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

My Lords, as ever, I am grateful to both noble Lords who have contributed to this short discussion. In particular, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, for her short questions. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will have to bear with me while I go through his rather more complicated and discursive commentary on the issue. I take note, however, that, although the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have a different take on the order, at least the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, recognises the validity of the process we are engaged in. It is important, even if he does not entirely agree with its detail. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her general agreement. To answer the noble Baroness’s question, we are confident that in all 14 countries women are protected in the way we set out in our criteria. We stand by that, and we think it is undoubtedly the case. With regard to perhaps the more important question the noble Baroness asked, whether we would return women to face female genital mutilation or other serious human rights abuses: of course we would not. It is for that reason, because of our concerns, that we have drafted the order in the way that we have for Ghana and Nigeria. If we considered if there was a genuine and active risk that a young girl or a woman would experience female genital mutilation or other serious human rights abuses, we would not return them to that country. The risks that women may face of genital mutilation or other forms of mistreatment in Nigeria and Ghana, as I have said, caused us to designate these countries in respect of men only, as described in the order. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made some interesting general points. I ought to place on record that I am grateful to him for giving me notice of his questions in particular. I cannot promise to answer his questions with all the precise details this afternoon, but I will attempt to go through some of it. I will undertake to cover the more detailed points he asked me about and provide them in writing, place a copy of that in the Library of the House and share it with the Opposition Front Bench. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, started with his point about Labour’s position in 1996. My response is simply that things have changed since then. We have had to take important steps to gain greater control over the asylum and immigration processes in the UK. I guess the realities of being a government and having made hard choices have had an impact on us. We have to deal with the reality as we find it, not as we would have wished it to be. That said, experience in opposition and our approach to matters of human rights generally, and to ensuring that we have a fair and reasonable process for processing asylum applications, have figured large in our policy. We have taken great care in framing the legislation in the way that we have so that it is fair and reasonable, even if at times it appears to be hard-nosed, because that is how we believe it should be approached. I want to work through the points in the noble Lord’s note to me, which was based on issues raised with him by ILPA. Referring to the noble Lord’s questions is probably the best way. He asked how many people from Mongolia, Ghana and Nigeria have been recognised as refugees in the past three years. I have some statistics on that, relating to appeals outcomes determined by the Immigration Appellate Authority. For Ghana in 2004 there were 10 appeals allowed. As I see it, none was allowed in 2005. For Nigeria, in 2004 there were 40 appeals allowed, which is 4 per cent. I should say that the figure of 10 represents 2 per cent. For the three-quarters of 2005 for which we have records, a total of 25 appeals was allowed in Nigeria. In Mongolia, in 2004 there were 10; and for the three-quarters of 2005 reported on in Mongolia, five appeals were allowed. If the noble Lord wishes, I can give a male and female breakdown of that. However, if he is content to receive it in correspondence, I will happily provide it in that form. The noble Lord nods his assent. The noble Lord then asked how many were recognised as refugees at the initial Home Office decision stage and how many on appeal. I have provided figures for appeal. On initial decision, in 2004 there were five grants of asylum for Ghana; for Mongolia, there were five; and for Nigeria there were five. The corresponding data for 2005 is zero in all three cases. So far as asylum and human rights applications from Ghana and Nigeria are concerned, I can provide a breakdown by gender for 2004. In both Ghana and Nigeria, there were five grants of asylum to females. So far as our records indicate, none has been recorded this year. The noble Lord also asked for a breakdown of applications and decisions by gender for Ghana and Nigeria. I believe that I have provided that data, and I shall happily furnish the noble Lord with the pieces of paper that relate to them. The noble Lord asked about how Nigerian and Ghanaian women coming to the UK with men are alerted by the Home Office to the presumption of certification that will operate. All dependents of asylum seekers are advised that they can apply for asylum in their own right. It is perfectly possible to be both a dependent and an asylum seeker at the same time. For example, if a wife’s asylum claim was successful but her husband’s was not, the husband could stay as the dependent of his wife. The noble Lord also asked whether, having taken the step of using powers to certify some but not all claims from a country, the Home Office would undertake to review all the countries on the designated list and consider refining its certification of claims from those countries. We keep the list of designated countries under review. We consider that all 14 of the countries presently on the list continue to meet the test for designation—the point that I made earlier to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe—taking account of the conditions for all residents across the whole country. Therefore, we do not consider that any changes are required to be made at present. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked whether the Home Office could say what percentage of claims from each of the countries on the designated list have not been certified in the past three years and could provide figures for the numbers of certified and non-certified cases. The proportion of refusals of asylum that have been certified across the current 14 listed states in the first nine months of this year is approximately two-thirds. The certification rate varies from country to country. This reflects the findings of the High Court that the IND treats each case on its merits and certifies an individual claim only where it is justified in individual circumstances. The noble Lord’s next point was whether the Home Office would confirm that it would not be appropriate to certify the claims of family members when members of the family whose claims are further advanced in the process have already been recognised as refugees. It is unlikely but not impossible that one family member’s claim could lead to refugee status while another had a clearly unfounded claim, for example, where they were of different nationalities. As I mentioned earlier, the spouse of a refugee could remain as a dependant of their spouse. The same is, of course, true of dependent children of a refugee.