Speeches by Vaughan.

“The Home Secretary refers to the “gaming of the system”, but will she clarify the basis on which she says that? Around half of Home Office initial asylum decisions are overturned on appeal, so there is a huge issue about the quality of Home Office decision making, as various National Audit Office reports have shown. It…”

“Will the Home Secretary give way on that point?”

“I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I will focus in the short time that I have on part 1 of the Bill on immigration appeals reform and specifically on whether it will cut the appeals backlog. I start by making the point that Home Office decision making is a significant dr…”

“I completely agree. Another hon. Member referred to the importance of evidence-based policymaking. When I look at the impact assessment, it is not clear to me that the case has been made. I think it fair to say that the only evidential basis for these reforms is a hope that they will be better than the current system, …”

“From the perspective of the judge, what is it about a compressed timeframe that may affect decision quality?”

“I am the Member of Parliament for Folkestone and Hythe. I am also an associate tenant at Doughty Street Chambers. I hold a current practising certificate as a barrister. My office receives support from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project. Before being elected, one of the areas I practised in was immigratio…”

“Just for the record, I see Nadine Finch nodding her head. Is that your view as well?”

“To have it as a comparison is perhaps not the right approach. I did not know whether anyone else on the panel had any experience or knowledge about systems in other countries. I read about Australia, for example. It had tried an expedited refugee review process, and that was abolished because it did not afford due fair…”

“I just wondered if I could ask about appeals against the appeals to the upper tribunal, or whether we should wait for that.”

“That would be very helpful. It sounds like exactly the situation we need to know about, because it sounds a lot more expert than even our current system.”

“I want to follow up on this theme. As I understand it, the MOJ has just finished a recruitment exercise for first-tier tribunal judges; I think the positions were salaried, not part-time. I wonder whether the information on how many were recruited is in the public domain. If so, where and what is the best analysis of t…”

“Would you have any further comment about the ability of the Secretary of State to set time periods that are even more stringent than the six months we already have in statute, which I suspect is the direction here?”

“What feature of the tribunal makes it an efficient processor of cases, so that we can perhaps understand the criteria that we can then apply to the new system?”

“I want to ask about the ability of the system to deal with demand. When we went to Taylor House, one of the impressions we had was that a lack of administrative staff and court lawyers to process the claims and issue directions was holding things up or was at least part of the reason for things being held up. It gave u…”

“It might be that administrative staff are easier to get in one place and harder to get in another place, but is there anything about the proposals that means that these factors around administrative support would somehow be better addressed in the new system versus the current system?”

“So expertise is the criteria?”

“Why would the new system be better at addressing these particular problems than the current one?”

“What about it makes it efficient?”

“The Home Secretary often refers to Denmark as a model that we need to replicate. I read that the Danish appeals system has judges in it. Is it true that this adjudicator body will not only be less independent but will lack the fundamental expertise that a system such as Denmark’s and most other countries across Europe …”

“Clause 8 of the Bill grants the Secretary of State a power to set time periods for when the new body must decide on appeals. I just wanted to know how those time periods might affect the quality of decision-making. I know that we have already passed a law to say that in accommodated cases, the tribunal must decide them…”