Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill

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Mr. Lammy: I rise to clarify how many pages there are in Wade and whether the hon. Gentleman managed to read all of them during the lunch break.

Mr. Bacon: The issue is the chapter of Wade concerning protective and preclusive clauses—ouster clauses. I read that chapter many years ago and have been rereading it at length prior to this debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woking mentioned Lord Denning. It is interesting to look at the front of the eighth edition of Wade, where it says

''This edition is dedicated to the memory of Lord Denning who died in 1999 aged 100. A great judge, an architect of administrative law and a friend of this book.''

That makes the point fairly conclusively. I did not want to rely on one textbook, even if the Minister had claimed that it supported him, so I studied with great interest the briefing from Matrix Chambers. When I came into Parliament, I did not think that it was going to be my place to speak up for right-on lawyers, but having read through this first-class briefing, I think that perhaps I should have become one; I might have prospered. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking referred to the fact that the name of the Prime Minister's wife is absent from the list of distinguished barristers and silks. That is strange, but there it is. It

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is a good briefing and it makes a number of important points, one of which is that this does not apply only to asylum; it is much wider-ranging.

The briefing says that the clause

''provides a precedent for exempting the executive and administrative tribunals from seeking to understand, apply or be governed by the law.''

It goes on to say that, in the view of the distinguished

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barristers, it is a matter of great constitutional significance, particularly at a time of so much constitutional turmoil. The traditional institutions that have served to provide some measure of check are being undermined without any clear understanding of what is going to take their place.

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Prepared 20 January 2004