Mr David Alton: I must make progress. I have given way many times and the House will wish me to proceed so that others might participate. I refer the hon. Member for East Kilbride to two cases in Scotland which demonstrate why we should rein in those who sometimes get carried away with their own enthusiasms. In Edinburgh two years ago a scientist wanted permission to abort little girls so that fie could use...
Mr David Alton: The hon. Gentleman is providing the House with an intelligent list of the dilemmas that we shall face as a society if genetic testing proceeds. Will he confirm that, so far, gene therapy has led to no cures and that a person faced with the information that he has just described inevitably has only the so-called choice of allowing a developing child to proceed with its life or to destroy that life?
Mr David Alton: I am following with interest what the hon. Gentleman is saying and I strongly welcome his remarks. Does he agree that the independence of the new commission will be predicated on its membership and that, whether he or the present Minister appoints the members in due course, there will need to be a balance that recognises that there is a lay opinion to be put, and that philosophical opinion...
Mr David Alton: I strongly welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said to the House. Before he leaves the subject of insurance, will he undertake to stress to the industry that if it does not introduce the voluntary regulations that the Select Committee seeks, he and a Labour Government will—if they are in a position to do so in future—introduce statutory regulations to require the industry to do what it...
Mr David Alton: I strongly agree with the Minister, and underline his argument about the need to go further than the announcement earlier this week about the appointment of an adviser. The industry was asked to produce voluntary regulation and has failed to do so. Can he assure the House that if it continues to fail, he and his Department will produce proposals to ensure proper mandatory regulation by the House?
Mr David Alton: Further to that point of order, Madam Speaker.
Mr David Alton: On a new point of order, Madam Speaker, but connected with the Asylum and Immigration Bill. Tomorrow morning, new immigration rules and changes to the current rules will be presented to a Committee and they will be debated for an hour and a half. Will you ask the Clerks to consider the propriety of such a Committee meeting to consider those questions in advance of Royal Assent being given to...
Mr David Alton: My hon. Friend makes an important point about the processes of this Parliament. According to advice that we received today from my noble Friends Lord Lester of Herne Hill and Lady Williams of Crosby, because of the pell-mell way that the Bill has been rushed through, the UK may be in breach of the European convention on human rights. Our compliance with international law is being seriously...
Mr David Alton: In areas such as the hon. Gentleman's and in cities such as mine, people will live on the streets and we shall end up with shanty towns like those in the United States.
Mr David Alton: The Secretary of State has made a great deal over the months about the costs involved, and all of us are conscious of that. But will he confirm that, if every person who came to this country—not as an immigrant, but as an asylum seeker or refugee—was fraudulent, we would still be talking about one third of 1 per cent. of his entire departmental budget? The parliamentary time that we have...
Mr David Alton: The appeal process in itself is revealing. The Refugee Legal Centre—an organisation funded by the Home Office and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees—has recorded a 20 per cent. success rate in the past three months. The issue is one of representation. If refugees and asylum seekers are properly represented, the number of successful appeals increases—the inadequacy of...
Mr David Alton: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr David Alton: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr David Alton: It is on that point.
Mr David Alton: The Secretary of State raises a point about falsified papers and forged documents, which is similar to his earlier point, on which I was trying to intervene. Business men, students and people who are classified in any number of ways do not say precisely what has happened to them in their countries of origin, often because of fear, what they are fleeing from and the persecution they have...
Mr David Alton: We have heard the Minister of State again advance the argument that their lordships' amendments are defective, but, if the principles behind them were accepted, there has been a chance to put them right since they were passed in the other place. That is why I question precisely where the Government are coming from on some of the issues. They have had the chance to put right defective...
Mr David Alton: Surely the hon. Lady accepts that, whether the term used is "forcible" or "involuntary", it amounts to the same act of cruelty both to the woman and to her unborn child. Whether the pressure comes from the state, partner or individual, such action has not been from personal choice. It amounts to the same thing.
Mr David Alton: Although no one doubts the Minister's personal position in this regard, does she not understand that this is the only legislative opportunity open to the House and that at the fag end of the proceedings on the Bill it would be better to accept the amendment tonight and allow it to be changed in the other place when it goes back before we rise for the summer than to reject it this evening?...
Mr David Alton: I strongly endorse the hon. Gentleman's points. Is he aware that when the Committee considered some of the countries that are to appear on the designated list, Labour Members and others pointed out that the list would have a doubly undesirable effect? Tyrants and despots the world over would hope to see their countries included on the so-called white list and use that for propaganda...
Mr David Alton: I warmly agree with the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton), to whom I wish to make two points. First, a woman who presented herself to the Beijing embassy could say that she wanted to seek asylum in the United Kingdom by virtue of her second pregnancy, as she was facing an enforced abortion. In that case, the issue should not arise of whether she would be returned after the birth of...
