UK Parliament / Open data

UK Borders Bill

Proceeding contribution from Baroness Hanham (Conservative) in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 16 October 2007. It occurred during Debate on bills on UK Borders Bill.
My Lords, there is no doubt that we benefit enormously from the A8 countries and the great number of immigrants—if we can call them immigrants, because they are all part of the EU. People coming to this country are providing a lot of the talents and expertise which we do not seem to have at the moment. My noble friend Lady Anelay did not support this amendment previously on the basis that it would be centrally driven and that the information would be provided from central government. People coming here tend to cluster and keep together. There are a lot in London, as well as a lot who move further north. It really is not much use having a centrally produced leaflet when the information they need concerns local facilities close to where they have settled. So yes, information should be provided, but information from central government is probably not very interesting, as well as probably being expensive and difficult to make available in the various languages. However, my experience of people from the A8 countries is that they can speak English almost better than we do. By and large, English works very well. Most important, though, is that local information is far more valuable than anything centrally produced.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

695 c673 

Session

2006-07

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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