I shall make a brief contribution to the debate. I understand the concerns expressed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about the way in which the process is sometimes dragged out deliberately by advisers and lawyers who know from the start that victory in a case is unlikely. Those of us who deal with asylum cases will be familiar with those instances in which atrocious advice is deliberately given with no other aim than to drag the process out. We all see such cases, and I understand my right hon. Friend's concern about them.

A proposal similar to the one in the new clause was contained in the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996. I remember the debates on that legislation, in which we discussed proposals from the then Home Secretary that would have allowed people with manifestly unfounded cases to be sent back to the countries from which they had arrived. The proposals then allowed those people to mount appeals from those countries.

In the 1996 debates, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was the shadow Home Secretary. His view as to whether the proposed course of action was right was rather different then. Some of the concerns raised about the proposals in the 1996 Act are being raised again about the provisions in the new clauses.

We can tell people removed to a third country that they have a right of appeal from that country, but we cannot guarantee that that person will be allowed to stay in that third country until an appeal is heard. It is quite possible that they will be sent on somewhere else, or back to where they came from. We have no control over such people once they have been removed from the UK.

Experience with other appeals, such as family visit appeals, that are held on paper as opposed to being held in person, shows that adjudicators trying to judge the credibility of a person's story are more likely to respond positively when they can hear that person speak. That can be of critical importance when adjudicators come to decide whether an appeal should be allowed.

I should like some clarification because, from my reading of the new clause, it seems to deal only with removals to a safe third country as it refers to a country of which a person "is not a national or citizen".

Mr. Letwin: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will receive the clarification that he seeks. I did not read the new clause that way, as he will have noticed. So far as I can see, subsection (2) applies specifically to the opposite case; to someone who is not being returned to a country of which that person is not a national-not another safe country-but to the country of which that person is or may be a national-an unsafe country, potentially.

Mr. Gerrard: That is an important point, and I want to be clear about it. Subsection (3) is quite clear, but some of the briefings and reports sent to us by outside organisations suggest that someone could be summarily removed back to their country of origin. I would be seriously concerned if that were the impact of subsection (2).

Much of the debate so far has focused on sending people back to France, Germany or Denmark, where they might have been able to claim asylum but did not, as opposed to sending them back directly to their country of origin. That is an important issue, and I would like the meaning of subsection (2) to be made absolutely clear. Does it mean that people can be summarily returned to their country of origin? If that is a possibility, it puts a very different perspective on the new clause.

We have already referred to who will make the decisions on certification and how those might be challenged. If decisions on certification are to be made by a caseworker at a port of entry, perhaps very quickly, and even though, on paper, a judicial review might be possible, it might be difficult for someone to take that route if they have been unable to obtain easy access to legal advice, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart).

Oakington has been described as a place that would be used for cases that appeared to be unfounded. A pattern seems to be emerging that the people sent to Oakington are from certain countries of origin. One wonders whether that is the criterion, rather than what the individual said when arriving at the port of entry. We will get close, if we are not careful, to a white list in another form if countries of origin become one of the main deciding factors in whether a case is manifestly unfounded.

One of my greatest concerns is that this could be a critical decision affecting the individual, particularly if it involves summary return to the country of origin. It is essential, therefore, to get the initial decision right. Comments made by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) rang some bells. It is easy to talk as if there are only two classes of asylum claimants-those who will be given asylum because their cases are evidently well founded, and those, at the other extreme, whose cases do not have a shred of credibility. The reality, however, is that among the many thousands of people who claim asylum each year is a whole spectrum of cases, from one extreme to the other.

We are trying to draw lines in that spectrum. Inevitably, with regard to which cases are certified and which are not, people will be bunched around that line. There will be very fine divisions between claims being certified or not. It concerns me that very small differences between individuals might lead them to be dealt with in significantly different ways in respect of whether they have a right of appeal.

Mr. Patrick Hall (Bedford): My hon. Friend is making some useful points about the principles of out-of-country appeals. Does he share my concerns about the practicalities of a person who is removed from the country without having completed or begun an appeal here doing so from another country? What are the resource implications? What support would there be? Would it be through a British overseas post which is at present under great pressure, as we know from dealing with ordinary matters, or would it be down to the individual to write, presumably in English, to the authorities in this country? Has my hon. Friend given some thought to the practicalities, never mind the principles, of the issue?

Mr. Gerrard: That is an important point. Nothing in the Bill gives us an answer to that question. Let us assume that a person could act in various ways-they could pursue their appeal by writing, using the internet or visiting a British post overseas. That, of course, gives rise to other practical questions. How does that person obtain representation at their appeal? It would probably not be much good for them to try to use a lawyer in another country who was not familiar with British law, but how would they make contact with a lawyer in this country? How would they brief the lawyer and where would they find the resources to conduct an appeal?

Such situations are different from other appeals conducted from overseas. For example, in family visitor appeals there will inevitably be sponsors in the UK who can help with some of the problems of finding representation in this country.

Mr. Letwin: Is there not another and more fundamental difference? If a person is sent back to the country of origin-if that is indeed the purport of subsection (2) of new clause 14-will it not immediately be evident either that the decision that the claim was unfounded was true and that the person has no basis for appeal because they are happily situated back in their own country, or, unhappily for economic reasons only; or that the claim was not unfounded and the person is in the most dire straits? In that case, how on earth can they conduct an appeal if they are being chopped up by some appalling regime to which they have been sent back by mistake? I cannot see-can the hon. Gentleman?-how an in-country appeal can resolve any problem that might arise under subsection (2).

Mr. Gerrard: The hon. Gentleman is right. If a mistake is made, it is difficult to see how the consequences can be anything but extremely serious for the person returned on the basis of an unfounded claim.

Mr. Blunkett: We must not misunderstand each other. My hon. Friend has been putting his case extremely carefully and credibly, but we must not misunderstand what the shadow Home Secretary has just said. I spelled out the unacceptable risks, on which we are all agreed, and we are not intent on sending people back to countries that would chop someone up, in the words of the hon. Gentleman-or anything like it. We know of no country that has it in for one person alone, as regards taking away their rights and exposing them to the danger of death or torture as individuals, as opposed to the groups to which they belong, the religion they hold, the politics they espouse or any of the other things that I read out. I was specific about that because it is in those terms that we are talking about returning people.

Mr. Gerrard: I completely accept my right hon. Friend's point, but I question whether the proposed system will deliver what he says and whether there might not be a risk of serious problems for some individuals whose claim has been certified as unfounded.

Fiona Mactaggart: It may help my hon. Friend if I give an example of a case where such risks might occur in a country which is usually safe for most people. In parts of some countries, female genital mutilation is practised on young women and there is no adequate protection for them. That happens in countries to which we might consider returning people. I am not clear that the procedures would offer adequate protection that such practices could never happen.

Mr. Gerrard: My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. Such issues have always given rise to difficulty-whether only part of a country is safe and whether the person being returned actually ends up in the part of the country that is supposed to be safe.

My final point relates to new clause 15. My understanding is that it would apply to cases that were already in the system. An appeal might already be in progress under the existing system, but under the new clause the process could be stopped before the appeal was heard, the case could be certified as unfounded and the person could be removed. Retrospective legislation of any sort always concerns me. If that is the effect of new clause 15, I would be extremely worried.