JOHN HUMPHRYS:                Every other week it seems 
the government comes up with yet another tough policy to deal with asylum 
seekers. The problem is not only those who try to get into the country 
illegally through the Channel Tunnel for instance, but also those who have 
made an application for asylum once they're here, and had it turned down. 
It was those Mr. Blunkett had in his sites last week. He said, he wants 
the law changed so that instead of being allowed to make their appeal in 
this country, they can be sent back, either to the country they came from, 
or to a European country they passed through on their way to Britain. The 
Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Simon Hughes says that is morally 
wrong, and he's with me. Good afternoon Mr. Hughes.

SIMON HUGHES MP:            Good afternoon.

HUMPHRYS:                    What's immoral about 
it?

HUGHES:                    It takes away the responsibility 
we have for giving people a fair hearing, and it undermines that, in fact, 
only six months ago in the government's own White Paper, it said not allowing 
people to appeal here would undermine justice, so they had that position 
six months ago, and the logic is seen in a parallel with the Criminal Justice 
System. If you presumed that you were going to treat people differently 
between the first hearing and the appeal, people would say that's outrageous. 
You've got to give people full rights, the same rights to appeal. And the 
figures show how important it is, about one in five cases last year succeeded 
on appeal. So the Home Secretary's effectively saying, I want to send out 
of the country, people, one in five of whom will succeed if they pursue 
their appeal, to another country, which might well pass them on to a third 
country, and so on. It's a pass-the-parcel, when we should, if we could 
get our act together, if we could just organise ourselves well, be able 
to deal with people here. It's also immoral because it panders to prejudice, 
it stokes resentment, and it gets rid of the principle which says you have 
a judicial review of the system in this country, rather than having a part 
review of the system in this country, and the rest you have to go abroad 
to exercise your rights to, to use.

HUMPHRYS:                    But they will still, 
that's the important point, that last point, they will still be able to 
exercise those rights, albeit in a different country.

HUGHES:                    Well, the two options Mr 
Blunkett indicated, where they go back to the country they came from, that 
in most cases is not an option, because by definition they've come from 
there because they don't believe they're safe there, or they go to 'another 
safe country.' Well let's take France, which is the obvious example, the 
definition of what is asylum in France as it happens is different from 
the UK, because they don't accept non-state persecution. It's been a controversial 
issue over the years, so the courts here have said, it's not the same to 
go to France or to Germany, because the standard is not as high as it is 
in the UK, so it's not giving them the same rights as if they were remaining 
in this country.

HUMPHRYS:                    But it seems a bit odd 
to object to them being sent back to a country with a perfectly good record 
on human rights, such as France, or Poland, or the Czech Republic or Hungary, 
or...

HUGHES:                    I accept that. The difficulty 
is that the French, under the present system, might say, well, they're 
nothing to do with us. That's what they've been saying in relation to the 
people outside Calais at Sangatte and therefore they logically could say 
well, we'll pass them back, they must have come from somewhere else, let's 
pass them back to Germany. The system's a nonsense. I've been to Sangatte, 
I've talked to people there, many of them don't know exactly where they 
crossed into the European Union. They were in a lorry, they'd paid their 
twelve-thousand Dollars in Afghanistan to get to the UK, or to get to Europe 
and then they were told to apply to the UK. They were dumped at Sangatte, 
 they don't know where they crossed the border. The sane system is to have 
a European system which says, no matter where somebody appears, whether 
it's in Italy, people coming off the boats, whether it's in Spain, the 
people having come across the Straits of Tangier, or whether it's at Sangatte, 
wherever they appear, we will have a common processing system, technically 
you have to apply to an individual country, so let's say in that case it's 
France, but the European Union will share responsibility for making sure 
that fair numbers are distributed across the EU. And we're not even anywhere 
near the top of that league table, we're tenth out of sixteen countries, 
in the proportion relative to population we take. It really is something 
that we should try to see in perspective and proportion and get a common 
system agreed between us instead of raising the anti...

HUMPHRYS:                    Nobody I am sure would 
argue that a common system is to be greatly desired, and the sort of thing 
you've just described might be ideal, but we don't have it, that's the 
problem, and by your own admission, twenty per cent of the applicants succeed, 
that means eighty per cent of them do not succeed...

HUGHES:                    Just let me just be clear 
about the figures. The figures are roughly that twenty per cent of original 
cases succeed on the first round, as it were, there are about another twenty 
per cent which succeed either because there's a judicial review, or because 
they're given leave to remain here. So about a third, between a third and 
a half of all people, coming over the last decade, have been allowed to 
stay.

