Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

As always, I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). Any Immigration Minister should take very much to heart his wise words about the importance of administration, rather than legislation. Whether it is the ninth, ten or eleventh offering from this Government in the area of immigration law, it is simply too many Bills. When the right hon. Gentleman and I were last jousting on this topic, I think we only half in jest said that the Home Office should be attempting to re-tread some of its lawyers involved in drafting legislation into dealing with the legacy. This latest Bill proves the old adage that quantity does not mean quality. It is as inaccessible and ill thought out as many of the other previous efforts at reform. Although we are absolutely delighted and somewhat surprised today that we can count no fewer than three victories for the Opposition—on retrospection, the common travel area and judicial review—this remains a Bill that is a pudding without a theme. In Committee, the Minister described the Bill as""part of the jigsaw puzzle that is trying to prepare the way for the simplification Bill."––[Official Report, Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2009; c. 133.]" Frankly, that is not a great commendation for a piece of legislation, but it certainly highlights the jagged and uneven way in which the Government have approached immigration and immigration law. It should not be tackled in this piece-by-piece manner. We need an overview of the whole, and that is why my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have repeatedly called for a consolidation and simplification of the law governing immigration and asylum. This approach of piecemeal change generates more uncertainty for some of the most vulnerable people among migrants and their dependants, and it has resulted in many anomalies and inconsistencies. Another overall concern I have with this Bill is that large sections of it are still reliant on statutory instruments, leaving many decisions resting with Ministers to make at a later date. That is not the way to legislate on something as important as immigration. The Government are asking us to make serious decisions on vague promises and proposals. In effect, it is another "Trust me, I'm a Minister" Bill. We need a strong and cohesive national border force, but there are only tentative steps in that direction for the UK Border Agency. We have the third longest coastline in Europe, stretching to 7,758 miles, and the number of people entering and leaving this country every year is more than three times the size of our population—192 million by air alone in any given year. So having a competent and well-trained border force is key to tackling and controlling immigration. However, alarmingly, the Bill still comes with no concrete provisions on exit checks. That is a major problem, because we cannot enforce short-term visas if we do not know when people are leaving. The proposals in part 1 of the Bill are in a tangle, because the Government have focused mainly on extending the powers of the UKBA and immigration officials and blurring distinctions between immigration controls and criminality. We have avoided some of the more controversial aspects on citizenship with the concessions on retrospection, but this would have been a key moment to address the issue of asylum seekers. Several elements of part 2 are discriminatory and much is undefined and awaits delegated legislation. The opportunity has been missed to deal with a pressing problem in this area. We are, however, happy that the Government have included the welfare of children in this Bill. That is one of the main reasons why we will not seek to divide the House on Third Reading, quite apart from the concessions that have been announced today. Clause 56, in particular, is one of the Bill's redeeming provisions. The intention behind the clause is good, and our amendment sought to mark out more clearly the duties that we thought the Secretary of State should have towards children—[Interruption.]