UK Borders Bill

My Lords, we now come to the concluding part of this important debate. Noble Lords have highlighted areas of serious concern, and I am sure that the Minister expected this, as she was explicit in her opening address for a commitment to improve legislation so that we can all move forward. I have lost count of the number of Bills on asylum and immigration we have dealt with in the past10 years, and I therefore rely on the statistics produced by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. Let us not be deceived by the title, ““UK Borders Bill””. We are dealing essentially with immigration and asylum matters. The main purpose of the Bill is to implement aspects of the Home Office review of the immigration system and help to underpin the new Border and Immigration Agency. We have been assisted in this exercise by the document: Fair, effective, transparent and trusted—Rebuilding confidence in our immigration system, published in July 2006. We have a further Home Office publication, Prevention of Illegal Working from the Border and Immigration Agency. The Bill is also designed to protect the United Kingdom from illegal immigration and illegal work by nationals of countries outside the European Economic Area. We now have a clear policy distinction between immigration from EU countries and that from the Commonwealth and the rest of the world. I detect confusion in the Home Office about how to achieve the objectives set out in these publications. Last summer, the Home Secretary launched the most radical shake-up of our immigration system. He came to a conclusion about the system’s strengths and weaknesses, and how he believed it needed to change. This is no different from sentiments expressed by Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Charles Clarke, the previous Home Secretaries. They have all helped to ratchet up immigration matters on a piecemeal basis, and the present Home Secretary is no exception. I pose the key question: why are the Government not introducing a single integrated border force, enforcing police functions and well as those discharged by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate? Instead, the Home Secretary is able to designate immigration officers as having powers to detain an individual at a port if the officer thinks that they may be liable to arrest by a constable without a warrant, or is subject to a warrant for arrest. Of course, there are a number of qualifications, and we shall deal with them in Committee. One of the arguments advanced by the Minister in the other place is that, at a time when the terrorist threat to our country is so severe, we could not justify a wholesale reorganisation. I would have thought that this was the precise reason why he should fully exploit an integrated border force. I have repeatedly said that immigration is an emotive issue. Migration is an international phenomenon. It has been of enormous benefit to our economy. At a conservative estimate, migrants contribute over £2.5 billion to the British economy. Take away the doctors from the National Health Service, take away the transport workers, and the infrastructure of this country would almost collapse. Immigration will continue to play an important part in the future of this country. The Government have deployed tough talk on immigration, but the evidence points to incompetence and mismanagement in the important office of the Secretary of State. There is no such thing as ““Fortress Britain””. Of course there is a need to plan for managed migration. For too long, we have not distinguished between primary immigration, economic migration and asylum matters. The successful immigration policy is the one that works: rules that are transparent and administration that is efficient. The enforcement must be fair and, to an extent, swift. There is ample evidence that an incompetent immigration system has damaged public confidence in this country. I will give three examples of how not to handle immigration matters. Take the case of Tui Bahadur Pun, a former Gurkha who won the British military's highest honour, the Victoria Cross, and wanted to come to the UK for health reasons. He was told by the entry clearance officer that he was unable to demonstrate strong enough ties with the United Kingdom. It is easy to attach blame to our consulate abroad; I shall resist that temptation. But we cannot ignore the fact that, since 1962 when the first Commonwealth immigration Act was passed, we have created a culture that allows such stupid decisions to be taken. We must move from a subjective decision-making process to an objective approach. This is why there is merit in the points-based system. However, we need to exercise caution as to how it is implemented. Government plans for a points-based system for immigration could have a massive detrimental effect, for example, on the performing arts. The plan would force all performers from outside the EU to apply for a work permit visa at a cost of £200 each. This would drive up the costs of a touring company of 100 members from £8,500 to £20,000. It is essential that artists from abroad come to the UK to take part in performances to maintain our reputation as a cultural world leader and major tourist attraction. There is a great danger that touring companies will choose to avoid the UK due to the excessive costs and that the UK will no longer host world-class drama, music and dance events. The new immigration system is based on the Australian model in which performers are allowed entry outside the normal immigration rules. It is madness that the UK plans to implement this scheme without a similar exception. Surely discretion in the decision-making process should not be ruled out. Let me repeat what I have said before in debates of this sort. The purpose of immigration procedures is not in dispute: it is to admit those who are eligible and to exclude, or, subject to the appropriate humanitarian principles, to remove those who are not, but in any administrative system, questions arise about priorities. The administration of the immigration system is no exception. The need to exclude the ineligible means that checks have to be made to determine