UK Borders Bill

It is a relatively rare experience for a suggestion that I make on a Home Office Bill to be taken up and accepted by Ministers, so I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for inserting Government amendment No. 16. That change was needed to ensure that the Bill reflected what Ministers said was going to happen. The same approach would help if applied to clause 16, which deals with reporting and residence conditions. We debated that on Second Reading and some detailed discussion took place in Committee. Current drafting means that reporting and residence conditions could be applied to almost anybody who does not have indefinite leave to remain. In Committee, the Minister gave some assurances that he expected the clause to apply in relatively limited circumstances. However, as the provision is drafted, it would be open to a future Minister to interpret it differently from my hon. Friend. I hope that, before the Bill completes its passage, more thought will be given to whether a similar approach to that on biometrics could be taken to clause 16. I want to comment briefly on the changes to deportation and other matters. The point has already been made that, whatever the legislation, if the Home Office does not process cases at a reasonable speed, it will not work. That has been a recurring theme of debates on several Bills, and the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) made the point earlier. I fully accept that, after 10 years of government, we must accept responsibility for the state of the Home Office and the delays. However, if the hon. Gentleman is trying to suggest that there was a golden era a few years back under a Conservative Government, he is wrong. My experience between 1992 and 1997 was that the Home Office was at least as shambolic in processing cases as it is now—indeed, it was probably worse. The problem has simply remained unsolved for a long time. It is important to get to grips with it; if the processing does not happen, the deportation clauses will not work. If legislation is passed but not implemented, and things that we say will happen do not, faith in the process will be lost. I have argued for some time that the Home Office should legislate rather less and do a hell of a lot more to ensure that the systems within it work.