we can look at Hansard—then I think that starts to satisfy what we are looking at here. Obviously there will be some more questions on the detail, but it seems to me that it is therefore appropriate for me to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment 119 withdrawn.

Amendment 120 not moved.

Schedule 1: Immigration advisers and immigration service providers