UK Borders Bill

moved Amendment No. 36B: 36B: Clause 20, page 12, line 12, at end insert— ““(2B) In making regulations specifying the amount of a fee for a claim, application, service, process or other matter, the Secretary of State must— (a) be satisfied that the increase is no greater than is required to maintain the value of the amount in real terms; and (b) in doing so, must have regard to the All Items Retail Prices Index Excluding Mortgage Interest Repayments published by the Office of National Statistics.””.”” The noble Lord said: It is certainly a relief to hear that there are fewer Home Office Bills coming down the track, although I believe that there is at least one in the legislative list that has just been published by Mr Gordon Brown, so we cannot escape altogether from the perpetual succession of Home Office Bills that has plagued us for the past 10 years. I want to draw attention to Section 51 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, which allows the Secretary of State to charge a fee in connection with any application or claim in connection with immigration or nationality. In the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Order 2007 which was discussed in your Lordships’ House on 8 March, the Government set out the range of services for which fees would be charged under Section 51, replacing those which had previously been set under various pieces of legislation. That order prepared the ground to set fees for most of the services provided in connection with nationality and immigration at levels that reflect the benefits that the Secretary of State thinks are likely to accrue to the person making the application or for whom the process is undertaken in accordance with Section 42 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004. In Clause 20 the Government are proposing to extend the power to set fees at any level that the Secretary of State thinks fit to applications or processes in connection with the sponsorship of persons seeking leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom. That means that excess fees on top of the fees that the applicants are already paying are to be charged to universities sponsoring students, employers sponsoring workers and individuals bringing in children, elderly dependent relatives or spouses. When the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Order was debated on 8 March, we said that we had no objection to charging fees as such. On the other hand, when the enabling clauses were debated in the proceedings on the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill in early 2006, we had no idea that in some cases the fees were to be almost doubled. We said that it was unfair to load on to current applicants for the services of the BIA the heavy costs of transforming the immigration system over the next four years. I wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, drawing her attention to the charges that were to be paid by a British citizen for his foreign wife’s visa, her permanent residency and her citizenship. Under that order, the total was increased from £1,102 to £2,059. I pointed out that legitimate entrants are already contributing to the economy under the tax system. It was clear that although the Government had been through the motions of consultation on the charges, they had not listened to what some of the respondents had said. With that unfortunate experience of the way in which the Government used the power in Section 42 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 to levy extortionate fees on certain applicants, we urge the Committee not to give carte blanche to charge sponsors whatever the traffic will bear. Universities are already losing students to foreign competition because of the fees that they have to pay to come here. Now the sponsoring universities are going to be charged and they will have to recover that cost in the fees that they impose on the students. The person who wants to bring a spouse here will be confronted with an extra bill on top of the £2,059 already imposed. The employer will have to find an unknown amount on top of what he is paying now. As we saw with the order mentioned earlier, once the order reaches Parliament we have no option but to accept whatever increases the Government decide to impose. All we could do on that occasion was to call attention to the discrepancies between the responses to the consultation and what was in the order. In the case of the fees to be charged under Clause 20, there is not even a consultation. We beg for that as a small mercy. Realising that there is no chance whatever that the Minister will accept the amendment, we beg that the Government will engage in a consultation. Not in hope or expectation, I beg to move.