asked Her Majesty's Government:

What evaluation they have made of the relative merits of running the Post Office and the railways primarily as public services with appropriate business disciplines or primarily as businesses which provide a public service; and what was the outcome of any such evaluation.

My Lords, the Post Office is a public limited company wholly owned by the Government. Network Rail will be a private regulated utility with members rather than shareholders. Both are legitimate structures appropriate for the specific circumstances.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very precise reply. Does he agree that on this issue, and more widely, there is a cultural crisis in this country because the primary purpose of the private sector is to produce profitability and a good return to shareholders and the primary purpose of public services is cost-effectively to provide the best possible public services? There is not much evidence of success in a happy marriage between the two. Can my noble friend assure the House that the Government will give this matter attention and give a strategic lead? If good use is to be made of the Chancellor's Statement this week—which we all applaud and welcome—we must promote a concept of public service as one of the highest callings and vocations in the nation?

My Lords, I rather feared that this was a philosophical question and that my noble friend would not be satisfied with practical answers. The Post Office has the structure it has because it had to be rescued from the worst possible form of public ownership—in other words, with no commercial incentives whatever. Network Rail will have the structure it will have because it has had to be rescued from the worst possible form of privatisation.

My Lords—

My Lords, if my noble friend will wait a moment. I served for many years successively in the public and the private sectors, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that the prime motivation in the public sector was the concept of service and in the private sector profitability and efficiency. Do the Government consider not only in relation to the Post Office and the railways—to which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred—but also in relation to health and education into which so much more money has been put, that they have managed to find a way of reconciling these two motivations?

My Lords, I believe that that is the implication of what I said in the first instance. There are different structures for these two forms of rescue. They are legitimately different in the sense that there are different requirements of them. But it is true that in both cases we must marry the advantages of business experience and responsibility to customers with the ideals of public service, to which my noble friend, Lord Judd, referred.

My Lords, could I ask the noble Lord, apart from appropriate business disciplines, whether the Government are in any way concerned with the continuous provision of public services?

My Lords. I am not sure that I understand that question. Public services will have to continue to be provided. I do not know what I am supposed to be concerned about.

My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House what arrangements have been made in relation to the Post Office for consultation with appropriate organisations? During a recent debate on Consignia we were assured that consultations would proceed.

Yes, my Lords and consultations are proceeding. Consignia—or, as I prefer to call it, the Post Office—will continue to perform the functions which were set out for it in the Postal Services Act 2000. It has Postcomm as a very powerful regulator to ensure that it maintains the universal service obligation, to regulate its prices and to promote greater competition.

My Lords, does the Minister think that the decision by the Post Office—as it is now called—to charge both the sender and the recipient of mail if it is received at a time which is consistent with doing a job such as noble Lords do in this House, is a sign that the rescue he referred to has succeeded?

My Lords, I suspect an element of that is the management of the Post Office flying a kite. No such charges have been agreed.

My Lords—

My Lords, does the Minister understand—sorry, no do come in. You had difficulty with one of your own members before.

My Lords, such kindness and courtesy is a feature of this House. Will the Minister admit that all the time that the Post Office was a public service it provided a good public service and paid money to the Treasury every year?

My Lords, that was partly the trouble. Yes, it did provide a good public service but also through its external financing limits far too much money from its surpluses were paid over to the Treasury with the result that there was long-term under-investment in the kind of mechanisation—to put it no higher than that—which was necessary for the Post Office to compete in the longer term. The freeing-up of those gilts, which was in the Secretary of State's announcement, is essential for the future survival of the Post Office.

My Lords, I am glad that I allowed the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, to precede me because I am very sympathetic towards the question that he asked. Is the noble Lord aware that people cannot understand why the Post Office, which ran a magnificent service for 150 years at a very cheap price and with absolute service to every part of this country, now has to open itself to competition? Is it not a fact that the reason for this problem is that the Post Office was reorganised in the way it has been reorganised to allow competition into the service in accordance with the single European market and the Single European Act? Is that not the problem?

No, my Lords, it has nothing to do with the Single European Act.

My Lords, will the Minister give us an assurance that there will not be two levels of delivery, depending on whether people have made a pre-payment? If that were the case, Nos. 25, 27 and 29 in a street could receive a delivery at seven o'clock, while Nos. 26, 28 and 30 could receive one at nine o'clock. That does not sound efficient, does it?

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, simply repeats the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. There are no firm plans to charge anyone at any time of the day. The matter is being considered by the Post Office.

My Lords, we are now into the ninth minute.

My Lords, I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as a trustee of Natural Justice, a charity concerned with the physical and social causes of offending behaviour. The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take to support the work of the charity Natural Justice and its research into the effect of poor nutrition on behaviour.

My Lords, both the Prison Service and the Home Office facilitated the original research project carried out by Natural Justice at Aylesbury young offender institution. While the study demonstrated that nutritional supplements had a positive effect on behaviour, the present pressures on the prison population mean that it is not currently possible to provide the practical support required to facilitate further research.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. Can I take it from that that the Government accept that there is a connection between diet and offending behaviour? In the young offender institution at Aylesbury, when a large number of prisoners were given dietary supplements, offending behaviour of the most serious type declined by almost 40 per cent. Does that not have the most serious and important implications for society as a whole and immediate implications for the management of prisons and the cost thereof? Is it not therefore very much in the interests of the Home Office to facilitate such research as much as it possibly can by allowing us access to prisons so that we can replicate the research that has already been carried out?

My Lords, we certainly accept that the research was useful and that the trial was encouraging. However, it must be placed in context. The sample was small: 231 prisoners. Sadly, the study could not be continued and its parameters extended to consider whether the reduced reoffending continued once the offenders had left prison and were no longer subject to the dietary regime. We accept that recent articles have highlighted considerable interest among the scientific community in the influence of diet. Obviously, we understand the benefits that a good, healthy diet may have on the otherwise often chaotic lifestyles of young offenders.

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chairman of the Environmental Medicine Foundation. Does the Minister not find it extraordinary that although those of us in the agricultural community are very aware of dietary deficiencies in our animals—cattle, pigs, sheep and goats, in my case—and are willing to replenish the diets of those animals to bring them up to peak condition, the Department of Health seems reluctant to accept that there may be dietary deficiencies in the community not because people are eating an unbalanced diet—although it is well proven that they are—but because they cannot absorb nutrients from straightforward foods as they can from dietary supplements? Will he co-operate with the Department of Health to consider what is happening to the human population of this country, including children's problems with attention deficit syndrome and so on, in order to put things right?

My Lords, obviously, I cannot speak for the Department of Health, but I am aware that in the NHS Plan 2000 a wide-ranging series of proposals were aimed at improving children's diets: for instance, the national school fruit scheme and the promotion of the "five a day" programme to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, which especially targets those children with the lowest intakes. The Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency are working with the food industry—manufacturers and caterers—to improve the overall balance of diet, including reducing fat and sugar. So the Government have an extensive programme and the Department of Health offers a great deal of advice on such matters and has encouraged schools to play an active part in encouraging a healthy diet from a young age.

My Lords, as there is clear evidence that certain types of food allergy lead not only to adverse physical reactions but to adverse emotional reactions, are the Government considering the cases of people who have bouts of violent behaviour that are unrelated to alcohol or substance misuse? Could not those cases be related to some form of food allergy? If so, that would provide an easy way to reduce criminal activity.

My Lords, obviously, such cases are important. I am sure that the prison health service will readily provide the advice that people who suffer from such problems need and give them access to the right sort of advice, support and encouragement.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one man's meat may be another man's poison? What efforts were made to continue the studies that, he said, it had not been possible to continue? It shows a defeatist attitude to say that.

My Lords, I do not accept the noble Baroness's second point; her first point goes without saying. There was—is—continued dialogue, and I understand that Natural Justice is interested in doing some continued work with children in the juvenile estate. That may prove to be a profitable course of action, but it is likely that the research will need to extend beyond offender institutions. As I said, one fundamental deficiency of the study was that it did not examine whether the reduced offending rates inside the institution continued outside it. In the longer term, that might be a better test.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Home Office has considered evidence on the influence of diet on prisoners' behaviour for, at least, 20 years? Many of us are convinced that there is a direct causal link; one need only consider the effect of a sugar-free diet on a hyperactive child. It is time that we realised the valuable savings that could be made from application of that knowledge.

My Lords, we all accept—I, too, have young children—that a child's diet fundamentally affects the way in which he or she behaves. That is why I drew attention to the important work going on in schools. We should consider not only the prison population or those in young offender institutions but all our children. We must ensure that they have the right diet, and, if that has a beneficial influence on their behaviour, it will be to the greater social good.

My Lords, does the Minister accept that the fact that we were unable to carry out the work on prisoners after release has no bearing whatsoever on the significance of the research for the management of prisons? If we can reduce offending behaviour in prisons, there will be a reduction in costs and the management of prisons will be made very much easier. That is the point.

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a respectable point. I am sure that the study had value of itself; we recognise and acknowledge that.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What contribution they have been able to make to a reduction in HIV prevalence rates in sub-Saharan Africa, and in which countries.

My Lords, sub-Saharan Africa is the worst affected region in the world, with an average HIV prevalence rate of 9 per cent, corn pared to a global prevalence rate of 1.2 per cent. The figures are rising. However, successes in reducing prevalence rates in Uganda and Zambia provide us with much to learn and much to hope for. The Department for International Development continues to work throughout Africa, including Uganda and Zambia, to combat HIV/AIDS. We have committed over £180 million to direct programme funding in 2000–01 and considerable additional funding to support non-governmental organisations and international institutions such as UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation in the fight against AIDS in Africa.

There is no magic bullet. Prevalence rates generally are still climbing, and the sheer scale of the epidemic means that HIV/AIDS is and will continue to be one of the biggest threats to development in Africa.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. She implied, I think, that it was only through long-term education and raising awareness that countries will defeat this terrible scourge. It is only because of Barcelona and other conferences that we have suddenly become aware of that.

There is a tremendous need for political will, above all in sub-Saharan Africa. Does the Minister agree that it is only in countries such as Uganda, where there is a degree of political control and national unity, that the campaign can succeed? Why, if the Government have such political commitment, is their contribution—drawn from existing aid budgets, not new ones—still so small?

My Lords, I agree with the noble Earl that political will is important. However, it is not sufficient in itself. In countries such as Uganda and Senegal, we have seen political leadership of the highest order in the fight against HIV/AIDS. In those countries, we have also seen a demonstration of the importance and effectiveness of supporting strategies to promote awareness and behavioural change through information, education and community mobilisation. Those countries have also supported the prevention of infection through condom promotion and the treatment of sexually transmitted infections. There has also been support and encouragement for voluntary counselling and testing.

It is significant that, in those countries, there has been a real effort to reduce the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and the denial that goes with it, both of which lead to a greater problem.

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the importance of sexual and reproductive health in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Can she reaffirm the Government's commitment to providing sexual and reproductive health services in sub-Saharan Africa? Which non-governmental agencies do the Government use to promote better standards of sexual and reproductive health in Africa?

My Lords, I confirm that the Government support sexual and reproductive health programmes in southern Africa. We contribute to programmes organised by the WHO, UNAIDS and the UN Family Planning Association, among others.

My Lords, can the Minister say whether it is true that, of the 28.5 million people in Africa affected by HIV/AIDS, 58 per cent are women? What implications does that fact have for programmes of intervention?

My Lords, my noble friend is right. Throughout Africa, women are more vulnerable to HIV than men and are affected at an earlier age. The prevalence among teenage girls in some countries of sub-Saharan Africa is five times greater than among boys. Girls are more vulnerable because they become sexually active at a younger age and are often unable to negotiate safe sex or to stop coercive sex. In some communities, girls must sell sex to make a living.

My Lords, how great is the United Kingdom's contribution to the global fund for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis? To what extent have we encouraged the European Union to make an equivalent contribution, proportionate to its ability to pay?

Will the experience of the Brazilians—particularly with the manufacture of generic drugs under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which allows patents to be broken in cases of national emergency—be read across to southern Africa? Does the Minister think that the global fund will be instrumental in helping that to happen?

My Lords, the UK's contribution to the global fund is £140 million over five years. It is being made from previously unallocated funds. The UK's bilateral spending on HIV/AIDS-related work in 2001–02 is over £200 million. I am sure that, following the Comprehensive Spending Review, the House will welcome the increase in resources to assist programmes tackling AIDS in Africa.

I will write to the noble Lord about the situation in Brazil.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What steps they have taken to investigate the circumstances in which, as recently reported, twins conceived by in vitro fertilisation were born to a couple who are not their genetic parents.

My Lords, we are, of course, very concerned about these reports. I can assure noble Lords that we have arranged for a thorough independent investigation to be carried out. Perhaps I could add that at last week's court hearing the judge directed that the Government should not announce that they had set up an investigation. That was because she was anxious to keep discussion of this case to a minimum to protect the families and children concerned. I have mentioned the investigation today because the noble Earl asked me a specific question about it and I could not mislead the House. But it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on the nature of the investigation.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Perhaps I may begin by making clear that this Question is in no way intended as a means of eliciting the identities of any of the individuals involved in the particular case reported in the press. However, that very disturbing story gives rise to some serious concerns about the role of the HFEA as the regulator of IVF clinics. What confidence can people have that the procedures followed in IVF clinics are proof against error? Is the Minister confident that the monitoring systems employed by the HFEA are satisfactory in all respects?

My Lords, I understand the concerns of members of the general public. The HFEA has stated it is confident that the incident reported is an extremely rare event and it has no reason to believe there are other cases. As regards the performance of the HFEA, it undertakes an inspection of each clinic every year looking at specific aspects, and an in-depth inspection of each clinic every three years. Where there is concern about standards or compliance with good practice the authority can and does apply stringent conditions under which the licence can operate. That can and has resulted in clinics being prevented treating patients.

However, I assure the noble Earl that as part of our own monitoring process we ensure that there are regular discussions between ourselves and the authority, identifying any problems and requiring the authority to put them right.

My Lords, the Government, in their response to the report of the Select Committee of this House on stem cell research, stated that they agreed with the committee that they should keep the funding of the HFEA under review and ensure that its resources were commensurate with its increased responsibilities. In the light of recent events, are the Government satisfied that the HFEA has sufficient resources to carry out its current regulatory responsibilities?

My Lords, the Government accept that the HFEA has increased its activities over recent years and that funding has not kept pace with it. Much of the resource that the HFEA spends comes from licensing fees and the HFEA is currently undertaking a consultation on the level of those fees. However, the Government have invited the HFEA to assess what additional resources it needs and, when put forward as a proper business case, that matter will be very carefully considered by my department.

My Lords, can the Minister explain why publication of the HFEA's annual report for 2002 was delayed for more than six months and why the same applied to the patients' guide the previous year?

My Lords, there were some problems with the authority's IT infrastructure which delayed the availability of the recent performance data. My understanding is that the authority hoped to receive the data and delayed publication of the report. The data were still not available so the report was published late. The actual data information will shortly be available on the HFEA's website. Clearly, the authority needs to improve its data collection and analysis procedures. The matter is under discussion between my department and the authority.

My Lords, how can we be sure that it is a rare event?

My Lords, I referred in my original Answer to the investigation that we have launched. I do not believe that I can comment further.

My Lords, is the Minister concerned that reports of serious faults in IVF are now increasingly frequent? Is it the case, as has been reported, that in some 80 per cent of women the treatment fails? Does he see anything wrong in Britain spending millions of pounds aborting natural babies and millions more procuring babies by scientific procedure?

My Lords, there are clearly mixed views. I believe that ultimately it is a matter of personal conscience. Of course, the provision of infertility services takes place under the law passed by Parliament more than 10 years ago, regulated by the HFEA. I believe that Parliament has made its views clear. As regards the success rate, the figures I have estimate that a woman aged under 35 has a 30 per cent chance of a successful pregnancy.

