England and Wales’s most senior judge has written to Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch about an “unacceptable” exchange at prime minister’s questions, saying she was “deeply troubled” by the discussion on a Palestinian family’s asylum case.
Lady Sue Carr, the lady chief justice, criticised the Conservative leader’s questions about the case, in which a family from Gaza had applied through a scheme designed for Ukrainian refugees.
She said it was also “unacceptable” for the prime minister to respond by saying the decision had been wrong and that the home secretary would be “working on closing this loophole”.
The exchange last week referenced reports of an appeal by the family against the decision by an immigration tribunal judge in September to dismiss their claim – but a further appeal was allowed by upper tribunal judges in January.
Lady Carr told reporters she had written letters about her concern regarding judicial decisions. “I think it started from a question from the opposition suggesting that the decision in a certain case was wrong, and obviously the prime minister’s response to that. Both question and the answer were unacceptable,” she said.
“It is for the government visibly to respect and protect the independence of the judiciary. Where parties, including the government, disagree with their findings, they should do so through the appellate process.”
Carr has also written to the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, about Starmer’s response.
The case involved a family with four children whose home in Gaza was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. They applied for entry to the UK using the Ukraine Family Scheme to join the father’s brother, who has lived in the UK since 2007 and is a British citizen. That application was first refused in May last year after the Home Office concluded the requirements of the scheme had not been met.
Starmer told the Commons: “I do not agree with the decision. She’s right, it’s the wrong decision. She hasn’t quite done her homework, because the decision in question was taken under the last government according to the legal framework for the last government.
“But, let me be clear, it should be parliament that makes the rules on immigration. It should be the government that makes the policy, that is the principle, and the home secretary is already looking at the legal loophole which we need to close in this particular case.”
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The family’s claim was initially rejected by an immigration tribunal on the grounds it was outside the Ukraine programme’s rules.
An upper tribunal judge then allowed the family to come to the UK on the basis of their right to a family life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR).
He said the youngest children, now seven and nine, were “at a high risk of death or serious injury on a daily basis” and that it was “overwhelmingly” in their best interests to be in a safer environment with their parents and siblings.
