Braverman accused of cracking down on ‘crooked immigration lawyers’ as a distraction tactic – UK politics live | Politics

In his Today programme interview David McNeill, head of public affairs at the Law Society, argued that the problem with the asylum system was not false claims, but the backlog of applications caused by delays in dealing with them. He told the programme:

Most asylum claims are successful. Those claims which are unsuccessful go to appeal; over half are granted on appeal. There’s something fundamentally wrong with this system.

He also said the Illegal Migration Act would make the situation worse. Describing it as a “really flawed piece of legislation”, he said:

On a practical level the government doesn’t have sufficient number of places in secure accommodation and the plan is to put everybody in secure accommodation for 28 days.

It doesn’t have sufficient numbers of return agreements with other countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, so actually even if you wanted to return asylum seekers it can’t because there isn’t a return agreement.

So what they are going to create is a new group of this 50,000 in hotels, basically a new group of asylum seekers in legal limbo, and it will just make the situation worse.

Good morning. It’s day two of what is down on the No 10 grid as “small boats week” and this morning the government is publicising the existence of the “professional enablers taskforce”, a group set up to beef up enforcement action taken against lawyers who knowingly help migrants make false immigration claims. The taskforce has been running for a while now, but the Home Office has decided to promote it today, with a press release quoting Suella Braverman, the home secretary, saying:

Crooked immigration lawyers must be rooted out and brought to justice. While the majority of lawyers act with integrity – we know that some are lying to help illegal migrants game the system. It is not right or fair on those who play by the rules.

Aubrey Allegretti has written up the story for the Guardian here.

But the story is getting the biggest show in the Daily Mail, which is particularly interested in the topic of “crooked immigration lawyers” because they recently published an investigation that led to the Solicitors Regulation Authority closing three law firms where there was evidence (obtained undercover by the Mail) exposing lawyers or legal advisers telling someone posing as an economic migrant how to fabricate a story that might allow them to successfully claim asylum.

Lawyers accept that conduct of the kind exposed by the Daily Mail is wrong, and that the perpetrators should be punished. But the government has been criticised this morning for presenting this as part of a wider crusade against “leftie lawyers”.

David McNeill, head of public affairs at the Law Society, told the Today programme this morning:

It’s not in our interest to have any solicitor acting improperly or crookedly, but this announcement today is something of a red herring.

This task force which they tout with such aggressive language has been in existence for months now so really from our perspective it just looks like a bit of lawyer-bashing as a distraction from really bad news for the government on the number of asylum seekers now accommodated in hotels, 50,000, problems with processing asylum claims – the backlog is continuing to be extremely bad with cases taking over a year – and also the quality of the case work.

McNeill’s argument was broadly endorsed by Lord Garnier, a Conservative peer and former solicitor general. He was also on on the Today programme and, asked what he thought of government rhetoric about lawyers, he replied:

Attacking judges, attacking lawyers, purely for political rhetoric is a waste of time, and I’ve said as much on the floor of the House of Lords.

I’ve been accused of many things but one thing I’ve not been accused of being a lefty lawyer, but I do believe in the rule of law. And if people would concentrate on what they’re supposed to be doing, rather than deflect by attacking others, we might have a rather more productive set of affairs.

Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, has been defending the government’s stance in an interview round. I will post his comments shortly.

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