My Lords, can the Minister say whether the Government intend to do anything to validate other births through IVF from the same NHS clinic or from any other clinics practising IVF?

My Lords., there are clearly lessons to be learnt which will have to be considered very carefully.

My Lords, does the scale of the damage done to two or four individual people by this clinical slip cause the Government to assess how much more stringent the control of procedures should become now that genetic engineering procedures are available to us?

My Lords, it is clear that we need robust regulatory machinery in place which works effectively. It is the Government's intention to ensure that that happens.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton will repeat a Statement which is being made in another place entitled Justice For All.

My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the law relating to sexual relations with persons lacking capacity to consent to sexual relations, and with vulnerable adults to whom a duty of care is owed; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.— (Lord Rix.)

On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

My Lords, on behalf of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mustill, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.

Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(Lord Hooson.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Filkin.) On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

moved Amendment No. 170A:

Page 30, line 40, after "persons" insert "over the age of eighteen"

The right reverend Prelate said: On behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford, I rise to speak in support of the amendment. It arises on grounds of principle as well as being informed by the casework undertaken by the staff and volunteers of the Churches Commission for Racial Justice. The commission acts on behalf of all the mainstream Christian denominations through Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. The CCRJ shares a coalition of concern with other children's charities, including the Save the Children Fund.

The amendment aims to ensure that children and their families are not housed in detention or removal centres by redefining the centres to exclude children. It assumes that, as the Government would always seek to keep families together, no families with children would be detained.

Based on experience, there is a strong belief among children's charities and refugee organisations that detention centres can never provide the most appropriate and supportive environment for vulnerable children. In earlier debates it has been pointed out that the well-being and development of the child should be a primary and not a secondary consideration. In other words, if we believe that living in certain institutional settings may damage children, then it is indefensible to place them in such settings.

The Home Office considers that prison is not the best environment for young children and therefore babies are taken from their mothers by the age of six months. If prison is not the best environment for these young children, to the extent that the Government think it preferable to separate them from their mothers, then why does the same government department believe that detention centres are an acceptable environment for children seeking asylum?

We know that such children are particularly vulnerable. At best, they will have suffered upheaval and loss. At worst, they will have been involved in unimaginable horrors in situations of war and persecution. Our compassion for their circumstances, rather than the fraught politics of asylum policy, should shape the way we seek to care for them. Indeed, placing children in institutionalised settings that are not focused on meeting their needs is likely to contribute to and intensify their existing problems.

The policy of detaining families with children represents a recent shift in government policy. Until last year, the Government were apologetic about the detention of children, saying that as a rule it was undesirable and necessary only in exceptional circumstances. But they have now greatly widened the criteria for detaining families. The White Paper preceding this Bill endorsed the policy of detaining children in asylum-seeking families prior to removal. It also made a vague, open-ended statement about detention in other circumstances "where necessary".

But there has been no explanation from the Government as to why this change of policy is necessary. Indeed, the Home Office has conceded that there is no statistical evidence to show that families with children are more likely to abscond or less likely to make a successful claim for asylum. I invite the Minister to explain why the Government now believe that it is necessary to increase the detention of families with children. Furthermore, in the light of the new policy, what legal safeguards will be in place to prevent immigration officers from acting in an arbitrary manner when making decisions on whether to detain families?

The proposals to focus on the use of detention-for-removal will mean that even more children and their families are detained. That is in the context of the UK detaining more people seeking asylum than does any other country in Europe. The Government do not appear to be responding to the cautionary lessons emerging from Yarlswood. There, vulnerable children were incarcerated with distressed and desperate adults. In such situations, would the Government still argue that the needs of the child had been put first?

Detention also gives rise to a range of child protection concerns. There are many risks to child safety in institutional care, given the power and control that staff have in such settings. Furthermore, children and families who try to avoid living in such centres will become part of a hidden population whose whereabouts can be difficult to track. In turn, that makes it even more difficult to promote and protect the rights and needs of the child.

Recognising that the concerns of the Churches Commission for Racial Justice are widely shared across the voluntary sector, it should not be suggested that these are the arguments of unrealistic idealists. They are concerns arising from practitioners. They resonate with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That convention helps to provide a framework of principles for our treatment of children. The Government have signed up to that convention, which states that the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration in all policies affecting children. I should be interested to know whether, in the face of opposition from all the major children's charities, the Government believe the detention of children and young people to be in their best interests.

Detention also gives rise to serious concerns in respect of violations of other articles of the UNCRC, in particular the duty on the state not to discriminate, the duty to ensure to the maximum extent possible the development of the child, the duty to enable freedom of association and the duty not to interfere with privacy and family. Can the Minister tell the Committee what is the legal advice on compliance with the convention in respect of children in detention centres?

In conclusion, I reiterate the view that detention facilities cannot afford children the care and protection they need. On the contrary, they may have a serious negative impact on the child's physical and emotional health and well-being. I would urge the Government to revisit and revise their policy of sanctioning and expanding the detention of families with children. The evidence to date suggests that it is a step neither necessary nor proportionate. I beg to move.

Before turning to the amendment itself, perhaps I may ask the Minister who is to respond initially whether he has seen a report from Geoff Meade, the European editor of PA News, about remarks said to have been made by the Secretary of State in connection with his meeting with his French opposite number, Nicholas Sarkozy, concerning the issue of the closure of the Sangatte centre in Calais. According to the report, Mr Blunkett said that he had,

"already made provision for [this] Bill to be speeded up, short-cutting the usual procedures, so that it could be in place by mid-October".

Later the right honourable gentleman is said to have remarked that,

"if Britain could send 'early signals' to France about the Bill's progress and possible completion in July, London and Paris may be in a position at the September meeting in Frethun to set an early deadline for closure before the end of this year, rather than in the first quarter of next year".

I can hardly believe that the Secretary of State will have made those remarks, but it is important that noble Lords should be given an early repudiation of what PA News has said so that we do not have to cross swords with the Secretary of State over interference with proceedings in your Lordships' House, which of course would be highly improper. I can only think that there must have been a misunderstanding between the Secretary of State and the journalist who reported him in these words. The matter should be cleared up at the earliest possible stage.

I turn now to the amendment. The right reverend Prelate was correct to mention the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government have any intention of continuing with the reservation on Article 22 which allows them to take these steps, or whether we should become full signatories to the convention, as are most other states that have signed it. The reservation is harmful to our image abroad and to our position as leaders in championing human rights around the world.

As the right reverend Prelate has already commented, the children put into these detention centres have not broken any laws. Their only so-called "crime" will be that their mother or father has claimed asylum or otherwise sought to remain in the United Kingdom. Yet it is now the intention of the Secretary of State to detain these children, along with their parents, for what may be an indefinite period of time. We all know of instances where people have been detained for several months on end.

As far as I am aware, the only other children in the United Kingdom whose liberty is restricted in a similar way are children who have been brought before a criminal court, or who are subject to an order tinder the Mental Health Act 1983, or those who have had a secure accommodation order made by a family court.

I refer the Minister to the official guidance given in the Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations Volume 1 Court Orders in relation to the making of secure accommodation orders for children. That guidance states:

"Restricting the liberty of children is a serious step which must be taken only when there is no genuine alternative which would be appropriate. It must be a 'last resort' in the sense that all else must first have been comprehensively considered and rejected".

Furthermore, under those provisions children can only be placed in secure accommodation for a maximum of 72 hours in any 28-day period unless a court order is obtained. So the Government have to justify detaining children as a first as opposed to a last resort, as they plan to do under the Bill.

There is also the question of the incompatibility of these provisions with the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 5(1)(d) of that convention only permits,

"the detention of a minor by lawful order for the purpose of educational supervision or his lawful detention for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority".

In Re K (Secure Accommodation Order: Right to liberty) [2001] 1 FLR 526, the learned judge, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, stated:

"In each case where a secure accommodation order is applied for, the English court, at any level, must have the requirements of Article 5(l)(d) in mind when considering the relevant criteria, and thereby the compatibility of the section with the Convention right".

So the Government have an obligation to explain to the Committee how the detention of children in these centres is compatible with their duties under the Human Rights Act and how they came to make a statement on the face of the Bill that there was nothing in it that was not compatible with our obligations under the convention.

The right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, have argued the case for their amendment very fully and effectively. However, I should like to know the thinking of my noble friend the Minister on one specific point. As I understand it, the Government's position is that people in these places could conceivably—despite being there—be accepted as legitimate asylum seekers. If it should prove that they are legitimate asylum seekers, God knows what traumas and awful experiences such families and children will have been through already. How can we contemplate putting them in a position of anxiety and stress, which will inevitably be found in such centres, after all they have been through? How can my noble friend deal with that point?

I, too, support the right reverend Prelate in his reasonable amendment which seeks to restrict the use of detention to adults, ensuring that families with children under 18 are not kept in detention. It is the view of the Refugee Children's Consortium and many others that detention centres are not appropriate for vulnerable children. We forget sometimes that we are talking about a vulnerable category of children who have committed no offence and whose parents have committed no offence but are merely awaiting the outcome of an application. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, implied that a very small number of children are affected. In fact, they constitute a substantial number of those in detention.

Under successive UN conventions these children should receive more protection than other children. I was working with Save the Children soon after the UN convention was passed and signed and I remember how strongly children's charities felt at that time about those rights as they passed into our own legislation in the form of the Children Act 1989. Those organisations now say that the Bill, unamended, could be in breach of no fewers than 12 articles of the convention.

As the right reverend Prelate said, it is well established under the Children Act that the best interests of the child should be a primary consideration. So why have MPs and Peers had to repeat this amendment on children in various asylum Bills over the 13 years since that Act was passed?

Like the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity, yet again, to explain the Government's reservations about Article 22 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which are beyond most people's comprehension. Phrases such as "not normally detained", "used sparingly", "regrettable" and "most exceptional" will not do. If the Minister repeats those phrases today he will not satisfy those who work with these children and will only bring us back to the same arguments at Report stage.

When discussing the issue of bail for immigration detainees on Second Reading, I referred to the case of a mother who was detained with her sick 18 months-old child for four months pending removal and a judicial review. As the right reverend Prelate said, the fire at Yarl's Wood is another recent example of the risks associated with such a policy. We now know from our debates on Monday that detention means detention and rarely removal. The holding of children for that length of time is both immoral and against international law.

For a long time now the theory has been that detention should be used only in the minimum necessary number of cases. When the Minister replies, will he say what has changed since 1999? Will he also give an explanation of what is meant by "exceptional circumstances"? Do not the Government agree that daily reporting would he far more satisfactory than either the detention of children or, if that is to be avoided, the splitting up of families? Both procedures are totally deplorable and should be avoided at all costs.

I owe an apology to my noble friends on the Front Bench. Such has been the frenzied progress on the Bill that I fear an act of politeness has failed me. When I was a pairing Whip the late Lord Braine once gave me an excuse that he had missed a Division because he had been in a Hindu temple meditating and the matter had slipped his mind. I am in the same condition on this occasion.

I notice that the party which I share with my Front Bench has not put its name to this amendment. I am not clear whether my noble friends believe that Mr Malins received a satisfactory answer in Standing Committee E in the Commons on 14th May at cols. 23573X2013;236 of Hansard or whether the circumstances in which the issue was raised, which concerned detention by the Secretary of State, referred to a different case. It may be that I shall learn more about our own attitude before the Minister responds to the debate.

I do not normally take part in the Committee stage of this Bill but, before the Minister replies, I wish to speak to the issue on which the debate concluded on Monday. This is the first opportunity I have had to do so. I believe that it raises serious constitutional issues.

We were discussing at that point in Committee the issue of the naming of the centres in which these children might be detained. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, raised the issue of whether some centres have already been renamed as removal centres, with official headings on letters to that effect, even though there has been no approval by this House or Parliament as a whole about that change of name.

If we are discussing a crucial amendment about the detention of children—which is an appalling act for a modern, civilised state—we should at least consider it in the context of what kind of centre these children are being sent to. We now understand that under the direction of the Home Secretary—which, with great respect, sounds more like an action of President Putin than that of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—these changes have been made.

The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, promised the House an explanation and said that we would be allowed to see documents. I apologise, in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for intervening. However, it raises grave constitutional issues if a Minister acts as though legislation has been passed when it has not. I hope that the Minister will be kind enough to offer an explanation as we proceed with the amendment.

The right reverend Prelate has done us a favour in bringing forward this important amendment, and my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville always does me a favour when he intervenes, as on this occasion. Indeed, when my honourable friend Mr Matins spoke to these matters in another place and when we looked in detail at the Minister's answers in Hansard, we determined that we were not fully satisfied with that response. We felt that the Government needed to be pressed more closely in this place to justify their policy.

A couple of weeks ago, I met representatives of the Refugee Children's Consortium. I was struck by their deep concern over the Government's continuing policy of detaining families with children. I noted their strong objection to the detention of children, based on the belief that detention centres cannot afford children the care and protection they need or uphold their rights under human rights law. They drew attention to the interference with the child's rights to freedom, to a normal social life and to education. As the consortium rightly pointed out, detention facilities are never the best environment for children and may have a serious negative impact on their physical and emotional health and well-being.

These are sensitive issues to which the Government must address themselves. They may provide justification which persuade us. But this is the time and the place to press the Government. If we are unable to reach a conclusion today, I am sure that this will continue to be an issue. I am willing to give the Government the opportunity to persuade me. I shall listen carefully to their reply.

Before my noble friend responds to the amendment, perhaps I may respond to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury.

I have the Home Office press release before me. I do not have the PA report referred to. It is clearly desirable that the Bill is passed as soon as is practicable, consistent with parliamentary consideration and scrutiny. It will be clear to all Members of the Committee that that will not be before the Summer Recess.

Before I deal with the amendment, I want to pick up the point quite properly raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, about the naming of removal centres. I gave a clear undertaking the other day that I would write to Members of the Committee on the matter. That remains the case. I am not in a position to provide a response today, but we shall provide the response that was properly requested. As I believe I said when the matter was raised previously, I will ensure that all Members of the Committee who have taken part in the discussion will be availed of a copy of the correspondence.

This has been a useful debate. It has enabled us to focus on some important issues and some tough decisions that often have to be made in the exercise of immigration and asylum legislation.

The amendment to Clause 56 moved by the right reverend Prelate would mean that removal centres could not be used to hold detained persons under the age of 18. Let us be quite clear about that. However, it would not prevent the detention of those under 18 in other places designated for the purposes of detention under the Immigration Act 1971. I refer, for example, short-term holding facilities.

Our current policy on the detention of minors is clear. It is, of course, very regrettable to have to detain those who are under 18, but there are two limited sets of circumstances in which we may decide to do so. The first is where it is considered necessary in line with our policy to detain a family with children. In such a case, it is surely better for the children to be detained with the parents rather than to separate the family, which is likely to cause the children needless distress and anxiety. To suggest that in that case families should not be detained is, frankly, unrealistic. They may need to be detained while their identities or the basis of their claim are established, because they are unlikely to comply with the terms of temporary admission or release, to effect their removal, or as part of the fast-track asylum process at Oakington reception centre.

Secondly, there are exceptional instances where it is necessary to detain an unaccompanied minor while alternative care arrangements are made. The detention would normally be just overnight and in most cases with appropriate care facilities. A minor arrives alone late at night at a port of entry, for example, without family or adult relatives to go to. I am sure we can imagine circumstances arising from time to time fortunately, not too frequently, but they do arise—in which immigration officers and staff have to make hard decisions.

In such cases, we believe that it is right that the minor should be held until alternative care arrangements can be made, either with relatives or with the local social services department. The limited circumstances in which minors may be detained are sensible and reasonable—and fair for those who may be affected. If a young person comes to this country with no knowledge or understanding of the language and is confronted by officialdom, there may well be a strong case for holding that person in secure accommodation until someone can be brought there who has a knowledge and understanding of the language and who can explain what is likely to happen to that young person. In those circumstances, it would be foolish not to have some secure accommodation available.

