UK Borders Bill

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I have not attended an equivalent ceremony in my town hall. I appreciate the value of such ceremonies and of the great interest that immigrant parents take in their children's education, and how well immigrant children do in our schools. Often, they excel and outrun the indigenous children. There is a great lesson for us to learn there. The success of children in schools depends largely on the interest that their parents take in whether they attend school, participate fully and do their homework. That is reflected in the results in our schools. This is an enormous challenge. The numbers that we are dealing with are vast, but it must be done in fairness to genuine applicants who abide by the rules and to the existing community, including law-abiding immigrants who are working and contributing. In 2006, the Government produced their immigration and nationality directorate review, the snappily titled, ““Fair, effective, transparent and trusted: rebuilding confidence in our immigration system””—a candidate for landscape paper if ever there was one. It highlighted its aims by stating:"““We will have biometric ID requirements in place for the highest risk countries””." Who could argue against that, except that there are all sorts of caveats about the way in which that is put in place. All sorts of safeguards are required. I shall come to that later. Other aims in the review were to"““penalise rogue employers who employ illegal workers by implementing fines for employers and seizing the assets of persistent offenders; and disbarring company officers who consent to or connive in knowingly employing illegal workers””" and to"““work across government to shut down fraudulent access to benefits””." That is a particularly interesting one. I have anecdotal evidence from a constituent who tried to report people who they knew to be making fraudulent claims to social security. They were told that the information was not wanted and turned away. They have not been taken seriously. There is an obvious opportunity there for social security offices to co-operate and take seriously the information that is given to them by neighbours who have observed things. It is not always immigrants. Sometimes it is for other reasons, but the principle is the same. People feel a great sense of injustice, particularly if they get up every morning and go out to do a job that may not be very well paid. They may not enjoy it much but they are paying their taxes, keeping a roof over their heads and taking responsibility for their own lives and those of their children. When they see people cheating the system, they get angry. Social security officials whom they contact should be prepared to take that information seriously. Another aim of the review was to"““change the law to make deportation the presumption for foreign national prisoners and to make their appeals non-suspensive””." I understand that that means not subject to appeal on refugee and human rights grounds. I shall be corrected if I have misunderstood that, but non-suspensive appeals is a new term to me. The review goes on:"““we will legislate to remove requirements for the consent of the prisoner””." We will all applaud that if it is possible to implement and enforce it. There is some doubt as to whether EU legislation and human rights legislation will make that possible. I hope that the Minister will clarify what scope the Government have to make such laws that will not be superseded by European legislation. The review says that another aim is to"““strengthen and streamline the law and Immigration rules, to speed up and simplify the immigration system””." I feel that the Bill falls down on that component in particular.