Amendment 85A extends the discussion that we had earlier. It attempts to establish who is going to be in charge of deciding where volunteers are invited to go and what the process is by which it is then known that they have volunteered: they will presumably have had some box ticked by the referee in order to tell somebody that they have undertaken the voluntary work in order to presumably have another box ticked by the UK Border Agency.
The Minister said that the paper on the design group was in the Library. It is not. I wonder, therefore, if we could arrange to have copies sent to us as soon as possible or to make sure that, if it is meant to be in the Library, it is in the Library. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked for it during the dinner break and it was not there. Perhaps we could be directed towards it, as I think that it is very important.
Also, the Minister answered only indirectly the question that I raised earlier about how long applicants would have to do voluntary work for. I think that he said at the end of his remarks that it would be done all the way through from the pre-probationary stage right to the end of probation. However, there must be a time limit because applicants cannot be expected to do four years of voluntary work in order to reduce their time limit by two years. Perhaps we could have an answer on that.
As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said, a lot of unanswered questions remain. In order to decide whether this is going to be of any benefit to anybody—the country, the applicant or the people ticking the boxes to make sure that they have their bits of paper in the right place—questions have to be answered about the right place for those bits of paper and who will make the final decision on whether someone has achieved what is required to enable them to be fast-tracked.
Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]
Proceeding contribution from
Baroness Hanham
(Conservative)
in the House of Lords on Monday, 2 March 2009.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL].
About this proceeding contribution
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2008-09Chamber / Committee
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