A number of questions arose during the debate. I stress that the number of people affected at any one time is fairly limited. The total detention capacity is just 2009. Excluding Oakington, there are approximately 150 family beds. These are usually organised in family rooms with four beds. Therefore, the total number of families is likely to be no more than 30 to 40 at any one time, including parents. Therefore, it must be plain that the vast majority of families are not detained.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby raised the important issue of child protection. Every removal centre with family accommodation has to have a child protection policy in place, and appropriate training is provided to staff. Policies and training programmes have been carefully drawn up in consultation with experienced members of staff from local authorities and the NSPCC. Staff take child protection issues very seriously indeed.

We believe that we are acting within the spirit of our human rights and UNCRC obligations. Questions were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and others about compatibility with Article 5. Article 5(1)(d) specifically permits the detention of a minor by lawful order for the purpose of education supervision and his or her lawful detention for the purpose of bringing him or her before the competent legal authorities. Article 5(1)(f) expressly permits the detention of a person to prevent his effecting an unauthorised entry to the country or of a person against whom action has been taken with a view to deportation.

The detention of children, regrettable though it is, is necessary from time to time. It is within the scope of Article 5(1)(f) and is not prevented by Article 5.

We believe that we are exercising our powers in a proportionate, reasonable and fair-minded way. We make full provision to protect the welfare and interests of the child. The circumstances in which detention is effected are limited and are related to the two areas that I outlined earlier. For those reasons, I ask the right reverend Prelate to consider withdrawing the amendment.

The noble Lord referred to the best interests of the child. Does he agree that they are best taken into consideration at the outset of the process, not after a decision to detain has been made? Does he also agree that if a child arrives late at night, as in his example, the local authority social services department would be perfectly capable of dealing with the matter, just as it would with any child who was not being looked after by a guardian or adult and who might need its care?

I accept nearly all of what the Minister said about unaccompanied children arriving at ports. Nevertheless, will he respond to my suggestion that daily reporting by parents with children is far preferable to detention? On the important constitutional point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, about the change of name, will the Minister be kind enough to place a copy of his reply in the Library so that it is available to other Members in addition to those who took part in that debate?

Of course a copy of that correspondence will be placed in the Library so that it is on the record and readily accessible to other noble Lords. To answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, we have to take the welfare and interests of the child into account at all times during the process. That has to be a primary consideration.

However, I ask the noble Lord to contemplate this point. However generous a spirit we have about asylum seekers, I am sure that the noble Lord accepts that some of them will be removed from this country at the end of the process because they are fundamentally in breach of our laws and regulations and are outwith the asylum process. They are illegal immigrants to this country. Some people caught within that process will attempt to abscond from the lawful authority. From time to time, children will he involved with those adults. Hard though those decisions may be, it is right that we have to place such people within secure accommodation and it is in the interests of the welfare of their children that they remain with them, so that at least the children are with adults whom they know and recognise—their family and their immediate kith and kin. Difficult though those decisions are, they have to be taken.

Of course the best advice will be taken from those involved in the welfare and care of children in local authorities. As I made plain at the outset, the desire of immigration officials is to ensure that early contact is made with social services so that they can be introduced to the situation, offer their best advice and make a proper and full assessment.

Will the noble Lord reply to my suggestion about reporting by parents with children who would otherwise be detained?

If the assessment is that the family unit presents no risk of absconding, those sorts of reporting arrangements may well be put in place. I cannot predict that that will always be the case, because it may not be. Those judgments have to be made by those most immediate to the case—the case officers and those handling the difficult circumstances. It is best left to their discretion. We cannot easily prescribe it here in the comfort of a debating Chamber.

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am encouraged that he emphasised the exceptional and short-term nature of such arrangements. I urge that that will turn out to be the case. It was said in a recent letter and in answer to a parliamentary Question that there is no statistical evidence or reason for increasing the detention of families. I hope and urge that it will remain an exceptional provision. In the light of the Minister's reply, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move that the House be now resumed for the Statement.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

House resumed.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:

"I wish to make a Statement on the reform of the criminal justice system in England and Wales. We are today publishing a White Paper outlining an end-to-end reform of the service.

"First, however, I pay tribute to all those who have assisted in this tripartite paper. The Lord Chancellor, the Attorney-General and I wish to thank in particular Sir Robin Auld for his review of criminal courts and John Halliday for his sentencing review.

"The people of this country deserve a criminal justice service that works in the interests of justice and puts the victim first. The White Paper is designed to rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of the victim and deliver justice for all. We are sending the strongest possible message to those who commit crime that action will be effective in detecting, convicting and properly punishing the perpetrator.

"We have a tradition of justice in this country going back centuries. We have embarked on reform of the police and an overhaul of youth justice, including a dramatic drop in the time it takes to bring young offenders to justice. The street crime initiative has already made a difference by bringing together the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the court administration.

"I can announce today that, following the Chancellor's Statement on Monday, we will invest over £600 million over the next three years in information technology. This will help us join up the criminal justice system.

"But root and branch reform across the board is still required. Delay, inefficiency and repeated adjournments are costing us dear. Through improved police investigation, case management and presentation, conviction of the guilty must be secured and acquittal of the innocent ensured. We seek not simply the process of justice, but the visible evidence that justice has been done. Every time someone on bail offends, or a case collapses or the wrong verdict is revealed later, we compound the harm done to victims and to society as a whole.

"We will ensure that victims and witnesses are protected. We will provide them with separate facilities from the accused. To ensure that their views are heard, we will establish a victims' commissioner, supported by a new advisory panel. Above all we will deliver faster, more effective justice.

"Our actions will be underpinned by the fundamental principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty and that the prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

"However, the one in eight defendants who fail to appear at court will be dealt with swiftly and summarily. We will bring in incentives for early guilty pleas, deal decisively with delays arid improve the use and availability of forensic and technological expertise.

"As soon as practicable, the Crown Prosecution Service will have responsibility for determining the charge in the most serious cases, other than where the police need to make a holding charge. We will allow the police to impose conditions on bail before charge to limit the chances of offending.

"Disclosure of evidence is currently a battleground between defence and the prosecution. This leads to delay and considerable cost. We will rebalance the rules of disclosure. Both the prosecution and defence will be obliged to disclose all the material necessary.

"We will make the rules of evidence simpler and clearer. Relevant previous convictions will be admissible where the judge believes it would be helpful to the jury without prejudicing the defendant's right to a fair trial.

"In time, we will integrate the management of the courts into a single organisation.

"We will extend the sentencing power of magistrates from six months to 12 months and legislate to allow Parliament to extend this to 18 months.

"I can tell the House that the right of defendants to elect for jury trial will remain. However, in order to deliver justice in serious and complex fraud trials, we will seek Parliament's consent that such cases can be tried by a judge sitting alone. We will consult on whether a judge sitting alone should deal with trials where the danger of intimidation makes justice difficult to achieve. In addition, we will explore a similar option for complex financial or organised criminal cases. We have a real problem when in some parts of the country around three quarters of jury trials result in acquittals.

"We will produce in the months ahead a joint paper on long-term prevention for children at risk. We will legislate in the next Session to increase the powers of youth courts to hear more serious offences.

"Currently, no one can be tried more than once for the same offence. This is known as double jeopardy. We will allow for a retrial in cases where compelling new evidence such as DNA has come to light. This will cover murder and very serious offences such as rape.

"As I said last year, we must put the sense back into sentencing. For the first time, we will set out in legislation the purpose of sentencing: to protect the public, to punish the perpetrator and to prevent re-offending. We will establish a guidelines council to ensure greater consistency in sentencing and ensure Parliament has a role in considering and scrutinising draft guidelines.

"We will introduce a new suspended sentence of `custody minus' which will provide automatic imprisonment for offenders who breach their sentence. We will reform short custodial sentences and introduce, once piloted, 'custody plus', requiring offenders to serve the whole of their sentence—partly in custody, and the remainder under strict supervision. A new intermittent custodial sentence will mean that offenders spend part of the week in custody. Reparation, drug and alcohol treatment will help address offending behaviour.

"However, in protecting the public we are placing emphasis on dealing with dangerous violent and sexual offenders. Those not sentenced to life imprisonment, but who are nevertheless a danger to society, will remain in custody until they are considered safe for release. An indeterminate sentence will ensure they will be released under strict supervision only when they are no longer assessed to be a threat to the public. This House takes seriously its duty to protect the public, and we wish to ensure that democratically elected representatives retain the right to protect those we serve. A whole life tariff should mean life.

"The proposals we have set out are far-reaching, radical and require a culture change. To achieve this, we will need the support of those working in the service and of the wider public. We will need a balanced and sensible debate which I hope will be led by this House today. We need to reinforce trust and confidence in the criminal justice system as we seek to deliver justice for all.

"I commend this Statement to the House".

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord for repeating the Statement. I hope that he will forgive me for not exhibiting complete mastery of the contents of the White Paper; it arrived on my desk only this morning and will require considerable study before we can return to the subject. However, I hope that, when that study is complete, the noble and learned Lord will agree to a much more extensive debate in your Lordships' House about its contents.

Crime in all its evil manifestations—violent crime, sexual crime, drug-driven crime, organised crime—is, I suppose, the greatest single domestic threat to the wellbeing of our society. The Opposition welcome this White Paper, animated by—as the noble and learned Lord said—the reports of Sir Robin and Mr Halliday. I think that all political parties in your Lordships' House must recognise that the onward march of crime has outmanoeuvred even the most adroit of modern Home Secretaries.

As I understand it, the organising theme of the White Paper is to marshal all the component parts of the criminal justice system into a successful integrated force. I think that that is a wholly admirable objective. Indeed, it is only common sense. If the police do not successfully do their job of detecting crime, the courts will not have any prisoners to try. If the CPS is not properly resourced and does not do its job of bringing the right charges in relation to the right people, prosecutions will fail in the courts. If the courts are too biased towards the accused, many victims will not get justice. Equally, if they are too biased against the accused, we will find ourselves living in a totalitarian society. If we do not get our sentencing policy right, we will never rehabilitate criminals.

So all these parts are crucially linked together. If one of these links in the chain fails, all the others will be mortally wounded. So the philosophy behind this White Paper has to be the right one.

I am also impressed by the "oil" that the noble and learned Lord has provided to lubricate this co-ordinated system: substantial investment in IT communications. As I understand it, the noble and learned Lord has set the target, to be achieved by 2005, of allowing every victim to follow by means of IT facilities the progress of the trial affecting his alleged wrongdoer. That must improve the relationship between victims and our criminal justice system.

I can, in the time available to me, and on the information that I have at my disposal, touch on only a few of the details of the White Paper. I should like, first, to comment on the features that I wholly endorse. First, I am delighted and relieved that the courageous proposals of Sir Robin about a middle tier of courts do not feature in the White Paper. Secondly, I applaud the decision to increase the power of magistrates' courts to sentence for a period of up to 12 months.

Thirdly—this is one of the most imaginative proposals in my view—I endorse entirely what I understand to be the intention of the noble and learned Lord: to take the existing pleas and directions hearings in criminal trials and extend them to a proper interlocutory procedure; so that, by a process of successive approximation, what is ultimately heard by the trial jury are the issues germane to the offence, and nothing more. That objective seems wholly admirable.

The most controversial points about the proposals are going to be those affecting double jeopardy, the right to opt for trial by jury and, perhaps most of all, the suggestion that a previous criminal record can be put to the jury before it considers the allegations. I shall reserve any comment on these individual matters until I see the Government's detailed proposals. I am partially reassured by what the Minister said early in his Statement; namely:

"Through improved police investigation, case management and presentation, conviction of the guilty must be secured and acquittal of the innocent ensured".

That is a crucial addition to the earlier expression— that acquittal of the innocent is ensured.

I am sure that the noble and learned Lord needs no reminding from me of perhaps the most famous domestic policy utterance of Mr Churchill when he said that the hallmark of a civilised society is the protection it affords to the criminal accused. That should feature prominently on the desk of every official who is responsible for making any proposals in relation to questions of double jeopardy and the other matters to which I referred a minute ago.

We must also be cautious, when we look at rates of acquittal, not just to look at the trial procedure but also to look at the resources available to, and indeed the competence of, the CPS responsible for the particular area where the acquittal statistics are garnered. It is true that there are big differences throughout the country; but that may well reflect big differences in the standards met by the CPS. Here is an area where I think that the noble and learned Lord ought to proceed with great caution. But I take his general point that, in so far as our trial procedures now appear to be biased too much against the victim, he has to take the issue of criminal court proceedings very seriously.

I have just three other matters to mention before I subside. The first of these is about victims and magistrates' courts. If the noble and learned Lord is really serious about victim-driven reforms, he must stop closing down magistrates' courts—because there is nothing more detrimental to a victim than to have to travel long distances for his trial to be heard. That is equally true of witnesses. Given the large number of occasions on which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, have extolled local justice locally delivered, I simply cannot understand why this programme of closures of magistrates' courts is continuing. It may well be that the volume of cases in some of them is lower than whatever statistical test the Home Office applies; but in my submission that is a small price to pay for what we are seeking to achieve on behalf of the victim.

The second point concerns the Probation Service. I applaud the noble and learned Lord's imaginative approach to community penalties. That is one of the most successful features of the White Paper. But that policy will not succeed unless really substantial investment is made in the Probation Service. That is an absolutely crucial component and corollary of successful community penalties.

Finally, I should like to say something about the proposed committee for criminal procedure. I am second to none in my admiration for the Horne Office. It has a long tradition of integrity and the quality of its staff is extremely high. If I have one criticism, it is that the Home Office is perhaps a touch too excessively possessive about its powers. It took all the skilful diplomacy of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to expropriate just a small portion of these about a year ago. I should like to suggest to the noble and learned Lord that the journey upon which he is about to embark would be vastly more comfortable and immensely more successful if he gave the criminal law procedure committee that he is about to set up its head and allowed the judges to play a full part in designing these reforms which are so urgently needed for our country.

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I declare an interest as a practising barrister who both prosecutes and defends, a recorder of the Crown Court for 28 years and the son of a policeman. That covers a fair field.

I congratulate the Government as much on what the Statement does not say as on what it does. We welcome the abandonment of many of the proposals contained in the Auld report to restrict jury trial. Jury trial puts the citizen at the heart of the decision-making process. The jury represents the public interest in a democratic sense and is a vital safeguard against oppressive laws and oppressive prosecutions. Hence, we welcome the abandonment of the misconceived idea of appeals by the prosecution against so-called "perverse" verdicts.

We also welcome the proposals to prevent avoidance of jury service. It is wrong in a multicultural society that juries in long trials should not be representative in age, employment, gender and ethnic and religious background. Does the Minister envisage the reintroduction of the right of challenge on the basis that the jury called is not representative? Such matters are in the pipeline at the moment.

As regards fraud trials by judge alone, we shall examine the proposals with care. Experience shows that the simple issue in all fraud trials is whether dishonesty is proved. The standards of honesty should be set by the ordinary citizens on a jury. We are pleased that the Government have rejected the Auld proposal that experts or assessors should be called in to judge the defendant in accordance with the current practices and mores of the City or the commercial world. However, it is up to the prosecution to present a case in such a way that it is clear and can be understood by the jury. It is wrong in principle for a defendant to be convicted by a judge sitting alone and be sent to prison for criminal conduct that only an elite and not the general public can understand.

The proposals to end committal for sentence in the magistrates' court will do much to reduce Crown Court work: a positive encouragement will exist to elect for trial by magistrates. The extension of the sentencing powers of magistrates contained in the White Paper is therefore acceptable. However, it is important that magistrates should be encouraged to regard imprisonment as the last resort. The rhetoric of successive Home Secretaries has led to an unhealthy culture in which imprisonment is seen as the first resort. Fortunately, now both the Government and Her Majesty's Opposition seem to be moving to more liberal and more sensible policies of rehabilitation and reform. We welcome the restoration of the suspended sentence where prison would otherwise be imposed.

