UK Parliament / Open data

Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I thank the Minister for his reply and for drawing our attention to the documents in the Library. It would have been helpful to have seen them before. I thank him for some of the reassurance that has been given. I want to make it clear that we are not antipathetic to the idea of voluntary service but we are antipathetic to something which does not look coherent. We need it to be written in the Bill that the recommendations of the design group—which has obviously been set up to deal with some of the problems and make sure that the practicalities are resolved—will be brought to the House for affirmative resolution. Otherwise, those recommendations may not get here and we need to ensure that they are discussed. I also assume that the commencement date for this will be separate from the other aspects. We need to test this a bit more. Are the other elements of that clause, such as language and good citizenship, going to be held up until the design group has discussed this and it has all been sorted out? Presumably Clause 39 must be implemented as a whole and not piecemeal. Therefore, there will have to be an extended starting date. We will almost certainly return to this at Report because the Minister’s response has answered some of the questions I have raised but not all. This will benefit from another airing but for today I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 77 withdrawn. Amendments 78 to 82 not moved.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

708 c564 

Session

2008-09

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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