Bishop calls on Government to manage mobility with humanity, transparency and justice

The Second Reading of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill in the House of Lords on Tuesday 6 December 2005

The Rt Revd John Gladwin, The Bishop of Chelmsford, took part in a debate on the second reading of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill in the House of Lords on Tuesday 6 December.

The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford: My Lords, the prospect of what I think is the fourth piece of legislation in this field since 1999 does not fill me with a huge amount of excitement. I was secretary to the Church of England's Board for Social Responsibility in the 1980s. A succession of Bills came from the other side of the House, and I remember feeling similarly unexcited by many of them. Surely there must be some limit to what we can achieve through legislative means. We need to consider a wider range of matters.

Those of us who have been thinking about these matters for a long time are aware that, consciously, unconsciously or subconsciously, those who are in politics or in government are responding to public opinion. There is a perception outside that too many people are entering our country, taking away our jobs, or getting social security benefits on false grounds. Those fears have now extended to potential terrorists. All these negative factors which lurk in the background of legislation undermine our capacity as legislators to think about the needs of the people who are directly affected by it. They are often very frightened people, who struggle with our language. They are vulnerable people. Many of them are fleeing tyranny; even more perhaps are fleeing poverty. Sometimes, they have vulnerable children and young people in tow; sometimes, they are on their own.

I am concerned that we respond to what happens. What happens if you withdraw social benefits from people who are caught up in the system? When social provision has not been made, they sometimes land up on the doorsteps of our churches. Having been scattered across the country, they sometimes land up on the doorsteps of local communities which are not very well equipped to deal with them. As a bishop, I can say to the House that I receive an increasing stream of letters from my clergy asking for advice on how to handle people who are asylum seekers or potential asylum seekers. The other week, some people spoke to me personally in a church. They said that they knew that were not here lawfully and asked what they should do about it. One then advises them to work with their parish priest in dealing with the authorities. They are not very well equipped to deal with these matters.

If you keep on tightening the law in this area, you might encourage people to opt out of compliance with the system. There is a perception that we do not know how many people are in this country unlawfully and that we should operate the system more tightly. But if the system is perceived as being more difficult, people will walk around the back of it and local communities will again feel the impact.

This country has a wonderful intellectual and value-based history. Uniquely, we have refused to tear apart what has sometimes been torn apart on the Continent; that is, our Christian-value history and the Enlightenment history in our public life. These two factors have generally held together and provided a moral base for our public life, and, not least, a basis for the very strong systems of volunteering that we have. So our commitment as a free people to justice, transparency and accountability, and our trust in our networks of civil society, are rooted in deep values that we need to hold on to.

My postbag indicates that the present system is under strain. Officials who are trying to work it are under pressure, which sometimes leads to negativity towards individuals and cynicism about the process. We need higher levels of professionalism; stronger training of those involved in the system; transparent codes of conduct; and a clear commitment to ensure that the same structures of justice are available to people seeking residence in our country as we expect for ourselves. The route to order, control and proper management is via the fundamental principles of a free society seeking justice without discrimination. Then, perhaps, fewer letters might go out to people requiring their appearance before tribunals in English when they hardly speak the language and summoning them to hearings hundreds of miles away without any clue or indication of how they will pay for their travel there.

Let me try to be specific about the Bill. I was gratified to catch a glimpse that the Government intend, for example, to strengthen the provision to ensure 100 per cent protection of children caught up in the process, not least children on their own. I would be pleased to hear from the Minister how we will progress that. I reinforce what has been said about the needs of international students and how extraordinary it must be to send people back somewhere else in the world to progress an appeal on the duration of their stay. That cannot be right, but if it is true for international students, why not for everybody else? Why do we draw that group of people out for special treatment? If it is not just for one group of people, what about everybody else?
I note the Clause 52 provision regarding detention and welcome some of the provisions in it. Will the Government report not just on the number in detention but on how long people are held for, who is there, what age ranges there are and whether programmes will be developed for their proper protection when they are caught up in those centres.

At the heart of the Bill is the desire for a massive reduction in appeals. How does that fit with the principles of justice? Surely we will not leave officials and appointees of the Home Office to be the final point of decision-making on what happens to people. Not only do vulnerable people need and deserve better but our officials also need protection by a proper system of appeal. However good the decisions taken by those—and there is cause to believe that we could do better—it is surely a matter of principle that access to independent systems of appeal is a basic right of every person. I would like to hear more on that.

I would also like to hear more about the rationale for the provisions regarding terrorism now added to the Bill. Many of us are cautious about interfering with the Geneva Convention and how it states those matters, and we wonder why we need those provisions. Dare I ask the question: what is the evidence that this is an important field for dealing with issues surrounding terrorism? We need proper evidence.

There are many good features of the legislation. I welcome the style in which the Minister has addressed them. In forming our concerns we must face the human reality that people travel and move around our world. Mobility is part of human life; we must manage it with humanity, transparency and justice.

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