Home Office checking lawyers have right 'credentials', MPs told

The Home Office ensures firms involved in immigration matters have the ‘correct regulatory credentials’, a practitioner group was told after a minister revealed that the government was keeping tabs on lawyers.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick told the House of Commons in February that the Home Office was ‘monitoring the activities’ of immigration lawyers – but declined to expand on how this monitoring was taking place.

Barrister Zoe Bantleman, legal director at the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA), told the House of Commons justice select committee on Tuesday that she approached the Home Office ‘to understand what the monitoring of these activities meant’.

Bantleman raised the issue at a stakeholder engagement meeting but the permanent secretary was unable to provide any clarification.

The Home Office subsequently told her: ‘I can confirm that when considering representations, the Home Office ensures firms raising immigration matters have the correct regulatory credentials. If evidence exists that obligations have been breached, we may refer them to regulators.’

Simply checking if people are regulated is one thing, Bantleman said, ‘but the hyperbole is very concerning and the rhetoric can be dangerous’, pointing out that there have been attacks against the legal community.

Bantleman was responding to a question on whether she recognised concerns raised with the justice committee that there were lawyers prepared to exploit vulnerable people, persuading them to appeal a case where there was little or no prospect of success in order to take their money.

ILPA has consistently been concerned about the hyperbole and rhetoric against the legal community, Bantleman said.

‘While some lawyers might take the title of “activist”, many lawyers are simply trying to execute their professional obligations and they don’t wish to take part in any culture war. They are advising in fact on the very same areas of law and issues as the government and Home Office’s own lawyers.’

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