We support proposals for early guilty pleas and plea bargaining. Open plea bargaining is far better than the nudge and the wink. If there were not at the moment discussions between prosecution and defence as to what the issues are in a trial and how they can best be resolved, the whole system would break down now. That is why so many cases that reach the Crown Court crack on the day. The involvement of the judge is not usually necessary now that sentencing guidelines have been introduced and there is a recognised percentage reduction for a guilty plea. I am pleased to see that in the White Paper those practices are commended. In the old days it was the most vital function of the judge's clerk at assizes—totally unknown to the general public—to convey what his Lordship had in mind by way of sentence. Now, open plea bargaining is the way ahead. I hope that the Minister will confirm that discussions on a plea in a closed court should be entirely without prejudice to the defence at a subsequent trial if no accommodation is reached.

There is a greater emphasis on victims. Victims and witnesses frequently require protection and support. We welcome the proposals but there must be a balance. The public must remember that witnesses are frequently mistaken and sometimes lie. It is necessary to challenge them robustly if the truth is to be established. There is no point asking a witness, "Do you mind if I suggest to you that you are telling a lie"? if the witness replies, "No, I am not" and the interrogator then says, "Thank you very much. I apologise for asking the question". Obviously, defence counsel must do their job. ACPO and other police associations that make wild allegations about devious defence lawyers and their tricks are living in a world of fantasy. That is not surprising as one never sees a senior officer in court unless the High Sheriff is throwing lunch.

The section of the White Paper on pre-trial openness and transparency is balanced. There have been spectacular miscarriages of justice due to the withholding by the police and prosecution of relevant material; hence, the defence has had to adopt the practice of demanding to see everything that it can. It has been necessary for the court to take over control in relation to the decision about whether material should be held on public interest immunity grounds. Scientific evidence has in the past regrettably been faked. Accordingly, it has been necessary for the defence to make its own inquiries in that regard.

The White Paper calls for more detailed defence statements. That may be desirable but it should not be assumed that defendants always tell their lawyers the complete truth at the beginning. They sometimes have a perfectly good and truthful defence but finding out what that is is like extracting teeth. I should be extremely wary of drawing adverse inferences impinging on a privileged area involving the instructions that have been given by a defendant to his legal team at an early stage.

There are many other points in relation to the White Paper which will require detailed attention. We approve of and welcome many points about the White Paper but others will be subject to scrutiny and criticism in due course.

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for the welcome that they have given the White Paper. I also say on behalf of my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith that he regrets not being here today. He is unavoidably detained appearing in court on behalf of the Government. He would have wished to have been here today.

The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said that this is an issue for a much more extensive debate. I could not agree more with that, although I should be unwise to make any sort of commitments about having a debate in the House. That must be a matter for the business managers, as he well knows.

The noble Lord described crime as the single greatest threat to people's lives and livelihood. I agree. He welcomed the White Paper, for which I am grateful. He said that the philosophy underlying the White Paper, which he described as right, was marshalling all of the component parts of the criminal justice system into an effective fighting force. I would not quarrel with that description of one of the very important foundations of the White Paper.

The noble Lord congratulated us on the IT announcement and on particular parts of the White Paper. I need not go through that. He indicated what he considered the most controversial parts of the White Paper but I note that he did so without indicating whether he supported or opposed them and said that further debate was required. I await that further debate with interest.

The noble Lord concluded with three particular points. First, he emphasised the importance of local justice. We thoroughly endorse the importance of local justice. That point is made specifically in the White Paper. Secondly, he referred to the importance of the probation service. He was absolutely right to underline its importance. It will have an increasingly vital role in the important supervision proposals that are made in relation to the correctional and sentencing parts of the White Paper. Thirdly, he emphasised the importance of the committee for criminal procedure. I thoroughly endorse its importance. As he knows, the White Paper proposes that that should be put on a statutory basis.

Similarly, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford—who speaks with particular experience on this issue, as he indicated at the start of his speech—for his support for significant parts of the White Paper. He raised various issues, with which I shall deal very quickly. First, he said that he hoped that prison would be regarded as a last resort in relation to sentencing. As he made clear, prison must be required for dangerous sexual and violent offenders: those who threaten society. We thoroughly endorse the idea that short prison sentences are very often not appropriate and sentencers should look for alternatives where appropriate.

The noble Lord raised the point that any indication by the judge about what the sentence might be if there is a plea of guilty at the point at which the judge is indicating which sentence will be passed would be without prejudice to any subsequent defence. I give him that assurance.

The noble Lord emphasised the point that there needs to he a balance between victims and witnesses on the one hand and the defence on the other. He said that in certain trials it is of course important that there should be robust testing of the evidence of the victim and witnesses. I thoroughly endorse that but we believe that there must be a rebalancing under the present system without in any way compromising the justice to which the defendant is entitled. He described our proposals in relation to pre-trial disclosure, which make impositions on both the prosecution and the defence, as balanced. I am grateful for that.

My Lords, I have two questions for my noble and learned friend, which arise from his comments. The first point concerns delays. The White Paper says that the Government, or whoever the relevant body is, will deal decisively with delays. Can I take it that the prosecution will also be dealt with when it delays? I have not had an opportunity to read the White Paper any more than my noble friend—I mean the noble Lord, who is also a friend. How decisively will they deal with delays that are caused by the prosecution?

My second point involves the fact that disclosure of relevant previous convictions will be admissible where the judge believes that that would be helpful to the jury. Does my noble and learned friend agree that different judges behave differently and have different attitudes? Would it not be a good idea to have a guidelines council in this regard, as is envisaged elsewhere?

My Lords, I shall deal first with the point about delays. Delays would have to be dealt with from whichever side in a case they come, whether the prosecution or the defence. An important element in dealing with delay will be the proposal set out in the White Paper for much more proactive judicial case management. Judges will ensure by the orders that they make and the steps that they take that both sides in a criminal trial meet sensible but pressing timetables.

On relevant previous convictions, we say in the White Paper that previous convictions should go in when they are relevant and when the judge, exercising his discretion, considers that the prejudicial value does not exceed the probity value. I do not believe that it is possible to indicate precisely which previous convictions will go in and which will not. The examples given in the White Paper are of help in that regard. My noble friend suggests that perhaps there should be guidelines in that regard. We should develop the arrangement as time goes on through the judiciary.

My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord completely satisfied that a single administrative structure supporting the Crown Court and magistrates' courts will lead to greater efficiency? Who currently says that Crown Courts are better run than magistrates' courts? I have never heard that said. Is it really suggested that local project managers will be more responsive to local needs than the magistrates' courts committees? If one looks at chapter 7 of the Auld report, does one not find that Sir Robin himself was forced to the conclusion that there had to be a single administrative structure because that would be an inevitable result of there being a third tier? If we are no longer going to have a third tier, is it not very much better to stay where we currently are so far as administration is concerned?

My Lords, on administration, a unified system means that very many anomalies that presently exist can be ironed out. For example, it means that a Crown Court judge in the Crown Court can deal with the indictable offence before him and with that which is triable only summarily; he does not have to refer that back to a magistrates' court. That arrangement is inconvenient and wearisome for defendant, victim and witnesses. Equally, it means that the geographical place at which a trial can be heard can be set more easily so far as victims and witnesses are concerned. We are very keen to ensure that any changes bring administrative savings and preserve the arrangement concerning the importance of local justice, which the noble Lord discussed. In developing those ideas, we will ensure that there is extensive consultation with the magistracy to ensure that both those principles are preserved.

My Lords, I venture to think that the House will have noted with considerable pleasure that those who spoke from the Front Benches opposite were broadly in agreement with the White Paper. I say that because, if ever there was a matter that should be taken out of the political arena, it is the fight against crime.

The other point I want to raise is that the fight against crime must be a fight against recidivism as well. I did not notice very much in the White Paper or in the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, about rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is very much a weapon in our armoury which we dare not forget. Will more money be spent on rehabilitation by education in the prisons? Are more people to be enlisted? Is there to be a means by which those who leave prison are helped to find a job?

My Lords, I endorse what my noble friend said about the welcome nature of the cross-party support for these proposals. The proposals are explicitly described in the White Paper as both radical reform and root and branch reform of the criminal justice system. I welcome the support for the radical measures that we propose.

So far as concerns recidivism, the White Paper explicitly acknowledges the importance of fighting the reconviction rate. Whether one is referring to those coming out of prison or talking of community sentences, more than 50 per cent of people are reconvicted within two years. A concerted effort is required to attack that. The White Paper deals with the specific points to which my noble friend referred. In particular, it deals with the importance of equipping people who come out of prison with a skill. It also refers to the need to ensure that housing, alcohol or drug problems do not overwhelm people when they come out and cause them to offend again.

We need to address those issues in a long-term programme for fighting recidivism. The White Paper is a programme for the next five to 10 years fundamentally to transform the criminal justice system not only in relation to the court process but also in relation to sentencing, which is the important point raised by my noble friend.

My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, I have no current interest to declare, having retired. However, like him, I believe that I can claim to have had a similar experience of working in the criminal courts. I welcome much of the contents of what the Minister said and, in particular, the tone of the Statement.

Nevertheless, does he agree that we shall have to be very careful to ensure that, in drafting the changes in criminal procedure which he has recommended, we do so without undermining the fundamental principles of the rules of justice to which the Statement refers?

Secondly, perhaps I may ask the noble and learned Lord a question about sentencing. Does he agree that the answer to overcrowding in prisons is not only to give to the courts more alternatives to imprisonment as punishment but also to ensure that non-custodial sentences are used more widely? Does he not find it disturbing that the proportion of non-custodial sentences and community service orders has apparently been reducing over recent years? Do the Government have any plans to encourage the wider use of non-custodial sentences?

My Lords, I agree with the first part of the noble Lord's question. We must be careful at all times to ensure that the changes that we make are consistent with our fundamental notions of justice and, in particular, with the fundamental notion that a person is presumed innocent and should be convicted of a criminal offence only when evidence shows that beyond reasonable doubt. However, ensuring that the changes are consistent with that fundamental principle is not the same as saying that we should do nothing. Everyone agrees that fundamental and radical change is required.

As to the second proposition raised by the noble Lord, again I agree with the two sub-points made. First, there need to be more alternatives to prison, and, secondly, sentencers need to be encouraged to consider those where appropriate. I make it clear that all too many short sentences are now passed where an alternative to custody would be better.

My Lords, of course I have no authority to speak for these Benches but, on my own behalf, I echo the welcome accorded the Minister's Statement. I want to raise one small point. As one of the very few noble Lords in this House who supported the ill-fated Bills in respect of election of choice in each-way cases on which, sadly, the Government appear to have thrown in the towel this afternoon, perhaps I may ask the noble and learned Lord whether there are any plans to bring some kind of logic into the list of offences which carry automatic right to choice and those which do not.

While the proposed raising of magistrates' powers in the matter of sentencing is a welcome step in reducing the pressures on Crown Courts, the fact remains that the anomalies which exist at present and which are jealously guarded in some legal circles should have no place in a modern legal system. As part of these welcome measures, will the Government look at those anachronisms?

My Lords, there are no current plans to look again to see which are either-way offences, which are summary only and which are indictable only. But, by increasing the sentencing power of magistrates to 12 months and by taking away the power to commit to sentence, we are seeking in the White Paper to ensure that cases which should properly be dealt with by magistrates' courts stay there far more in the normal course of events. That is the way in which we seek to address the problem of the anomalies where cases which should stay in magistrates' courts are heard in the Crown Court.

My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend for repeating the Statement made in another place. Like most other noble Lords, I have had no time to digest the White Paper. However, I noted that it says:

"in time, we will integrate the management of the courts into a single organisation".

Can my noble and learned friend reassure your Lordships that, within the suggested new arrangements, local people rather than civil servants based in the regions will continue to be able actively to participate in, and be responsible for, the management of the criminal courts?

Further, does my noble and learned friend agree that to lose this stake in the system in favour of notional consultation would be a retrograde step and further inhibit the promotion of confidence in the rule of law, which is itself one of the Government's overarching objectives for the criminal justice system?

My Lords, again, I underline what I said to the noble Lord. Lord Kingsland. Locally delivered justice is very important. Paragraph 9.20 of the White Paper says:

"In an integrated system, local managers will have much greater freedom to balance workloads across the civil, criminal and family jurisdictions, making it easier to sustain court services in local areas. This will support our aim to provide the widest possible network of viable local venues".

My noble friend also referred to the importance of local consultation. We thoroughly endorse that.

My Lords, as major legislation will need to be passed as soon as possible in order to implement the Government's proposals, can the noble and learned Lord say whether there is any hope of introducing it within the present Session or shall we have to deal with it early in the forthcoming Session? Perhaps I may make the suggestion that, if we are to get this Bill through in its best form and as soon as possible after it is introduced, it should be introduced, first, in your Lordships' House, where there is far more experience—judicial and otherwise—needed to deal with this legislation than can be found in another place.

My Lords, there is no prospect whatever of a Bill relating to the White Paper being introduced this Session. The noble Lord, with his experience, has identified that a fairly significant Bill will be required to implement the measures in the White Paper. We hope to be able to introduce one as quickly as possible. The noble Lord suggested that it be introduced in this House rather than in another place. For the same reason I gave the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, I would not dream of giving such an indication. That is a matter for the business managers.

My Lords, as I am one of the few magistrates in your Lordships' House I can tell noble Lords that broadly magistrates will welcome the increase in sentencing powers. However, I heard with some anxiety the word "reorganisation". I am conscious that at the present time the magistrates' court system is in the middle of quite a considerable upheaval. Is the intention to build on what has al ready been achieved through the changes or is the intention to start all over again?

When reorganisations are carried out the impact upon the staff and the people who work within the system tend to be forgotten. As reorganisations take place, they cause difficulties and basic inconvenience and they undermine the system. Will the magistrates' court system continue under the proposals currently being adopted, or will the cards be thrown up in the air again?

My Lords, we do not envisage throwing the cards up in the air. Unifying the court system into one organisation will be a significant change, but it will be carried out in a manner that builds upon the strengths of what is already in place. I thoroughly endorse the point made by the noble Baroness that too much change can have a detrimental effect on an organisation. Change must be carried out in a highly consultative and careful way to ensure that the system continues to run while the changes take place.

My Lords, like many noble Lords I have had no time to study the White Paper. Therefore, the few words that I offer are subject to further and better particulars later. From what I have heard, I would welcome a Bill. I am a little concerned by the ringing cries that the interests of the victims must be put first. I am not sure that I understand what is meant by "victims". I understand the word "complainant", but a complainant has yet to establish that he has a justifiable case for the prosecution to support. To me, a victim is one who has, without doubt, been wrongly, unlawfully, illegally treated. Surely, that can only be established after there has been either an admission of guilt by the defendant or a finding that the complainant is justified in coming forth with his complaint.

A large area of law establishes that previous convictions are, in limited circumstances, already admissible. I should like to hear in detail what is inadequate about the existing provisions. If judges are to be relied upon to add to those exceptions to the rule that previous convictions are not admissible, they will find themselves reluctant to do so. When I was a judge I followed the usual tradition of cautioning counsel before he overstepped the mark, for example, by over-attacking the conduct of the prosecution. One did that because one did not want previous convictions to determine a case.

I believe that the reluctance to allow previous convictions in evidence will continue. Unless the judiciary is to be bullied into doing something that it does not believe is just—I do not see that succeeding—I would not place too much store on widening the exceptions that exist at the moment.

There is no doubt that a relevant conviction can be highly prejudicial. As a generalisation, in a case of rape it would be wrong to allow previous convictions of rape unless they were admissible under the exceptions that already exist. One of the reasons for the high acquittal rate in rape cases is that as a member of a jury one has to evaluate whether one believes X or Y, while bearing in mind the obligation to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. In that situation one can understand reasonable doubt arising in a large proportion of cases. That is a good example of a case in which reasonable doubt would immediately vanish if the jury learned that the accused had been previously convicted of such an offence. Those are "off the seat of one's pants" observations. I look forward to the further debate.