HUMPHRYS:                    Right, but the majority, 
nonetheless, are turned down...

HUGHES:                    ...their majority at the 
end of the process, are turned...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...or well, unless it's 
third and the figure probably fluctuates a bit, doesn't it? 

HUGHES:                    ...it does.

HUMPHRYS:                    But anyway, the fact 
is, the majority, even if it's only a small majority are turned down and 
what you're saying, and let's look at it now from a practical point of 
view rather than the moral point of view, what you're saying is that we, 
people of this country, should bear their costs. We should carry on housing, 
clothing, feeding them, all the rest of it?

HUGHES:                    When we signed up to the 
Convention in nineteen-fifty-one, where Britain actually was a key country 
in drafting the Convention and establishing the rights, the deal was that 
the countries who were receiving applicants would look after the asylum 
applicant until they could deal with their case. Now most applicants for 
asylum do not come to Britain, they don't come to Europe, they go to Pakistan, 
or they go to Central Africa, we get a very small proportion, if, and the 
figures as the UN commissioned this week says, have been cut by half in 
Europe over the last decade, if we can't organise ourselves, the fourth 
most successful economy in the world, to process these cases, that's a 
failing of us, and the only reason there's perceived there's a crisis, 
is because we haven't put the resources in, we haven't had the processing 
done properly. You can have a perfectly proper system, and a quick system, 
and a fair system, without saying 'I'm sorry, if you're going to appeal, 
you're going to have to appeal from somewhere far away, where to be honest, 
there's no guarantee you will have the same opportunity to do so as if 
you're here.'

HUMPHRYS:                    But it is perceived as 
a crisis and there are enormous political ramifications of all of this 
as we both know, and as everybody watching this programme knows, and something 
has to be done, most people believe, and if you look at another set of 
figures that the financial figures, we read this morning that it's going 
to cost in the current year about a billion pounds to deal with asylum 
seekers. Now for a politician to sit there and say, don't worry about it, 
we should pick up that bill...

HUGHES:                    ... it was us that don't 
worry about it. It's, take a European context, Mr. Blair said when he goes 
to the Seville Summit of the European Union leaders, that he wants the 
Spanish Prime Minister who's in the chair at the moment to come up with 
some proposals, we should go to the European Summit with proposals, we 
should say, come on, this is a matter we need to share responsibility for, 
and we should say get our act together quickly. But the UNHCR, the other 
agencies, are willing to help us. They're quite willing, it seems to me, 
to say 'ok, whether people are in Sangatte, or in Spain, or in Britain, 
or anywhere else, let's deal with them civilly, let's uphold the human 
rights we've always done, but let's make sure we have the resources in 
to progress the case. We have a nonsense system at the moment, I agree 
with you. For people to have to smuggle themselves under the Channel in 
order to put a case to come to Britain is a nonsense. It is a much more 
sane system, that wherever you appear in Europe, you can put the case there. 
Indeed a much more sane system than that would say, if you get out of say, 
Afghanistan last year, and you get to a relatively safe country like India, 
then why can't you put your case as an asylum seeker in India to come to 
the UK just as at the moment you can put your case for a visa to come to 
the UK, so there is a bigger picture and it could be done quickly, and 
it really doesn't mean saying we can't do anything now, and all the evidence 
is that if you just put up the barriers and have a fortress Europe mentality, 
that doesn't actually stop people trying to come here, and it certainly 
doesn't uphold the human rights of people who now look to us from countries 
where for the last two-hundred years we were very happily walking into 
their countries, conquering them, running them, administering them, and 
migrating into them.

HUMPHRYS:                    A slightly different 
issue, but yes, ok, accept that point...

HUGHES:                    ...we've gone round the 
world...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...indeed, indeed, indeed...

HUGHES:                    ...into everybody else's, 
and they're now looking to us for help...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...indeed we have, but 
we have to deal with the world as it is today, and not as it once was, 
or indeed as it is as you would like it to be. Are you, be clear about 
this, are you saying you have no problem, you do not believe it is a problem 
that we have the number of asylum seekers coming here today that we had, 
that isn't problem as far as you are concerned?

HUGHES:                    I believe it shouldn't 
be a problem to deal with.

HUMPHRYS:                    Well is it?

