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Asylum (Designated States) (No. 2)Order 2005

rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 24 October be approved [8th Report from the Joint Committee]. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the subject that we are dealing with today will be familiar to noble Lords from debates on previous orders that added countries to the list of countries to which the non-suspensive appeal provisions in Section 94 of the Nationality, Asylum and Immigration Act 2002 apply; this is the fourth order. There is currently a total of 14 countries on the list, added between April 2003 and February 2005, and the order would add to the list, first, Mongolia and, secondly, Ghana and Nigeria in respect of male applicants only. Before moving on to the specific additions of Ghana, Mongolia and Nigeria, noble Lords may find it helpful if I briefly recall the main elements of the non-suspensive appeals process. An unsuccessful asylum or human rights claim made by a person entitled to reside in a designated state will be certified as clearly unfounded unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that the claim is not clearly unfounded. The effect of a clearly unfounded certificate is that there will be no in-country right of appeal against the refusal of the claim; the right of appeal will be exercisable only from outside the United Kingdom. Section 94 of the Nationality, Asylum and Immigration Act contains a provision to add countries to the list by affirmative order, but only where the Secretary of State is satisfied that there is, in general, no serious risk of persecution of persons entitled to reside in that country, and that removal to that country of an individual entitled to reside there would not, in general, breach the United Kingdom’s obligations under the ECHR. In considering the addition of these countries to the list of designated countries, we have taken this legal test as the starting point. We have also taken full account of the country of origin information that we publish. We are satisfied that Mongolia meets this test. Looking a little more closely at the situation in Ghana and Nigeria, while we are satisfied that the test is met in relation to males entitled to reside in those countries, we are not satisfied that the test is met in respect of women at the present time. In both countries, the evidence suggests that currently women are not able to access the level of protection from the state that is necessary in order for the legal test to be satisfied in respect of women. Inclusion on the list reflects a general level of safety for those to which it applies, not a total absence of any mistreatment. We are not saying that any of these three countries, or any of the 14 other countries on the list, is safe for everyone. No country would meet that test. We are saying that Mongolia is safe for most people, and Ghana and Nigeria are safe for most men. As inclusion on the list reflects a general level of safety, not a total absence of mistreatment, we continue to give every asylum and human rights claim from a resident of a designated country full consideration on its individual merits. A claim would not be refused or certified as clearly unfounded unless we were satisfied, after individual consideration, that the claim fell to be refused and certified. In considering the addition of these countries, we took into account our published country of origin information material and consulted the independent advisory panel on country information on that material. At the panel’s meeting in September 2005, the information on these countries was considered and the panel found it to be an accurate and balanced representation of the source material and country conditions. Noble Lords may ask why we are proposing the addition of these countries at this time. While we are committed to providing a safe haven to genuine refugees and others who require our protection, we are determined to continue to tackle abuse of our asylum system. The powers under the 2002 Act have resulted in a significant cut in the number of asylum applications from the countries listed previously. For example, the intake of new applications from those countries that were designated in the 2002 Act—the then 10 EU accession countries—fell by 97 per cent from October 2002 to April 2004 when the states concerned became members of the EU and the non-suspensive appeals designation effectively ended. That compared with an overall fall in intake of 70 per cent over the same period. For the countries that were added to the list on 1 April 2003—Albania, Bulgaria, Jamaica, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania and Serbia and Montenegro—intake fell by 83 per cent from March 2003 to September 2005. Overall intake fell by 51 per cent in this period. There was a similar and very significant fall in intake from those countries added to the list on 23 July 2003—namely, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Ukraine. Intake from those countries fell by 66 per cent from June 2003 to September 2005, with the overall intake during that period falling by 39 per cent. Those figures exclude Bangladesh, which was removed from the designated list on 22 April 2005. With regard to India, which was added to the list on 15 February this year, intake fell by 46 per cent from March 2005 to September 2005, with the overall intake during that period falling by 1 per cent. We argue that these figures show how effective the non-suspensive appeal powers are and that they are making a significant contribution to our overall asylum strategy. We believe that the addition of these further three countries—Mongolia and, in respect of men, Ghana and Nigeria—will further prevent failed asylum-seekers attempting to frustrate their removal from the United Kingdom by unnecessarily prolonging the appeals process. Designating a country for the purposes of non-suspensive appeals provides a disincentive for people with no genuine protection needs misusing the asylum process. That leads to enhanced public confidence in the overall asylum system, a reduction in intake, a speeding-up of the process and a consequent releasing of resources which can be used to improve performance in other areas. This order is a sensible and measured step towards the increased use of non-suspensive appeals. I beg to move. Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 24 October be approved [8th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)