My Lords, I shall deal shortly with those questions. I believe that many people would take issue with the definition of "victim" stated by the noble and learned Lord. For 77 per cent of crimes committed in this country no criminal is detected. I do not believe that that makes those who suffer crimes any the less victims of crime.

On whether judges may be reluctant to extend the circumstances in which previous convictions are admissible, we propose that such circumstances should be extended to where they are relevant and be subject to the judicial discretion to which I referred. Sir Robin Auld, in his report, in reference to the work of Professor John Spencer, put forward a proposal that involved a very expanded increase in the circumstances that we do not adopt; so too did the Law Commission, presided over by Sir Robert Carnworth. So other judges who have considered this issue are willing to entertain increased circumstances in which previous convictions are admissible. The current circumstances are difficult to follow and are not necessarily consistent. In many circumstances they are not fair to the prosecution.

moved Amendment No. 173:

Page 32, line 13, leave out subsection (6).

The noble Baroness said: This is an important matter so I hope Members of the Committee will understand if I take a little longer than usual in introducing it.

Amendment No. 173 would delete subsection (6) of Clause 57 in which the Government propose to repeal the provisions on routine bail hearings enacted in Part III of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Many outside non- governmental organisations are rightly concerned about this proposal and it is right that today the Government should justify their intention.

In another place the then Home Secretary, Mr Straw, said in a debate on 22nd February 1999 at col. 39 of the Official Report:

"Part III fulfils the commitment in the White Paper to introduce a more extensive judicial element in the detention process. That will be achieved by introducing routine bail hearings for those detained under immigration legislation.".

In this House the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, when moving the Second Reading of the same Bill on 29th June 1999, at col. 178, said,

"Part III introduces important new safeguards for immigration detainees. It introduces a more extensive judicial element into the detention process by means of a system of routine bail hearings, but the Government have decided that we should go further. The Government intend to bring forward amendments during the proceedings in this House to provide for a statutory presumption of bail, with exceptions to ensure effective immigration control and enforcement. Part VIII of the Bill provides a proper statutory framework for all aspects of the management and administration of detention centres and for the escort of detainees. Taken together, the provisions regarding bail and detention centres will provide significant additional safeguards for immigration detainees".

I am sure Members of the Committee will recall that the noble and learned Lord moved the amendment of which he spoke at Second Reading on 19th July in Committee when he said,

"I hope that the amendment will meet with the universal acclamation of the Committee".—[Official Report, 19/7/99; col. 725.]

That amendment is now Section 46 of the 1999 Act and it is those very provisions in Part III of the Act, so eloquently spoken to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams, three years ago, which today the Government propose to repeal under Clause 57(6) of this Bill. We acclaimed it; the Government now dispose of it.

There was an extensive debate on this matter in Standing Committee in another place. But the justification given at that time by Miss Angela Eagle was unconvincing. Members of the Committee will note that the provisions have never been brought into force. The Minister said that they were not brought into force because,

"we have been trying since the 1999 Act to work out the frequency and logistical implications of automatic bail hearings for each detainee. We concluded that it would be a logistical nightmare that would divert scarce resources from processing asylum applications … Implementing the Part III bail provisions would significantly increase the burden on the Immigration Appellate Authority".—[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee E, 14/5/02; co1.256.]

I cannot believe that the provisions in the 1999 Act which were described as important and significant by the noble and learned Lord, now the Leader of the House, and the implications of which were doubtless considered in detail by the Home Office when the White Paper was drawn up, when the 1999 Bill was drafted and when the amendments were proposed, are now to be dismissed as a logistical nightmare. I cannot believe that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams, would have put his name to such a measure and spoken in favour of it if he were not entirely certain that it was eminently workable and its implications had been fully thought through by the time the Act was passed by this House.

One final but important point on Amendment No. 173 is this. In another place my honourable friend Mr Malins moved an amendment which would have brought the provisions of Part III of the 1999 Act into effect. The Minister argued in response that to do so would be administratively unworkable and would cause chaos and catastrophe in the system. Amendment No. 173 meets the Government's point. It would not bring the provisions into effect but it would stop their repeal. The effect of that would be to allow the Government to bring them into force at a time when the administrative concerns which the Minister cited in another place had been allayed.

If the Minister were to resist the amendment, surely he would have to cast aside the mask of administrative unworkability that was taken up in another place and reveal the real policy reasons behind the Government's change of position. I invite him today to give us better justification on this matter than in another place. I beg to move.

Before I spoke to the last amendment I asked the noble Lord on the Government Front Bench to comment on the reports which have been made of remarks by the Home Secretary which appear to be an interference with the arrangement of business in your Lordships' House. I sent the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, a copy of the report by AP which quoted the Secretary of State as saying that he had already made provision for his new Bill to be speeded up, shortcutting the usual procedures so that it could be in place by mid-October. Later he went on to say that,

"if Britain could send 'early signals' to France about the Bill's progress and possible completion in July, London and Paris may be in a position at the September meeting in Frethun to set an early deadline for closure [of the Sangatte centre near Calais]".

The noble Lord owes the House more of an explanation of what happened than simply to tell your Lordships, as he did, that those words were not in the press statement issued by the Home Office. We know that because the press statement is on the Home Office website and can be read by everybody. This is a report by the European editor of a respectable news agency purporting to quote the Home Secretary in direct terms saying that he had already taken steps to intervene in the proceedings of your Lordships' House and to adopt short-cutting procedures which would enable Parliament to complete the passage of the Bill so as to speed up the closure of the Sangatte centre.

I am sure we are all in favour of closing the Sangatte terminal, but not at the expense of proper discussion on this Bill. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, will be able to give further assurance either that the Home Secretary did not speak the words attributed to him by the European editor of AP, or that he made a mistake in doing so and that there is no intention by the Government of intervening in the usual channels to irregularly speed up the procedures that we normally adopt in this Chamber.

Turning to Amendment No. 173, which we fully support, we see this as being about the Government reneging on their undertaking to bring in automatic bail hearings for people detained under the Immigration Act which was given at the time of the 1999 Bill. They now say that Part III was not a cynical point to keep Members on these Benches and in another place happy, but it certainly had that effect at the time.

It means that we have to look with scepticism on other apparently liberal and compassionate provisions which come into effect on a date to be determined by the Secretary of State, of which there may be quite a number in this Bill. Only 18 of the 143 clauses before us come into effect on the passing of the Bill. How are we to know, for instance, that in three years' time the Government will not do another U-turn and say that the clauses we are proposing to approve now will no longer be necessary or desirable in the light of changed circumstances?

The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, made a strong case for saying that if we leave Part III as it is, it can be brought into effect whenever the Government choose and the administrative concerns which now prevent them from doing so may have changed rapidly in a couple of years' time. We certainly hope that in three years the pilot accommodation centres which we have already discussed will be up and running and, if they are the success we hope, there will be little need to detain anybody at the beginning of the asylum process.

The White Paper, Fairer, Faster and Firmer, gave three sets of circumstances where detention would normally be justified. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, recapitulated on them on the last amendment. They were: where there is a reasonable belief that the individual will fail to keep to the terms of temporary admission or temporary release; initially to clarify a person's identity on the basis of their claim; or, thirdly, where removal is imminent. The third category we have no argument about. We assume that, since the Government's intention is to speed up the removal of people who have exhausted their legal remedies, most of those people will be removed within seven days, or certainly within the 28 days at which the second automatic bail hearing would come into play.

It would be useful if the Minister could give us some idea of the mean time for which people are presently held prior to removal, and the standard deviation from the mean, or what they hope to achieve when the removal centres are fully in operation. That is the key. If no one was held longer than 28 days, the additional 2,000 bail hearings—a figure which I think initially the Minister in another place gave to the House—would no longer be operative. It would be a much smaller figure, which we would need to assess in the light of any figures that the Minister can give us about the length of time people will be detained.

In the vast majority of cases, at the beginning of the process the person's identity and the basis of his claim would be verified at the induction centres. If there are a few where uncertainty still exists, further inquiries can be made after an applicant reaches an accommodation centre. People will have a strong incentive to remain in an accommodation centre. If they leave, not only will they jeopardise the success of their claim, they will lose support and have to fend for themselves.

Therefore, the number of people who need to be detained at the front end of the asylum process could be small. That would bring about the administrative changes which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has spoken of and which would negate the fears expressed by the Minister that we would overwhelm the process with this vast number of applications.

In the meanwhile, there is something to be said for the suggestion made by the honourable Member for Walthamstow in another place, who is also chair of the all-party group on refugees, that at least automatic hearings should be retained and brought into force for asylum seekers whose legal rights have not yet been exhausted. It would be useful to know whether the Government have any views on that because we could think about it between now and the Report stage.

When the honourable Member for Walthamstow made the proposal in another place the Minister ignored his remarks. She rested her case on the statistics that she had given—that bringing Part 3 into force would mean this extra 2,000 caseload a month on top of the 1,000 cases which are already being heard. Those figures appear to indicate that two-thirds of the people detained have no opportunity for a bail hearing. In many cases that is because they have not had access to an experienced immigration law practitioner or because it is impossible to find sureties.

I welcome that detainees are now being notified of their right to apply for bail and are given the telephone numbers of the Refugee Legal Centre and the Immigration Advisory Service on the form which sets out the reasons for their detention. But, as we have already heard, those forms are not translated into the languages normally used by asylum seekers; nor do those agencies take on bail hearings for applicants who are not their own clients. People who go through Oakington have a better chance than others because the IAS and the RLC are on the premises, but the IAS only rarely applies for bail because of the huge pressure of its substantive work. I accept that if automatic bail hearings were to be introduced additional resources would need to be made available to those agencies.

What would probably happen under the present arrangements, if we had automatic bail, is that immigration officers would use detention only where it was strictly necessary. If the Minister says that is already how it works, that they only detain someone where it is strictly necessary to do so, I can give examples from BID's recent cases which appear to show that detention is applied in circumstances where there is no reason to believe that the applicant would abscond or would fail to comply with residence or reporting restrictions.

We have already heard about the examples that BID has sent to your Lordships. I shall just quote one from the set which has emerged since 9th July. That is the case of asylum seeker B who was detained by the Immigration Service despite the fact that he had previously been granted bail and had kept in touch with the authorities by signing on regularly at the police station as instructed. B's legal representatives felt that without at least one surety they could not proceed to a bail application because the chance of success was too low under the terms of the merits test for public funding. So B spent seven-and-a-half months in detention without a bail hearing before one was arranged by BID.

The Immigration Service failed to produce the applicant in court. As a result he spent a further six weeks in detention. At the next hearing B was produced and the application went ahead. It then became clear that an error had been made by the Immigration Service in its case for maintaining detention and it was shown to be effectively without foundation. So B was then granted bail in his own recognisance in the sum of £10 with no sureties required after nine months in detention.

That is what happens when there is no automatic bail hearing. People can languish for months on end in detention without their cases being heard. Therefore, automatic hearings would concentrate the minds of immigration officers, knowing that they would have to respond to challenges before the adjudicators or the magistrates. The fact that clients do much better when they have competent representation proves that the volume of detentions is not a function of the probability that applicants would fail to comply with the conditions, but of the availability of legal assistance and of sureties. Since detention is expensive, it would be in the public interest to make it easier for asylum seekers to apply for bail by expanding the resources of agencies for that purpose and reducing the demands made on sureties.

It would be in the public interest to agree to the amendment because there would be a huge net saving of public expenditure, so I whole-heartedly support the noble Baroness. I hope that the Government will agree to her amendment.

Before the noble Lord sits down, in order to seek to avoid running two debates at once, perhaps I could respond to his further questions about the PA press release. What I said when the noble Lord raised the issue with me earlier today was that I had the Home Office press release before me, I did not have the PA notice. The noble Lord has kindly provided me with the PA notice so I now have it in front of me.

I shall re-emphasise that I would like to check the accuracy of the record and therefore to respond in writing to the noble Lord when I have done so. What I am absolutely certain of is that the Home Secretary thinks that it is important that we make vigorous progress in improving the ability of the country to manage the asylum and immigration challenge that we face. I sense that no one in the House dissents from that challenge.

I am also certain that the noble Lord is keen for the Report stage of the Bill to be as early as possible when your Lordships' House reconvenes after the Summer Recess Therefore, I am certain that that is the kind of issue that he will be seeking to address in his discussions within government, so that we come to Report after the benefit of a good period of consideration early on when we reconvene after the Recess. I shall write to him further on these points.

I thank the Minister for the explanation that he has offered on that part. He noticed our concerns. In the first days he was kind enough to discuss with us the timetable for the Bill. We had no difficulty whatever in agreeing with the amount of days devoted to the Bill. To a great extent, we have not been responsible for the slowness of progress, in the sense that during the past five days of the Bill a number of Statements have been made, which have taken much time out from the Bill. One day there were a number of orders which exceeded their allocated time. So we are literally about four to five hours behind.

I can assure the Minister that there is no intention on our part to delay the Bill before us in Committee. I just say that the fault has not been ours. A statement of this nature reported in the press makes it uncomfortable, particularly for people on these Benches, because we felt that there was a push by the Home Secretary. I hope that the noble Lord will look into it and let us know at the appropriate time what is the correct position.

In relation to the point about Sangatte raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, can the Minister tell us whether negotiations with the French turn on future arrangements to be made with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees? If so, can he tell us whether the Home Secretary already has sufficient powers to make more or less whatever arrangements he sees fit with the High Commissioner?

As for routine or automatic bail hearings, I have moved amendments on the subject to previous Bills, so I have a continuing interest. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has covered the matter so comprehensively that I have nothing to add. Nevertheless, I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.

Briefly, is the real reason for the provision that the Government will not do what they said in 1999 that they would do—I remember discussion of the subject at the time—because it would be a logistical nightmare?

We should not delay the Bill unduly by our discussion. We are talking much too much, if I may say so, and taking too long to make points. We should make our points more concisely and quickly, because we all want to deal with the problem of asylum. We should not spread out our discussion endlessly until the holiday and continue to spread it out on Report.

But my noble friend has given the Minister a chance to get off the hook. She suggests that the status quo should remain and that, in present circumstances, the provision should be implemented as soon as possible. Will the Minister make plain whether the Government really consider that to be impossible?

It is vital that asylum seekers should receive the correct impression of our justice system, and bail hearings are crucial. It is not a good idea to allow them to think that bail hearings are something that can be used rather casually by immigration officers, mixed up with all the other decisions that they take. The Government should consider my noble friend's amendment.

I strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness and I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said so succinctly. As he said, the need to preserve automatic bail hearings is linked with the necessity for full written reasons. One follows from the other. It is well understood from our earlier debates that removal does not mean exactly what the Government would like it to mean. In many cases, it is a mirage. For most asylum seekers, detention means exactly what it says. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, mentioned several case studies of bail for immigration detainees, so I shall not cite them, except to remind noble Lords that one case involved an asylum seeker who spent seven-and-a-half months without a hearing and then a further six weeks in detention.

During previous discussion, the Minister admitted that there have been failures in the system with regard to reasons for detention and he has undertaken to consider them before Report. Similarly, as we have heard, errors are occasionally made in the arrangements for bail hearings. The result is that many people with legitimate claims are overlooked and unnecessarily remain in stressful conditions before their claim is heard. The Minister must recognise that those errors would be minimised if there were a proper system for routine hearings.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made some good suggestions. The fact that the presumption of liberty puts too much pressure on the Immigration Appellate Authority or interferes with the streamlining that we all want is neither here nor there. It is a human rights issue, as was plainly stated by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Under the European Convention on Human Rights, that is justifiable only once a decision has been taken. If the person is not being removed, the requirement remains.