who is eligible and who is not. The greater the emphasis on excluding the ineligible, the more intensive those checks have to be, and the more intensive those checks are and the more complicated they are to administer, the greater the delay and expense. We saw the evidence of that during the time of the previous Government when there was a huge backlog of cases and hundreds of unopened mail bags at Lunar House in Croydon. All that has led to the fifth Bill on this matter since this Government were first elected. Then let us look at the lack of leadership and how one Minister responded; the Minister with responsibility for employment, Margaret Hodge. She is quoted as having said that British families should be given priority over economic migrants for council housing. The reality is that asylum seekers are not entitled to council housing, and arrivals from new EU states have restricted access to benefits. Is it not time that we stopped using migration as a political football? The real problems faced by the Home Office are administrative, and a knee-jerk reaction is less likely to help. The third example is the case of more than 1,000 foreign prisoners who were released without being considered for deportation—this case has been referred to by a number of noble Lords. I do not in any way underestimate the terrorist threat or why certain measures are necessary. British society is founded on, and bound together by, a shared understanding of our core liberal values of democracy, the rule of law, individual rights and mutual tolerance. We will not shirk from stating unambiguously that individuals or communities who seek to overturn those values are not welcome members of British society. Some elements of the Bill have merit, and we will support them; for example, turning the Immigration and Nationality Directorate into an independent agency. The powers vested in immigration officers in the first four clauses are designed to detain people suspected of non-immigration offences. I am afraid that these provisions do not contain any suggestion of an integrated border force, far from it. We are simply redeploying resources so are we shifting police officers from their current duties and putting custom officials in new uniforms. We shall certainly question whether the powers given to immigration officers are appropriate and proportionate and, if so, what precisely is envisaged to enforce compliance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Would any complaint be subject to independent investigation by the IPCC? The proposals for biometric registration are a precursor or a dry run for ID cards. It is estimated that nearly 3.9 million people have indefinite leave to remain here and therefore have no contact with the Immigration Service. They are legally here. It will be an administrative nightmare to secure biometric registration for this group. For the newcomers, the resources of our consulates will be stretched. There will be even longer queues at British posts abroad. How will that help persons coming to the UK for short family visits? Has anyone worked out the impact of this on our tourist industry? I understand that information to be included in the biometric immigration document is to be provided by regulations. Could we have a sight of what is demanded in the regulations? We want to know what will happen to biometric immigration documents—BID—for those granted British citizenship. The current offence of employing illegal workers will be replaced by a regime of civil penalties for employers and a new offence of knowingly employing an illegal worker. It is evident that the problem is not in finding those who are working or living illegally in the UK but in enforcing action against them. The figures for 2004-05 found that nearly 4,000 immigrants were working illegally, but that only eight employers were taken to court. Some serious questions need to be answered. Will BID be used for employment, access to benefits and NHS funding? If so, why has there not been the consultation with employers that was promised by the Minister for Immigration? Has the Minister published an assessment of the financial impact on the public or private sector of the compulsory checking of BIDs? We welcome Clause 17, which will ensure that asylum seekers can continue to be supported at all stages up to an appeal being determined. However, we have serious concerns about the provisions on automatic deportations of people who seriously breach the trust under which they are in this country. This is the aftermath of the foreign prison crisis of last year. Rules are being changed even though the problems were not the lack of power to deport but the failure to do so by the administrators. When the cases of 1,000 foreign nationals were examined, the Home Office said that about 40 per cent of them were not to be deported. Would it not be appropriate that instead of the automatic deportation of foreign national offenders, the courts should make the decision on deportation in each case and if there is a need to beef-up the power then we should do so? In Committee, we shall raise matters on which the Joint Committee on Human Rights has reported. These are issues highlighted by Save the Children, National Children's Bureau, Children's Legal Centre, National Association for Youth Justice, Barnardo's, the Children's Society and NACRO. We are grateful to them for scrutinising provisions affecting children. We shall further seek the opportunity to consolidate immigration legislation so that it is easy to understand. We would urge the Minister to read carefully the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust inquiry into destitution among refused asylum seekers. In conclusion, there are good things about this Bill which we would support. We shall probe those areas where the Government's intentions are not clear, and we shall certainly oppose those provisions where human rights are affected. I put faith in what the Minister has said. I do so for two reasons: first, she is prepared to effect changes on the basis of arguments we put forward; and, secondly—and probably the most important—that John Reid will have gone before we conclude this exercise.