Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-29
Topic: Immigration
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, in asking that Clause 40 should not stand part of the Bill, we seek the clarification that I asked for at Second Reading, and failed to receive from the Minister, about Clause 40 and the power to make provision relating to routes to challenging decisions with immigration implications. Noble Lords will know that the Bill gives powers to Ministers to impose sanctions. Among them are immigration sanctions or the power to designate persons as "excluded persons" for the purposes of Section 8B of the Immigration Act 1971. In essence, part of the sanctions package could be either to remove designated persons from the UK or to prevent them entering the UK. The Bill provides a mechanism for those affected to ask for the decision to impose sanctions to be reviewed, initially by a Minister and subsequently by the courts—the Court of Session in Scotland and the High Court in the rest of the UK—which could include the decision to designate an individual an excluded person. This would, in effect, be an appeal against the decision to impose the sanction An excluded person could, alternatively or in addition, claim that they have a right to asylum in the UK or that their human rights would be infringed if they were returned to their country of origin or refused entry to the UK. This would, in effect, be an appeal against the consequences of the imposition of the sanction, rather than against the decision to impose the sanction itself. It is important that these two potential routes to challenge being designated an excluded person—either the decision to designate or the consequences of being designated—are dealt with separately and appropriately. My understanding is that that is what Clause 40 allows the Government to do, by regulation However, Clause 40 is quite complex and, at the same time, non-specific about what the regulations and their effect might be. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill appear to suggest, in paragraphs 115 and 116, that claims of asylum and human rights will continue to be dealt with by the Home Secretary as the Minister with the knowledge, experience and expertise to decide these matters, not by the Minister imposing the sanctions, and that any appeal against the Home Secretary’s decision would be to the immigration and asylum chamber of the First-tier Tribunal, a specialist tribunal with expertise in deciding such claims, not the High Court or Court of Session, where an appeal against the imposition of the sanction would be heard In a letter dated 16 November, the Minister stated that it was the Government’s, "intention to provide, at Committee stage, an illustrative draft Statutory Instrument in relation to the powers under clause 40, so that Peers can fully scrutinise how decisions that have immigration implications will be taken and the routes of challenge" We are in Committee and have come to Clause 40 in the Bill, and no illustrative draft statutory instrument has been made available. Can the Minister tell the Committee how noble Lords are expected to accept Clause 40 in the absence of what he promised in his letter?