If it is a question of cost, what about the vast cost of detention? As to absconding, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, already mentioned in respect of another matter, the Minister in another place, Ms Angela Eagle, never responded to Mr Neil Gerrard when he cited the South Bank University report that more than 90 per cent of those in the sample who were given bail complied with their bail conditions. That was at col. 254 of the proceedings on 14th May.

So, as the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, said, if Part 3 of the 1999 Act is still valid but cannot yet be implemented, it should at least remain on the statute book.

Perhaps I may now speak to the amendment, having already responded on a previous matter. First, let me say how delighted I am on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Front Benches to support the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the case made by my noble friend Lord Avebury. I shall be brief and shall make only three points.

First, when the 1999 Act was introduced, we were delighted that, despite some negative aspects, it introduced the concept of automatic bail provision. We genuinely welcomed that. The point is that, after all this time, it has not even been tried. It causes us serious concern about what value we can place on government promises to introduce a measure when that has not even been tried but is now being repealed. That is a matter of grave concern to all those who believe and trust many of the promises that Ministers make in this House.

Secondly, at no stage should we ever consider administrative convenience at the expense of the fairness of our judicial system. Granting of bail is part of that fair system. It is fundamentally wrong that administration costs should take priority over fairness to the individual.

Thirdly, the rest of the world follows many of the good examples and practices that we adopt in this country. It will be a tragedy when they see that we trample on some of the basic rights, such as the right of people who are being removed to ask for bail. What sort of example does that set for the rest of the world?

I hope that, even at this late stage, the Minister will consider taking the issue away and returning to us with some reasonable suggestions as to how we can speedily handle applications for bail from people who are being detained.

This does not seem to be a good week for the Home Secretary. I allude to the events late on Monday mentioned by my noble friend Lady Anelay and those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. However, the jury is still out on both matters, so we should obviously get on with the rest of our business.

No doubt the Government gained no little credit both inside and outside Parliament for introducing Part 3 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. My late noble kinsman, told me that when he was an undergraduate, there was a club in his college—which is also the college of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, called the Husteron Proteron Club, taken from the Greek for "later earlier". Every term, the club lived one day backwards. Its members would rise, drink a glass of whisky and play some bridge and end up having porridge late at night.

By introducing Part 3 of the Act into the Bill, the Government appear to be following somewhat the same practice. They appear to have legislated for the provision—as I said, perhaps gaining no little credit for that—and then, as the then Minister, Angela Eagle, told the Committee in the Commons, undertaken considerable research that persuaded them that it would be quite wrong to implement the provision that they had already enacted.

On Monday, I alluded to the fact that during the previous Parliament, through what it would be wrong to call the activity of the Home Office because it was due more to its inactivity, I found myself writing to it 40 times more often than I had done in Parliaments previous to that one. One was prepared to do all that was needed on behalf of one's constituents, but what I found trying was that no Home Office Minister in that Parliament would ever admit to having got anything wrong. That was a little provocative, as it was clear that some of the decisions were going wrong. In the retraction of those provisions, we have an acknowledgement that the decision taken in the previous Parliament was, in the eyes of the Government, wrong. I suppose that that represents some improvement. The Home Office Ministers from the previous Parliament who would not acknowledge that anything was wrong are no longer Ministers. There will be no names and no pack drill.

The fact remains that we are getting an acknowledgement that the Government think that they got it wrong. To their mind, they got it wrong on cost grounds. I must say that, although there may be such costs, there is a greater cost to those for whom the previous provisions were brought in. I join my noble friend on the Front Bench in support of the amendment.

There is, I think, consensus in the Committee that detention, properly managed, is part of a sensible system of asylum and immigration control. There is, at times, a need to use detention powers on entry, although, as has been said, immigration officers will, for obvious reasons, generally seek to minimise the use of the powers. There is also a need to use detention at the end of the process, when people are found to have no further right of residence in Britain either because their asylum claim has not been accepted or because their presence in the country is illegal for another reason.

We all recognise that it is crucial that we should be more successful at removing people who do not have a right of presence in the country. We are not motivated by any sense of punitiveness, but, unless we reduce the success rate of traffickers who charge people money to bring them here, we are likely to see a continuation of such attempts at trafficking. It is crucial, therefore, that removals take place when there is no longer a justification for someone's presence. Detention is a necessary part of ensuring greater success with removals, and the expansion of the detention estate to 4,000 places is, in large part, a product of that objective.

Many members of the Committee have spoken about what the Government did in 1999. I can understand why those points were made. However, we are now three years on in our experience of trying to cope fairly but firmly with asylum and immigration. We now recognise the need for a larger detention estate and more success at removals. Having a detention estate of 4,000 places would, as we said at Second Reading, mean that the implementation of Part III would lead to some 36,000 bail hearings per annum. That is impracticable and would be a significant diversion of immigration officers' time from other crucial duties.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said, we cannot plead administrative convenience as the sole justification for an action, although it plays a part. The realities of government mean that one must, sometimes, consider how to manage within available resources. Therefore, it is important to consider how one ensures that people who are necessarily detained can petition effectively for release under bail provisions, should they wish to do so. That is the point to which the debate must return. Given that detention is necessary and that a routine bail process is unrealistic, how do we ensure that people can apply for bail when they wish to do so?

Everybody who is detained—with two exceptions—has a right to apply for bail. One exception relates to those who have been in the country for fewer than seven days. The Committee will realise that that exception allows for the first stage of evidential checking. However, that exception should not cause us great anxiety. The other relates to detention of those due to be deported under Schedule 3 to the Immigration Act 1971 who do not have a pending appeal of the type referred to in paragraph (3) of Schedule (3). Those who have a pending appeal will have a right to apply for bail, but it is common sense that those who have exhausted their appeals and are in the process of being removed should not.

Most people will continue to have the right to apply for bail. The question is whether, in practice, that right can be effectively exercised by people who are detained. As part of my preparation for the Committee stage, I read the notice that is given to detainees setting out the reasons for their detention and their bail rights. Taking cognizance of the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, who said that we should get on with things, I shall not read it all out. However, it sets out people's rights in clear, if—how shall I put it?—official language. In practice, it is also translated, so that each person detained is informed orally by a translator of their right to apply for bail.

The charge is sometimes made that people may not, in the heat of the moment, understand what is said to them. I can believe that there will be occasions on which that will be true. However, 85 per cent of detainees are asylum claimants, as we would expect, and most are legally represented. I shall not be flippant about it, but I am less concerned about asylum claimants who have representation; even if they do not understand what is explained to them in their own language, their advocate or representative will. In most cases, excellent advice is given to asylum claimants in this country, and advisers will be able to give advice on the right to apply for bail.

We intend to go further and publish a pamphlet that will be clear but simple and will deal with the entire process of asylum claims. It will be given to every person who claims asylum in this country. It will set out their right to apply for bail clearly and categorically and in language that is as simple and clear as is consistent with the duty to be legally accurate. That pamphlet will be translated into the 30-odd main languages that we come across when dealing with asylum seekers. I would like to give an absolute commitment about when that pamphlet will be available in those 30 languages. I shall do my best to make it highly likely that it will be produced before Royal Assent to the Bill is signified. That is the timetable on which we should operate. The sooner that such advice and information is in people's hands, the better. In a sense, they will have belt and braces—an advocate and a document for themselves that seeks to give an understanding of the process.

I shall turn to some of the questions— not all—that were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked important questions about the average time spent in detention. There are no figures for that, but I can say that over 55 per cent of those detained, excluding those at Oakington, spend less than two months in detention.

I am interested in knowing about the 55 per cent of people who spend less than two months in detention. Quite a proportion of those 'would therefore spend less than 28 days in detention. The Minister earlier referred to the number of places occupied by people who are detained for less than a week, so from a number which is much smaller than 4,000 how does he arrive at the vast figure of 36,000 bail applications? Many of those people in detention will not have time to apply for one of the automatic bail hearings, let alone for both of them.

I shall enjoy exploring and debating the statistics with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in detail subsequently rather than at this point in time. However, the position stands that an expansion of a detention estate to 4,000 would very considerably expand the number of hearings. Currently, we are dealing with a smaller number, but I shall be pleased to exchange correspondence with the noble Lord on that matter if it would be of interest to him.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, gave examples of cases which had gone wrong, perhaps even seriously wrong. I invite noble Lords to bring such cases to my attention. I do not say that by doing so they will for one second reverse a wrong that may have happened, but it will inform me and add weight to their challenge about. the importance of ensuring that people should know that they have a right to apply for bail in law. I should therefore be grateful if both noble Lords would provide me with that information. I give an undertaking to examine it and investigate such cases and to reflect on any implications for the Bill.

The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned the ECHR. Article 5.4 does not require a right to apply for bail. The requirements of Article 5 are satisfied by the ability of a detainee to apply for judicial review, or habeas corpus, to challenge the lawfulness of his detention. Notwithstanding that, I do not dilute in any way what I have been saying about the importance of allowing people to have access to hail if they so wish.

I hope that that is helpful to the Committee in terms of setting out the Government's thinking. We recognise the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that at times governments have to make changes in policy or process because their perception or scale of the problem, changes. This is one such example.

I welcome the idea of producing a leaflet to be given to people setting out their rights in terms of bail. However, perhaps I may make a plea. Will the Minister ensure that all the non-governmental organisations working in the immigration field are consulted on that leaflet and that it will be in simple language which people can understand? Many people coming to this country will not understand the bail provisions in their own home country, and ours must be explained in simple language rather than in the legal jargon which often accompanies such statements.

Yes, I am happy to agree to both suggestions and will so do.

I thank all Members of the Committee who have spoken on this complex issue and I welcome the Minister's statement that the Government are planning to publish a leaflet giving proper information. We hope that we may be able to see that before we come to later stages of the Bill.

This is a complex issue. I shall look carefully at what the Minister said in Hansard. I believe that he has taken us further forward than his colleague in another place. However, I bear in mind what my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour said. It is important that people who come to this country seeking asylum gain the right impression of our justice system. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

moved Amendment No. 173A:

Page 32, line 19, leave out "may" and insert "shall"

The noble Baroness said: In rising to move Amendment No. 173A, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 174 standing in my name. Clause 58 provides that the Secretary of State may meet the reasonable travelling costs of those supported asylum seekers who are required to travel as directed under the power given to the Secretary of State in Clause 44. That clause provides a power for the Secretary of State to link the provision of support with the requirement to report to the police or to an immigration officer.

If the power were not given to the Secretary of State, the asylum seeker would have to meet the travel expenses out of his existing subsistence payments. Clearly, that would be wrong. I cannot understand why the power has been made permissive rather than a duty. It is the Secretary of State who places a requirement upon the asylum seeker to travel, so surely it is only appropriate that those reasonable travel expenses should be met by the Secretary of State. After all, the asylum seeker is not left with any option to report; he must do so.

My amendment will ensure that the Secretary of State "shall" meet the reasonable travelling expenses in those circumstances. That appears to be common sense. If the Government say that the requirement is too harsh on the Secretary of State, they must reflect upon the fact that we are talking about only reasonable travelling expenses. That will be for the Secretary of State to determine, so the asylum seeker is hardly likely to have a chance to exploit those expenses for his own purposes.

Amendment No. 174 is a probing amendment. Its purpose is to require the Secretary of State to pay the travelling expenses of an asylum seeker within a reasonable period. I have tabled the amendment to ask the Government what they believe good practice will be. How long do they expect asylum seekers to wait before the payments are made? I beg to move.

We on these Benches support the amendment. I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has identified the need to meet some of the costs incurred by people making applications.

I support both amendments. The so-called probing amendment appears to be just as important as the amendment moved. The amendments relate to reporting restrictions and therefore may provide the Minister with an opportunity to respond to my earlier suggestion that daily reporting by parents, who with their children would otherwise be detained, needs urgent consideration.

I understand the concerns of the noble Baroness and those noble Lords who have added their names to the amendment. Until recently, those required to report were in the main expected to attend their local police station but—and I am sure that all noble Lords involved in the Bill will acknowledge this—it was recognised that such reporting does not come within the core work expected of police officers. The Government felt it appropriate to put in place alternative arrangements so that the reporting obligation could be taken away from the police and focused on the Immigration Service. It makes more sense for those required to report to be seen by an immigration official rather than a police officer. That is why we are establishing a network of reporting centres.

The opening of reporting centres has meant that, in some cases, people have to travel a far longer distance in order to report—there are fewer reporting centres than police stations. To address the concerns that some of those required to report, such as supported asylum seekers, would be unable to meet the costs of travel, we are proposing that the Secretary of State may meet the reasonable costs of travel. It is the word "may" which is causing some difficulty.

We see no reason to meet the costs of travel in every case where a person is required to report. Perhaps it is that which separates the two sides of the argument. However, we have argued on previous occasions that some asylum seekers—not all by any means—will be able to fund the cost of travel themselves, while others will be required to report to a centre within reasonable walking distance of their home. Thus it will not he the case that in every instance an asylum seeker will incur costs or be without the means to pay the reasonable costs of travel.

For that reason, the term "may" has been used in the Bill. We wish to retain a measure of flexibility so that we do not have to refund every claim for travel costs. Not in every case will costs be incurred.

I hope that I shall also be able to reassure the Committee that Amendment No. 174 is unnecessary, although I accept that it is a probing amendment. While the Immigration and Nationality Directorate has yet to issue precise instructions, it seems likely that when asylum seekers leave the induction centre, they will be issued with a warrant to enable them to travel to the reporting centre when required. When asylum seekers comply with this requirement, they will be given a further date for attendance and at the same time issued with a warrant to enable them to travel to the centre.

I accept that some of those required to report will not have been required to go through the induction process. In those cases I am sure that arrangements can be put in place to enable the costs of travel to be reimbursed. Once the first visit has been made, they will be given a further date for attendance and at that stage can be given a warrant to enable them to travel.

For those reasons I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

I am grateful to the Minister for his response to Amendment No. 174, which I shall read carefully. I am also grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Dholakia and Lord Hylton, for their support. We have just debated a complicated legal issue on bail and now we have moved on to a point of practice and common sense. However, for those involved it is an important matter of detail. It affects only a limited number of people, but of course it is vital to them.

I should remind the Minister that I made it clear that, in this case, the Secretary of State has imposed a duty on a person to travel; it is not their choice. I noted the Minister's response to the effect that, if a person lives within reasonable walking distance, then there would be no costs. However, there would be no claim. I do not believe that he has been able to overcome my objections in that respect.

While listening to the Minister's remarks, If was reminded of a comment made recently by my noble friend Lord Brooke; namely, that this provision reflects an Alice in Wonderland existence. We are considering people who will be living on very low incomes indeed. They will not have the money available to meet these travel expenses. As a matter of principle I believe that, on this occasion, I should test the opinion of the Committee.

moved Amendment No. 175:

Page 32, line 32, leave out "may" and insert "shall"

The noble Lord said: The amendment, the effect of which would be to require the imposition of residence requirements without regard to personal circumstances, has been tabled to probe the issue of whether the "may" in subsection (1) in practice will indeed be "shall" so that requirements will be routinely imposed without regard to personal circumstances. I beg to move.

Amendment No. 175A concerns the same issue. We take the view that the Secretary of State should have regard to the personal circumstances of an asylum seeker before deciding to place that person in an accommodation centre. We believe that it is too extreme to provide that every single individual who applies for asylum must necessarily go through an accommodation centre.

We believe that age, in particular, is a relevant factor, a point made to us by ILPA. That body states that putting children into the induction centres may not meet their needs. It could expose them, as could detention in other places, to possible danger or abuse from traumatised adult asylum seekers, or from employees of the induction centres who have not been trained as childcare workers. The very fact that their freedom of movement is restricted may have an adverse effect on children who, as stated many times during these proceedings, may be extremely disturbed by their experiences in their country of origin and during their flight to this country.

This concerns the very start of the asylum process. A person goes into an induction centre immediately after their arrival from their country of origin when the stress on their psyche is at its most extreme.

