Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (No. 2) Regulations 2010

My Lords, I followed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, very closely and will try not to repeat what he said, but I, too, have a number of questions. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked how our fees compared with those of a number of other countries. I would be particularly interested in those of EU countries, because that is the context in which we should look at ourselves. Wider policy objectives are referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum. Paragraph 8.2 gives the example of attracting specific groups of migrants who are beneficial to the UK. Like both the previous noble Lords, I find it difficult to separate that from the wider issues of immigration policy. Perhaps the Minister could amplify on that, without taking us into a bigger debate, which we will no doubt have very soon. Can the Minister tell the House how the monitoring of the impact of the fees, which the Explanatory Memorandum promises will be monitored closely, will be done? Will it be a matter of looking at trends? Important as the examples that we have heard are, those examples would probably not feature very much, if at all, in the statistics. However, sometimes anecdotes are useful. Like the noble Lord, I am happy to support the approach that has been taken in the regulations.