Part 2: Asylum Chapter 4: Supporting evidence Section 18: Provision of evidence in support of protection or human rights claim
Overview: This section provides for an evidence notice that requires a claimant to provide evidence in support of their protection or human rights claim before a specified date. Otherwise, the provision of evidence will be deemed "late" and the claimant will be required to provide a statement setting out their reasons for providing that evidence "late". The consequences for not complying with the evidence notice without good reason are provided for in section 26 and section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 (claimant’s credibility) ("the 2004 Act") as amended by section 19.
	Background: It is intended that the new evidence notice will be served on a person under the same circumstances as a notice is served under sections 120(1)(a) and 120(2) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (requirement to state additional grounds for application etc.). A notice served on a person under sections 120(1)(a) and 120(2) creates a duty on that person to provide a statement setting out the reasons and grounds in support of that claim.
	Non-compliance with the new evidence notice will create consequences under section 26, which sets out that a decision-maker in an asylum or human rights claim or appeal must have regard to the principle that evidence raised by the claimant late is given minimal weight, unless there are good reasons why the evidence was provided late.
	Further consequences arise in respect of non-compliance under section 19, which amends section 8 of the 2004 Act to include the provision of late evidence in support of an asylum or human rights claim or related appeal without good reason as a behaviour that shall be taken account of as damaging the claimant’s credibility by the decision-maker.
	Subsections 1 and 2 provide that an evidence notice may be served on an individual who has made a protection claim or a human rights claim. An evidence notice requires an individual to provide any evidence, which has not already been provided, to support their claim by a specified date.
	Subsections 3, 4 and 5 provide that, where evidence is provided on or after the specified date, the individual must set out in a statement the reasons for providing their evidence late.
	Subsection 6 outlines what is meant in the provision by "specified date", meaning the date stated in an evidence notice.