Amendment No. 175B seeks to reduce the number of days a person can be made to stay in an induction centre from 14 to seven. This is in pursuance of an earlier discussion when the Minister told the Committee that the policy would be to keep someone in an induction centre only for two or three days before moving on to an accommodation centre. We therefore wonder why such an extreme margin beyond the time it is intended to keep someone in an induction centre is needed in the Bill. Surely seven days would be perfectly adequate if it is not intended to keep someone there for longer than two or three days.

The amendments are concerned with the operation of the induction process. The induction programme is an important element in the new procedures we are putting in place for the consideration of asylum claims.

Normally, the induction process will take place at the outset of a person's claim. During this induction asylum seekers and their dependants will be advised of their rights and responsibilities and provided with an explanation of what will happen to them during and after the consideration of their claim. Providing information of this kind is, in our view, the foundation of an effective asylum system. It will ensure that everyone knows where they stand so that future stages in the process can operate smoothly.

The purpose of Clause 59 is to enable a residence restriction to be imposed so that a person is required to reside at, or at least near, a place where induction is to take place for a limited period of up to 14 days. This residence restriction does not have to be imposed in all cases, but where it is decided that it should be imposed the clause provides that this may be done "without regard to personal circumstances". The clause as drafted therefore provides all the power needed.

Since we believe that the current wording is appropriate for our intentions as regards the induction process, we are happy with it as it is. Amendment No. 175 would seem to be designed to make it a requirement that a residence restriction be imposed where the conditions of subsection (1) are met. It will indeed be the case that the great majority of asylum applicants and their dependants will go through an induction programme, but there will be occasions where this does not happen. It is conceivable, for example, that an unexpectedly high volume of applications may mean that not everyone can go through an induction centre at the time we would wish.

Furthermore, there may be some people who, although they will be inducted, will not go through a standard programme. Examples would be unaccompanied asylum seekers and applicants who are detained. The provisions in Clause 59 are not really applicable to them.

To the extent that Amendment No. 175 has an effect, it seems to be to remove some helpful flexibility in the current wording, without adding anything further to it. I give way to the noble Lord.

That is the whole point of the amendment. The noble Lord says that it removes "some helpful flexibility" without adding anything. If it acids nothing, that proves the objective that the amendment sought to prove; namely, if "shall" adds nothing to "may", "may" in the Government's mind, in practice, will always be "shall".

I would argue the opposite case. "May" is a much more flexible word to use in the context of the clause than "shall", which is far more definite.

If "shall", to use the Minister's own words, adds nothing, that suggests that "may" is an illusory discretion.

We could argue the point for a long time. I do not believe that it is illusory. I believe that the word is there for a good reason. I know that Members of the Committee find this hard to accept, but the flexibility is important. I cannot see that "shall" adds anything to it. If the noble Lord wants to reflect further on the point, I shall reflect further on our position.

Amendment No. 175A would reduce the effectiveness of the current wording by removing the reference to the power being imposed,

"without regard to his personal circumstances".

It is important that we have the power to require all asylum seekers to reside near a programme of induction. That will ensure that everyone is able to understand his or her rights and responsibilities within the asylum process. It is for this reason that Clause 59 makes it clear that a residence restriction may be imposed "without regard" to a person's personal circumstances.

If, for example, an asylum seeker has accommodation available to him but that accommodation is not near a place where an induction programme is run, we want to be able to have the person residing, for a short period, not at that accommodation but at a place which is more convenient. Otherwise, individuals may find themselves missing important parts of the briefing because of delays in getting to the place where information is being given out. That is a sensible requirement which will enable the induction process to be run effectively and efficiently.

I should like to make two additional points. First, there will be cases where we would not expect to exercise the power in Clause 59. For example, it is not the intention to have unaccompanied asylum seeking children going through the same programme of induction as is given to others, although they will have an equivalent programme. In addition, there may be individual cases where it would be inappropriate for a person to go through the normal induction programme. We shall of course deal with such cases in an appropriate manner, tailored to the person's particular needs—nothing in the clause as drafted would prevent us from doing so.

Secondly, where people had accommodation available to them, they would not be seeking NASS support. The period of time they would spend going through the induction programme would therefore be short—probably no more than a single night. So the requirement to reside away from their accommodation would not be long-lasting—a residence restriction would not last longer than necessary.

That leads me to Amendment No. 175B. This would reduce the maximum period for which a person could be required to stay near a place where an induction programme was being run from 14 days to seven days.

The period of time a person will spend going through the programme will depend on his or her circumstances. As I mentioned, someone who has acceptable accommodation available to him or her—for example, through family or friends—should be through the process in about a day. For those going to accommodation centres, the process might take two or three days. For those seeking NASS support but not going to an accommodation centre, the process will often last slightly longer because of the need to find suitable accommodation.

We would expect that for people in this last category the process would last no more than about seven days, but there will always be some cases—as indeed there have been recently at Dover—where matters take slightly longer than that. It is for this reason that the Bill provides for a maximum of 14 days. We can understand the desire to constrain the time period, but there will be occasions when we need slightly longer because of individual circumstances.

The restriction will be in place for only so long as it is required. So where a person has accommodation and the process is completed, we shall not require that person to continue to reside near the induction programme location. As for asylum seekers who have no support available to them and for whom the government are in the process of finding support, there will be no hardship for them to be required to stay in accommodation near the induction programme location—rather, in our view, it will reduce uncertainties and upheavals that they might face.

The noble Lord and I have disagreed about the flexibility required. However, I have given an explanation as to why we believe that the restrictions that we are placing on people in these circumstances are reasonable. I suggest that these amendments are not necessary.

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may suggest that he re-examines the drafting. The clause is ambiguous. The requirement could be put much more clearly. I am not sure whether my noble friend has found the solution, but the noble Lord ought to look at it again. It is quite incomprehensible.

I am always happy to agree to re-examine wording. Like the noble Baroness, I am happy to see us bring legislative language into an up-to-date format that we can all understand. So we will try to bring some further clarity to the wording.

Before my noble friend sits down, it would be immensely helpful if he could give a specific assurance that it is the intention of himself and his colleagues that valid compassionate grounds should always be taken into account.

I am more than happy to give that assurance. We want to exercise the process in an entirely compassionate way. It will be tailored to individual needs. That is why we need the flexibility to which I have referred.

I shall not press the point that lies behind the amendment again. I simply ask the noble Lord whether, during the summer adjournment, he might reflect on our exchanges. I shall table the amendment again at Report stage and we can debate it further. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

moved Amendment No. 176:

Page 32, line 38, at end insert "which programme will include full access to legal advice and representation"

The noble Lord said: We remain disturbed at the Government's failure to appreciate the need for early access to legal advice for all asylum seekers, and especially for those who are under a disability, such as unaccompanied minors and persons who have no command of the English language.

It is surely in the interests of the Government, as well as of asylum seekers, to secure decisions as quickly and fairly as possible. Legal advice at the initial stage can help to elicit all the information on which a Home Office caseworker can make a fully informed decision.

Despite the provision of statement of evidence forms in languages other than English, these complicated documents still have to be completed in English. There is a paucity of free interpretation and translation services available to asylum seekers, especially in areas of dispersal.

Whatever the individual circumstances of asylum seekers, they all share the desire to know what their status is likely to be. They all want their claim to be fully articulated. That can be done only with the assistance of qualified, competent and free advice.

There is no commitment to enable those in induction centres to have access to legal advice, even though some will be there for several days. On leaving an induction centre, an asylum seeker will be dispersed and given a date for the interview and a travel warrant to get there. They have little or no chance of arranging for legal advice and representation in the area of dispersal, unless that has been arranged while they stayed in the induction centre. I beg to move.

I support Amendment No. 176. All of us who are in any way involved with asylum seekers know how vital it is that they get proper, accurate legal advice as early as possible in the process. A large number of the difficulties that asylum seekers encounter, including their failure to present a full and adequate case at the initial interview and therefore to get a proper decision early in the proceedings, come from their inability in different ways to access competent legal advice that gives them sufficient time to prepare their case and obtain all the necessary documentation. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, has made an important point and we support it.

Amendment No. 177, in the names of my noble friends Lord Russell and Lord Dholakia, says that the provisions of Clause 59 should apply when,

"the social services department of the appropriate local authority undertakes an assessment of the needs of any minor dependant under paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989".

It is a probing amendment on the Government's intentions. What will happen if it is necessary to make residence restrictions on the parents of a minor when the reason for doing so is in the interests of the child, who is being assessed by a local authority? It would he ludicrous for the parents to be able to remove a child to another part of the country while a local authority was assessing the needs of that child, which might be acute. We look forward to hearing the Minister's reply.

I fully agree with both previous speakers about the importance of early legal advice and the crucial importance of interpretation and translation. However, I would not be dogmatic about whether that happens in an induction centre, in an accommodation centre or at the beginning of dispersal. The vital thing is that the applicant gets it. That is in the interests of the quality of first decisions and the avoidance of further appeals and judicial reviews. I very much look forward to the Minister's reply.

Anything that the Minister can say to underline the Government's determination that people shall have access to legal advice from the beginning in their own interests and those of good procedures and sensible outcomes would be welcome.

I support Amendment No. 176 for several reasons in addition to those that my noble friend has mentioned. I find the drafting of the whole clause unsatisfactory. Unless legal advice is given about the effect of the cross-references to the 1971 Act, they will create appalling obscurity for asylum seekers. After all, 1971 is 30 years ago.

There is a further problem. At the top of page 33, "programme of induction" is defined as:

"education about the nature of the asylum process",

From a legal point of view, I have never come across that definition. I warmly support my noble friend's amendment. The Government should also carefully consider accepting Amendment No. 177.

Even if those amendments are agreed, I can save the Committee my making another speech later by saying that the whole clause is unsatisfactory from the point of view of drafting and cross-references and because it will place asylum seekers at an appalling disadvantage. There we are. Whatever the decision on the amendments, I hope that the Government will look at the clause again.

The Committee seems pretty well unanimous in favour of Amendment No. 176. However, it is not the only amendment in the group. I shall follow up what my noble friend Lord Greaves has said on Amendment No. 177.

Children seeking asylum in this country tend to arrive in a state of trauma. One who is known to me had come from Kosovo, where she had seen her grandparents shot by Serbs in her presence. She did not speak for three months after that. I am happy to say that she is now doing fine and is a strong justification for educating asylum seekers in the normal school system, where she is thriving.

Not everybody in that situation recovers as quickly. Very often, the speed with which help is given to people in that situation makes an enormous difference to how effective it is. For a child in particular, to be able to say what has happened to them to somebody who is capable of understanding their words and the emotional significance of them can be extraordinarily valuable.

I would understate the case if I said that in this case a stitch in time saves nine. It may save 999. The care process is very expensive. Even from a Treasury paint of view, one does not want to involve people in it more than necessary.

I also support Amendment No. 177ZA, which says:

"Victims of torture, including rape, whose trauma is likely to be compounded by being detained in conditions which may be reminiscent of the detention they fled, will be exempt".

We believed we had achieved that on, I think, the 1996 Bill, when we saw a powerful coalition of my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool as he then was—now the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sheppard—the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk and the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool.

We believed then that we had been given adequate undertakings that victims of torture would riot be detained. It has not proved to be the case. As far as I can see, the selection of people for detention is entirely random. Victims of torture seem still to he detained in just about the same proportion as everyone else.

These are not merely people who have done nothing wrong. They are not merely people who are not even accused of doing anything wrong. They are people to whom very great wrong has been done. To detain them without cause shown and without charge gives a very literal meaning to words that are normally used metaphorically: compounding a felony.

I hope that the Minister will feel able to give us again the undertaking that we were given in 1996, and that, if so, the Government are able to take control of the administrative process which leads to detention sufficiently thoroughly to be able, as I am sure they wish to do, to make that undertaking good. It will be a difficult struggle. I wish them luck with it.

I should like to start by saying something positive about these amendments. It is this. I can well sense the feeling and mood of the House, and I support and encourage the sympathy that has been expressed for those who come here after very traumatic circumstances and have to undergo a process. I also think that the debate about asylum seekers has usefully moved on. I am hearing a much more positive attitude and approach to asylum seekers, and I think that that is all to the good. However, that does not mean that we do not have to have in place a set of very proper, very rigorous, but, as I said before, occasionally uncomfortable processes of bureaucracy which can occasionally seem insensitive. However, if we are to have a proper programme of managed migration, it is in everyone's interest that those rigorous processes are in place.

These amendments again pick away at and examine the operation of the induction process. I think that we have established that the induction programme is an important element in the new procedures and that it is right that we have included them. We have discussed this programme and these procedures on quite a few occasions in our debates.

Amendments Nos. 176 and 177A deal with access to legal advice. In discussing this issue within the context of Clause 59, we really do need to be clearer about the nature and purpose of the induction programme. I think that this is an iterative process; we are all beginning to learn what that process entails.

The Government's position on legal advice was set out quite clearly in the White Paper. Paragraph 4.36 states:

"While access to legal advice is not a pre-requisite to initial decision making, and should not hold up the decision-making process, the Government is committed to ensuring access to quality legal advice at that, and all later stages, for all asylum seekers whether or not they are in an Accommodation Centre".

The induction programme is not, however, part of the decision-making process. I think that that is probably the dividing line in this debate on this issue. We are not considering the merits of an individual's asylum claim. Rather, we are giving asylum seekers information about the overall process and their rights and responsibilities within that process. There is therefore no need for legal advisers to be present while such information is being provided.

I think that we need to pause and think about what that means. What we are saying is this. At that very early stage, we are describing a process; we are advising people and helping them to understand when they can make best use of quality legal advice. That is what it is about.

Information about legal advice will form part of the induction programme. So before a person leaves, they will, for example, be given information about how they can obtain access to legal advice in the area in which they will be living. They will also be given a date for when the interview on the substance of their asylum claim will be held. This will normally be 2 or 3 weeks from the date they leave the induction programme. So all asylum seekers will, if they wish, have the opportunity to discuss their claim in advance of the interview.

I think that these arrangements are right and set things in the right order, and that there is no basis for imposing the requirement in this amendment that legal advice be provided at the induction programme stage. The induction programme will explain the virtue, value and necessity of good legal advice. It will not in itself be a part of the process of providing that legal advice.

I turn to Amendment No. 177. Although I fully understand why the amendment has been tabled, I do not think that it is necessary or, in the circumstances, appropriate. The policy intention is that children who are dependants of their asylum-seeking parents will accompany them to an induction centre. That is beneficial to all concerned, and I cannot see any reason to prefer that the children be separated at that stage.

Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children will also receive induction. It is as important for them that they understand what is going on as it is for adults. They may come here in a very confused state. They may not understand at all our language and culture. The induction programme is an enabling and helpful tool to take them through that process. It is expected that such induction will happen probably at separate locations from where programmes for adults are run. They will need, of course, to be of a different nature.

The provision in the Children Act 1989 to which the amendment refers enables a local authority to carry out an assessment of a child's needs where it appears to such an authority that a child within their area is in need. My understanding is that in very few cases would a local authority carry out such an assessment in respect of a child who was here as a dependant. In most cases, no particular needs would exist which would merit an assessment being made.

Consequently, it would clearly be inappropriate for such an assessment to be made a requirement in relation to a dependent child going to an induction centre. Adequate arrangements will exist to cater for children during their short stay at or near an induction programme, and it makes no sense to impose the condition set out in the amendment. The amendment would impose such a condition. It would either place an unacceptable and perhaps even unnecessary burden on local authorities to carry out assessments where there was no justification; or it would prevent dependent children going to induction centres since such assessments may not be carried out.

I should add that a core assessment can take up to 35 days. If the intention of this amendment is to hold up the asylum process for this period, then I think that it is very misguided indeed. No one would gain from such delay in the system. Where there are cases that merit an assessment of a child by a local authority, the Children Act 1989 enables that to be done. So no specific provision is needed in relation to a clause on induction centres.

