Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

I agree. Indeed, I was making the more general point that much more effective control of our borders is essential not just in itself, which it is, but as part of the general fight against serious and organised crime, which is increasingly international. Indeed, crime is being globalised as much as any other aspect of the world economy. One of the advantages that we ought to have as a country, given that we are a set of islands, is our border, but it is an advantage that we do not exploit enough. It is because our borders are so insecure that we are a destination country for people traffickers and some of the world's most significant and unpleasant criminal gangs. That is where I believe the Bill is a huge missed opportunity—part 1 is an aspect of that, but so are the citizenship proposals. Fascinatingly, we have heard little from the Home Office—indeed, there has been silence—about the extension of the points-based system to citizenship applications since the previous Home Secretary stood at the Dispatch Box and announced this big new idea, yet we have now had all stages of this Bill, through to Third Reading. What has happened to that proposal? We have gone through an entire Bill. The previous Home Secretary made radical proposals for changing the route to citizenship—changes that she appeared to let out of the bag to Parliament—yet the House of Commons and the House of Lords have discussed a citizenship Bill without any proposals from the Government about them. That is significant. If those proposals are properly worked out—I assume that they had been, otherwise the then Home Secretary would not have stood at the Dispatch Box and revealed them—it seems implausible that the Government should be sitting on them. Let me warn the Minister now that if the Government produce those proposals over the summer, when Parliament is not sitting, Parliament will be right to be angry, particularly when you have made such a welcome point about announcements coming first to Parliament, Mr. Speaker. I hope that that extremely welcome rubric will apply over the summer, as well as during the day, as it were, and that when Ministers say they are about to announce something, that announcement should be made first to Parliament. Either the Minister has until next Tuesday to announce those proposals or we will expect nothing to come out before October. [Interruption.] The Minister mentions the party conference. I would remind him that, for the moment, he is the Government. Therefore, he may want to make announcements at his party conference, but he still has at least a week left to give us some idea. The ultimate verdict on the Bill must be one of severe disappointment. We have an annual immigration Bill from this Government—some are better than others, but none has faced up to the severity of the crisis in our immigration system.