Lords want rethink on appeal time limit

The government suffered a setback in its reform of the asylum and
immigration system this week when the Lords voted to increase the
time for unsuccessful asylum seekers to appeal.

The Lords voted 143 to 94 in favour of amending the Asylum and
Immi-gration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Bill to extend the
amount of time asylum seekers have to appeal from five to 10
working days.

Lord Goodhart, who tabled the amendment, slammed five working days
as “ridiculously inadequate” for lawyers to prepare for an appeal.
While 10 working days was still “quite a short period”, he conceded
that it would suffice.