We contend that very few cases are likely to arise where it would be harmful to a dependent child for it to reside near a programme centre. However, should such a case arise, there is no requirement in the Bill as drafted that a child must reside in such a place. As noted earlier, the clause provides a power that may be exercised, but does not have to be exercised in every case.

I turn finally to Amendment No. 178A, which would prevent a person being moved out of their accommodation near an induction programme site until the Secretary of State had satisfied himself that access to legal advice would be available in the area to which the asylum applicant was to be sent. As I said earlier, applicants who go through the programme will be given information before they leave about how they can obtain access to legal advice in the area where they will be living. If a person is going to an accommodation centre, there will be access to legal advice; it will be there on location. Moreover, if a person is dispersed to part of the NASS estate, he will be able to obtain legal advice. The whereabouts of that advice will be made plain and clear to him.

It will be for applicants who make their own accommodation arrangements to decide how they will access legal advice and support. However, as I explained earlier, they will be given information on legal advice in their area during the course of the induction programme. We shall do everything we can to ensure that that occurs. It is in the interests of the state to provide that legal advice as it will help individuals to help the state reach a proper decision and will ensure that people's rights are fully understood. Those rights are important and we need to protect them.

I am satisfied that applicants will gain sufficient information from the induction programmes to seek legal advice. That is our aim and objective. I referred to the Government's commitment in the White Paper to asylum seekers having that advice. Arrangements will be in place to enable that to happen. Therefore, I can see no reason for adopting the proposed amendment. I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Does the Minister consider that the care assessment is in a child's best interests? Surely it should be carried out irrespective of the length of any delay in the asylum process. For that reason surely it is in the best interests of a child.

The assessment proposed in the amendment would not necessarily be in the best interests of a child, particularly of a child who is with his family in an induction centre. To put such a child through a social services assessment at that stage might be completely unnecessary. There will, of course, need to be flexibility. The system is now somewhat more geared to the needs of the individual and where it is appropriate such an assessment could be made. The power exists for it to be made.

The Minister made a couple of remarks that worried me a little. First, he described this as part of a process of managed migration. That rather strengthens me in the opinion that I expressed on Monday; namely, that asylum and immigration ought to be seen as two different subjects. They ought to be managed by two different divisions of the Home Office and included in two different Bills. As soon as the thinking of one subject overflows into the other, mistakes occur. It was clear from the report, Deciding to Detain, which I quoted on Monday, that immigration officers live by the creed of A P Herbert's epitaph on an archbishop:

"My predecessors fighting sin

Did their best to bring men in

But I was best without a doubt

At keeping the unworthy out

So when I died the Church was one and that was me".

That is not the spirit in which asylum law should be administered.

The other thing that worried me a little was when the Minister said that it was the duty of the induction centres to give information to asylum seekers about the process of asylum. However, he did not say anything at all about receiving information from asylum seekers. But if the process is to be at all useful, it needs to be a two-way process. I should like to know from when the asylum claim starts to run. When does the clock start ticking? Does it start ticking after they have come out of the induction centre, when they have access to legal advice, or does it start ticking the minute they go into the induction centre before they have had any access to legal advice? If it were the second, it would be of some concern to me.

I appreciate the point that the Minister made about the difficulty of getting a social services assessment of a traumatised child. The BMA brief on the Bill is full of such cases. However, that is precisely why it is necessary to have a duty placed on the local authority. It is an argument that I have heard repeated over and over again by those who have taken part in the Grand Committee on the Adoption and Children Bill. It is an argument which has some place here

It is also important that advice should be in many contexts impartial. Suppose, for example, that advice is given on repatriation. It may not be the intention of the present Government, but I am perfectly able to envisage a future government who might give such advice. It would be vitally important that that advice should be given by someone impartial.

Recently I came across a rather useful and interesting quotation in Sir William Wade's book on administrative law from the committee on Ministers' powers in 1932 which pointed out that a cynical and lazy Minister may much more often be able to give an impartial ruling on a judicial matter than one who is more zealous in his particular duty. The committee stated:

"An easygoing and cynical Minister rather bored with his office and sceptical of the value of his department, would find it far easier to apply a judicial mind to a purely judicial problem connected with the department's administration than a Minister whose head and heart were in his work. Parliament should be chary of imposing on Ministers the ungrateful task of giving judicial decisions in matters in which their very zeal for the public service can scarcely fail to unbalance their unconscious".

I do not think that I would describe the Home Secretary as an easygoing and cynical Minister. So the Home Secretary equipped with those powers might well apply them in a spirit in which zeal was more obvious than impartiality. Even if he did not do so, he might very well be unjustly accused of having done so. It is a suspicion from which, if I were Home Secretary, I would rather like to protect myself.

These amendments could be in the Home Secretary's personal interest quite as much as they are in the interests of asylum seekers.

I shall respond to a couple of the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. The noble Earl, as ever, entertains the Committee with an historical discourse. I was interested in his description of Ministers. The Home Secretary does an extremely good job in difficult circumstances. I am grateful that the noble Earl does not think that he is a cynic; he certainly is not. The Bill is testament to that. We are trying hard to get it right in everyone's interests so that the process is not seen as cynical but one that works for those who are caught up in the asylum process.

I shall not enter into a long debate about asylum being mixed up with managed migration as I do not believe that that would take us much further in considering the amendments. We are trying to ensure that there is no confusion between asylum and managed migration. The asylum process should not be abused. It is in everyone's best interest that it should be used properly.

I am conscious that I did not respond to an issue that the noble Earl raised earlier. I believe that he referred to Amendment No. 177ZA when he said that victims of torture should not be sent to induction centres. However, induction centres are not detention centres. We are not sending people to detention centres. The atmosphere in an induction centre is very different.

Will the doors in induction centres be locked at night?

I understand that they will not. Induction centres do not resemble detention centres in any way.

The noble Earl asked whether, if there were special circumstances which justified a person not going to an induction centre, the Secretary of State need not send him or her there. I refer to the case of someone who has self-evidently suffered torture and discomfort before arriving in this country to seek asylum. Flexibility is available in the matter. We should celebrate the fact that that flexibility exists.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked when an asylum claim starts. Our understanding is that it starts from the moment at which it is recorded. That happens before the induction centre stage. That is when the clock starts to tick.

I hope that I have responded fairly to the points that the noble Earl raised.

I thank the Minister for his reply. In his response to my amendment, he drew to the attention of Members of the Committee the Government's White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven, which was published in February 2002. In particular he drew to our attention paragraph 4.36 in support of the proposition that he sought to sustain. I remind him of the words that he quoted just a few minutes ago. That paragraph states:

"While access to legal advice is not a pre-requisite to initial decision making, and should not hold up the decision making process, the Government is committed to ensuring access to quality legal advice at that, and all later stages, for all asylum seekers whether or not they are in an Accommodation Centre".

First, I want to dispose of the statement that,

"the Government is committed to ensuring access to quality legal advice".

That commitment does not appear anywhere in the Bill. Earlier in the Bill there is a commitment to provide the facilities for the provision of legal advice. When the relevant amendment was debated, the understanding of Members of the Committee was that legal advice would be financed by the Legal Services Commission. We all know that the Legal Services Commission deals with legal aid in the context of civil matters and that it applies a fairly stiff test before it is disposed to provide legal aid for asylum cases. There is no guarantee in the Bill for quality legal advice. However, it appears that paragraph 4.36 of the White Paper requires that. I hope that between now and Report, the Minister will see that the Bill is amended to that effect.

That is not, however, germane to the amendment. What is germane to the amendment is the fact that paragraph 4.36, in my submission, achieves the opposite to what the Minister said, in response to my opening statement, it would achieve. My understanding of the paragraph, which I have just quoted, is that it contains a clear commitment to provide legal advice at the induction stage. All the later stages—

I read that paragraph differently. My reading of it is that the legal advice will be there from the point at which an initial decision is made. Legal advice will be necessary at that point, not at the point of induction. The induction process, which, as I described, may be quite short or perhaps up to two weeks, will involve facilitating people's access at a later stage so that the legal advice is there to enable representations to be made at the decision-making stage.

The commitment here is to give legal advice at the initial decision-making stage and at "all later stages". However, the "later stages" in the paragraph are the accommodation or dispersal stages. So far as I am aware, there is no intervening stage between induction and accommodation or dispersal. So how can the Minister's interpretation possibly be correct?

I think that my understanding is the right one; I am confident that it is. However, we will reflect on the noble Lord's words. I believe that the reference to the accommodation centre is something of a red herring. That is simply a matter of where people are living. The important point is that we ensure that throughout the decision-making stages, there is good legal advice.

I re-emphasise that the induction centre is not part of the decision-making process but that it is part of the asylum process. That needs to be understood. Paragraph 4.36 of the White Paper supports the contention that legal advice is available before a decision is taken. That, surely, is the important point.

However—

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, will forgive me; I beg his pardon.

Asylum seekers will be put at a more serious disadvantage if they are not able to get legal advice in induction centres and if there is no duty to provide it. The medical foundation is aware of—

Why is that the case? Some of those people attending the induction process —we should be honest about this—may not have more than a rudimentary understanding of the English language. During the induction process, it may well be the case that they will benefit from having some interpretation facility so that it can be properly explained to them how the decision-making process will work and so that they can get access to good-quality legal advice before decisions are made. The induction programme opens up the system for them so that legal advice is available to them before a decision is made.

I was about to answer the Minister's point in my next sentence.

The medical foundation knows that a good many people are leaving induction centres and going to London to get legal advice, thereby putting themselves in breach of their legal residence requirement. The Minister probably remembers the days when he used to wait for exam results. It was an anxious period. If one could get the information sooner, one was rather keen to do so. That anxiety is nothing compared with the anxiety about the determination of one's asylum claim. If people can get legal advice sooner by going to London—resident requirement or not—they will do so. It would be elementary to let them have the facilities on the spot so that they could take advantage of them at once. That would save a great deal of time spent hunting for people who have gone looking for legal advice elsewhere. That would be to the Minister's convenience as well as a kindness to the asylum seeker.

The noble Earl is making a very good point but it is different from the one which I was seeking to make. My point was about the proper construction and language of paragraph 4.36 of the White Paper. It is clear that its language envisages that a decision-making process takes place before the movement either to accommodation centre or dispersal. That is clear from the language of that paragraph. The only stage before the move to the accommodation centre is the induction centre. It must follow then, as night follows day, that the initial decision-making process takes place at the induction centre. If so, there is a clear commitment by the Government to give legal advice at that stage. This is not a question of the Minister reflecting on my words; it is a question of the Minister reflecting on his Government's own White Paper and the commitment that it contains.

We are going to have to disagree on the construction of the contents of the White Paper. The induction programme, as I said, is not part of the decision-making process. Decisions come later. Whether or not someone is in an accommodation centre is in a sense somewhat irrelevant. When they are in the accommodation centre, they will be getting legal advice on site, but that may well be at the dispersal stage or in other arrangements.

We are saying—this is where the debate comes to a point—that we do not believe that legal advice during the induction programme is the right place for such advice; we believe that legal advice should come later. We are trying to use the induction programme so that people can have access to good quality legal advice and can know what sort of legal advice they require and where to get it. I make that point because I believe that it is germane and important.

I can understand the anxiety that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, suggests some asylum seekers may experience. It is an anxious time in their lives—there is no doubt about that. But it may not be the best time for them to seek legal advice. We are trying to be a helpful facilitator. We are trying, to ensure that asylum seekers receive good quality advice and not unhelpful advice because some people in the business are less than scrupulous.

If the Minister wants to ensure that they receive good quality advice, why does he not provide it?

We are endeavouring to ensure that they receive good quality advice. That is why the commitment is there and in the White Paper.

I pick up the point about accommodation centres made by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. The wording of paragraph 4.36 does, indeed, include a specific reference to accommodation centres. It appears in the section on accommodation centres. Paragraph 4.36 means that people in accommodation centres, in other NASS accommodation or elsewhere will all have access to legal advice. All those stages occur after a stay in an induction centre. That is the point that I have been making.

I thank the Minister for giving way. Does he understand that asylum seekers may want independent advice on some of the information, instructions or whatever they are given in induction centres? They may want independent advice on the information that they are given about the process that they will go through and about the way that they will be treated, and so on. It is not a question of being given advice on their claims but on the way that they are treated.

While I am on my feet, I wonder whether the Minister will give us an assurance that induction centres are not, and will not, be used in any way to persuade an asylum seeker to withdraw his claim and go home. Will he give an assurance that no such inducements or advice will be given once the asylum claim has been made? If that were to happen, it would certainly be a matter on which people would require legal advice.

In a sense, the noble Lord is being helpful in relation to the point that I am trying to make. Is it not better that the legal advice is not given at the induction stage in the induction centre? If it is given off the premises, then surely the trust that a person going through the process has will be that much greater. There will be a degree of independence to the advice. It will be separate from a process which simply explains and provides information to people.

Will my noble friend give way? I have been listening to this exchange with great interest. Does he agree that one of the basic realities of political life is that a perception becomes a political reality? In that context, my noble friend—I say this with some humility—is perhaps not taking sufficiently seriously the political fact that there is a perception that the induction process will be used as a means of conditioning people and that it will be used as part of a negative-inspired policy instead of a justice-inspired policy. It is in that context that some reassurance is required that people can continue to receive legal advice.

The noble Lord makes an important point. In a sense, it picks up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that a degree of cynicism may exist. We are trying to produce a clear process that people can understand so that they can move on. For that reason, I should have thought that it would not necessarily be best to place legal advice in the middle of the induction centre programme.

The purpose of that programme is to make clear to people what will happen to them and what the process involves and to avail them of the opportunity at a later stage to obtain legal advice before decisions are made. That is what we set out in the White Paper and that is what we are seeking to achieve.

This has been a long debate and I am not sure that more is to be gained from it. We shall take away and reflect upon all the comments made by Members of the Committee who have been involved in the debate because they need to be reflected upon. I hope that noble Lords will also reflect upon the points that we have been making as part of this argument and discussion.

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may remind him that on Monday I referred to the case of the Ariana Airlines jet which was hijacked and came down at Stansted and from which all the passengers were removed to the Fire Service College in Worcestershire. They were kept there over the weekend and severe pressure was brought upon them to persuade them to return to Afghanistan. It is episodes of that nature that make us anxious that the induction process will not purely impart information to the asylum seekers but will exert indirect, or even direct, pressures on them to withdraw their claims or to vary them for the convenience of the Home Office.

Therefore, I ask the noble Lord who will be in the business of imparting information to those people? If it is the Immigration Service, the suspicion will always be aroused that the service will be able to exert improper influence on asylum seekers. If the induction centres are to be manned by people who do not belong to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, perhaps that will give Members of the Committee some reassurance.

I am sure that the induction programme will be properly thought through and carefully designed and that people who are part of that process will be properly trained. Of course, it is not a question of applying pressure on people; it is about helping them through a process and ensuring that they understand it. We want people to be able to exercise their rights properly and to understand what will happen to them.

I have been advised that support for the programme is being provided by the Migrant Helpline, which is not a government body. Organisations such as that can help greatly in ensuring that the induction programmes are perceived as helpful, useful and valuable to those who go through them.

I want to help the Minister here because I do not want this amendment to end up in a confrontation, although it may have to. The Minister is confident about the meaning of the words in paragraph 4.36. Therefore, will he undertake to place those words on the face of the Bill? He is so confident of his own interpretation that surely he must say that he will. Will he do that—or will he place words on the face of the Bill that reflect exactly the words in paragraph 4.36?

Yes, I am confident of the interpretation that I have given. I am prepared, as I said a few moments ago, to reflect long and hard on what has been said in the debate. I shall not give a cast-iron commitment across the Dispatch Box and I do not believe that the noble Lord would expect me to do so. That would be wrong. But I am happy to give very careful consideration to what the noble Lord said and to reflect further on it. I recognise the importance and validity of this debate. It is important because it gets to the heart of ensuring that people properly access their legal rights and properly understand what will happen to them and what the process entails.