Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

I shall address my remarks mainly to new clause 5 and amendment 8, which stand in my name, and then say a brief word about amendment 17. Let me start with new clause 5 and what happens if someone fails to fulfil the requirements for naturalisation. What happens to somebody who is in the probationary stage of citizenship but then, for whatever reason, does not fulfil the criteria for citizenship? There may be cases where somebody decides not to go through the expense of making an application because they know there is a condition they cannot fulfil. There will also undoubtedly be cases where people's applications are refused because they do not fulfil some of the relevant requirements and discretionary power has not been exercised in their favour. However, it is very unclear from the discussions on the Bill so far just what the consequences of that would be. For instance, in relation to the continuous employment requirement, the earned citizenship team has told some organisations outside this place that a failure to comply with the employment requirements would lead to removal. However, it has been suggested in other discussions about various aspects of the Bill that a failure to meet a requirement might just lead to the resetting of the clock on probationary citizenship to zero, to a further period of probationary citizenship or even to the option to switch to a different category, such as the points-based system. There is an issue if people do not know where they stand if, for some reason, they cannot fulfil the requirements. It is important that we should know as clearly as possible what the consequences of that failure might be. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister could give us some clarity about that, although I realise that it will not be easy because there are so many different requirements that someone might not fulfil. The second issue that I want to address is that of continuous employment, which is dealt with by amendment 8, which stands in my name. Amendment 8 tries to define continuous employment. Again, we are talking about clarity. The Bill as it stands uses the term "continuous employment", but does not define it. If a consequence of not fulfilling the relevant requirement is that someone could be removed, that could be quite serious. Amendment 8 tries to define "continuous employment" in a way that corresponds roughly with the points-based system. At the moment, a tier 2 worker who has leave lasting under six months will not lose their status when their employment is terminated, and there are more generous provisions for tier 1 workers. However, what happens if there is a break in employment, which might in no way be the responsibility of the person concerned? The employer for whom they are working might go bankrupt, which would mean they would have to try to find another job under the terms of their work permit. The other issue that concerns the TUC and a number of other unions is the scope for exploitation of those who are here as migrant workers. If a migrant worker is in an abusive employment situation, but is frightened that giving up that job may lead to their removal from the UK, that makes it much more difficult for them to extricate themselves from that exploitative situation. That is particularly important for women and disabled people. We know that exploitation goes on in the labour market and that the most disadvantaged, such as migrants, are often its victims. I therefore hope that the Minister can give us some reassurances about how the system will operate. He said something in Committee about people being able to work for up to 60 days when they were looking for new employment, but again the issue is one of certainty. If someone in the middle of their term of employment does not know with clarity what the consequence will be of either a period of unemployment or trying to change their employer if there is abuse, that will leave them in a difficult situation. My final point is about Government amendment 17. This amendment is an improvement on what was suggested before, because it gives some protection to people who are in this country. It clearly protects those with indefinite leave when the new procedures commence, as well as those who have applied for indefinite leave before the commencement date. It has already been pointed out that a key factor will be the commencement date. I have heard various dates mentioned, including, most recently, the summer of 2011, as opposed to the original proposal of late 2010. This will be important, given the retrospective nature of the legislation. If we know the commencement date, we will have a fairly clear idea who might be affected by the provisions. For example, someone who is here on a marriage visa that is valid for two years might expect to get indefinite leave to remain here towards the end of that two-year period. If we knew that the commencement date was going to be in the summer of 2011, we would know that anyone who was already here on a two-year marriage visa would be in a position to get indefinite leave before the new provisions came into play. Certainty will be important in this context. We have heard the arguments about what happened to the highly skilled migrants programme. The problems arose because of the retrospective nature of the programme, and because people who had come here expecting that they would be able to apply for indefinite leave after four years were suddenly told that the requirement had changed to five years. That led to the High Court case that the Home Office lost. None of us wants to see a return to the High Court. I wondered whether it might be possible to table an amendment to Government amendment 17 in order to introduce more certainty, but that might result in our picking and choosing in a way that the Conservative amendment does when it singles out the highly skilled migrant programme. I understand the arguments that the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) was making on that, but those are not the only people who would be affected, and they are not the only ones who need to be safeguarded from retrospection. My reading of the condition in amendment 17 which states that a commencement order "must include" provisions about various dates is that that would not preclude the commencement order from including other provisions. The way seems to have been left open for the order to include other provisions that could provide other protections if necessary. That is an important point that I hope the Minister will address. I hope that he will confirm that my interpretation is correct. If it is, and if a commencement date might still be a little time off, we could have a serious discussion in the interim about exactly what provisions ought to be included, rather than trying to write them all into the Bill now and, almost inevitably, finding that we had left out a particular class of people who need protection against retrospection. I hope the Minister will give us some assurances on that last point, and on the points that I have raised in relation to new clause 5 and amendment 8. I am not seeking to press the new clause or the amendment to a vote, but I would like some assurances about the way the new citizenship provisions will operate. There is real concern outside this place about the delays that they might introduce, about the length of time that people might have to wait before they can acquire their citizenship, and about the uncertainty involved. The uncertainty over how the system will operate probably concerns people more than anything else. There is nothing worse than having a system that is full of uncertainties about how it will operate.