Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am rather uneasy about certain aspects of the Bill, although some parts of it are fine and deserve our support. I pity immigration practitioners because they have to deal with so many laws, and at present the situation is rather imperfect. Let us take, for example, the conferring of too much power, as I believe, on immigration officials. They are able to determine the linguistic abilities of potential British citizens. In Clause 38(3) which substitutes paragraph (1) of Schedule 1 to the 1981 Act, what does a, "““sufficient knowledge of the English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic language””," mean? Similarly, what is the meaning of, "““sufficient knowledge about life in the United Kingdom””?" It is important that the Government are able to offer guidelines on these, and perhaps they will, but the noble Lord who is to reply to the debate did not mention them in his opening address. It is vital that those expressions are defined. At the beginning of her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham—I regret that she is not here—talked about the importance of training. That is absolutely vital, and I would hope that my noble friend will say something about it when he comes to wind up. There needs to be the utmost clarity about these provisions. It is all too easy for injustices to arise. Decisions will also extend to benefits and social housing, issues which are of undoubted significance to immigrants. Again, it is for the Minister to justify this to the hilt, and so far I regret that he has not done so. There may well be a case for strengthening the powers of immigration officials in a coherent way, but equally there must be speedy redress, although at present that has not always proved to be the case. I look forward to some clarification of this in his winding-up speech. The Conservative Opposition have been somewhat mealy mouthed on a number of salient points. For example, on immigration law, they oppose the imposition of fines on hauliers attempting to smuggle in illegal immigrants. Do they still stand by that? They have uttered not one word about it in this debate. The Conservatives have opposed the refusal of asylum to convicted criminals serving two years’ imprisonment. What justification do they pray in aid of that point? They have refused to support the provision in the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 which introduced a two-year custodial sentence for knowingly employing illegal workers. Why do they remain silent about that provision, which is very important? There are other measures where they have also fallen short. All this is somewhat academic because they are a long way from power, but there are certain other features of the Bill which concern me. I turn to Clause 47. What sort of conditions are envisaged here? What does the clause really mean? Again, it is incumbent on my noble friend to spell it out, either here or later in our consideration of the Bill. Does it simply enable the UK Border Agency to restrict students to study in particular institutions, or does it go further? Can a student effectively be prevented from pursuing his studies altogether? In my submission, clarification of what is meant is vitally significant. Students or potential students are entitled to know, but at present the whole thing is terribly vague. As the grandchild of immigrants myself, I know that initially they suffered enormous indignities. But they lived through those dark days—and there were better days, despite what I have said, than the time they spent in Russia and elsewhere. I continue to feel that our immigration laws have to bear up to reasonable scrutiny in the quest to be absolutely fair. ““Tough but fair”” was what was proposed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and tough but fair ought to be the signal of the Bill we are now considering. In some respects, it is not fair at all.