HUGHES:                    Well it is only because 
the government have not dealt with it competently, it's a failure of the 
past and present government, and I'm not blaming individuals, they have 
not realised that throughout Europe over the last ten years there's been 
civil war in Southern Europe, and they ought to have had the resources 
in place, it's a bit like the prison issue - it's no good thinking that 
you can resolve the problem of overcrowding prisons without having different 
policy either to have more prisons or to have different sentencing. It's 
all predictable. So yes, it is a problem, but it's a problem of the government's 
own making. And the solution is not for the Home Secretary to change policy 
in six months for the third time to say we're going to be even tougher, 
to pander to prejudice, to be honest, sometimes to only quote half the 
figures, as he accepted he did when he'd done an interview on the BBC a 
few weeks ago, which was then corrected in the Commons later in the day. 
We really must tell people the facts, and if people know that about a third 
to a half of all cases are valid, and for the other people, they want to 
be economic migrants, and we should have a case for letting them put their 
case, then we would have a sane system, but we have an insane system at 
the moment, and anybody that's been to Sangatte and seen the terrible conditions 
we condemn people to, as a continent, would realise how insane a system 
it is.

HUMPHRYS:                    Though some people would 
say, they chose to come here, they chose to go to Sangatte and if we're 
talking about figures, just, just have a look at them, seventy-two-thousand 
applications last year, that was an increase that has increased, that had, 
it tends to go up and go down a little bit, granted, but that was an increase 
in the first quarter of this year...

HUGHES:                    ...yes but John...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...now a lot of people 
say that is, that is a worryingly large figure...

HUGHES:                    ...on the figures, if you 
look over the decade as a whole, in Europe the figures have been cut by 
half, but in Britain they've gone up, more people have come to Britain, 
and that's because, if one country suddenly tightens its system, what happens? 
People don't go away, they just go somewhere else within Europe, they go 
to another country, it's very irresponsible.

HUMPHRYS:                    That's our problem, exactly.

HUGHES:                    Well yes. That is a very 
irresponsible system for us to say, right, we're going to tighten now, 
thank you very much France, you take the burden. Because then what happens, 
the French will tighten it even more...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...yes but you see...

HUGHES:                    it is a pass-the-parcel, 
and that's a nonsense.

HUMPHRYS:                    ...but the French view 
is, is that our rules are simply too lax. The French are not at all surprised 
that we've got people coming here, they believe that they're too lax, we 
are too lax?

HUGHES:                    Of course, and that's why 
you need a common system so that there isn't a great difference between 
what happens in Belgium or Italy or Spain...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...but in the absence 
of that common system...

HUGHES:                    ...but why should there 
be an absence?

HUMPHRYS:                    ...well because there 
is. I mean let's just deal with it as it is today, lunchtime on a Sunday, 
there is an absence of a common system, and what you seem to be saying, 
is let us actually have a more lax system...

HUGHES:                    ...no, no not at all. I'm 
saying, have a system, let me give you a practical example, and I deal 
with lots of asylum seekers and immigrants in my constituency on a weekly 
basis, more than almost any other MP. You go to Sangatte, you interview 
the people there, you give advice as to which are likely to get successful 
asylum cases, you let them put their case, for the others who are economic 
migrants you seek to deal with them in a different way, and then when you 
decide somebody does fail, you have a much more honourable system about 
returning people home which makes it highly likely they go home and not 
at the moment, that they disappear into the, that system altogether.

HUMPHRYS:                    Can I in the last minute 
or so deal with a different subject, that of Myra Hindley, as the Home 
Affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats. David Blunkett apparently 
wants to change the law so that as a result of the Human Courts ruling 
last week, he would not effectively be forced to release somebody like 
Myra Hindley, indeed, she's made her own appeal. Is he right to do that, 
or is he wrong?

HUGHES:                    The European Court are 
right to say that it should not be for politicians, but for judges to decide 
how long somebody serves.

HUMPHRYS:                    So he's wrong?

HUGHES:                    Parliament should set the 
maximum sentence, and if David Blunkett wants to bring before parliament 
a proposal that if somebody is sentenced to life that means they serve 
all their days in prison, he can do that. I think he's very wrong to do 
that, because no...

HUMPHRYS:                    ...you think she should 
be released?

HUGHES:                    No, that should be done 
by the judges. The court should decide in our view whether it's safe to 
release somebody, not politicians, and you should never have a mandatory 
sentence for anything, because every case is different.

HUMPHRYS:                    Simon Hughes, many thanks.