UK Borders Bill

No; the point that we were making was that automatic deportation in relation to a period of imprisonment of 12 months is not in itself fair or just and does not take account of the cases and issues that I have mentioned. After examining the cases of the 1,000 foreign nationals who were not considered for deportation, the Home Office itself said that about 40 per cent. of them were not to be deported. According to its criteria, it did not consider them as necessarily needing deporting. We believe that, instead of automatic deportation, the courts should make the decision on deportation of foreign national offenders according to the facts of the case. We need to beef up the powers in that regard, rather than making the fundamental change that the Government are talking about. We hope that those concerns can be addressed in Committee to improve the Bill. We will table amendments. We welcome some parts of the Bill, because they offer good and important developments. However, it would be unfortunate if yet another chance to construct an immigration system that works and is fit for purpose was wasted by playing to the tabloid gallery or sidelined by the desire to pilot through an unpopular Identity Cards Bill.