Sir Julian Lewis: Does the Lord Chancellor accept that part of the reason for the loss of public confidence lies with the sort of cases that are clogging up tribunal and court time? As explained by Jawad Iqbal in his column in The Times today, these involve dubious decisions about not being able to deport convicted criminals, such as an Iraqi cocaine dealer who cannot be sent back to his homeland because he is considered to be “too westernised”. Quite apart from the perversity of the result, is it not an insult to the genuine victims of crimes who are held up in getting the judgments that they deserve?

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood): The right hon. Member will know that it would be inappropriate for the Lord Chancellor to comment on individual judgments. On some of the decisions in the immigration chamber, which have been the subject of some public discussion, he will know that the Prime Minister has been very clear that where a policy or a legal change is required, it is for the Government to bring forward those changes and ultimately for the House to vote on them. In that respect, the Home Secretary is considering further changes to the law. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned deportations, and let me remind him that, under this Government, deportations of foreign national offenders from our prisons are up by 23%.]