My Lords, the amendments in this group are government amendments, responding to the parts of the Bill dealing with sham marriages. They respond directly to the recommendations made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in relation to Part 4 of the Bill. I thank the committee for its careful consideration of the issues raised by these powers.
Part 4 of the Bill will establish in England and Wales a new referral and investigation scheme aimed at tackling sham marriages and civil partnerships entered into for the purpose of circumventing the UK’s immigration controls. Under the scheme, all notices of marriages and civil partnerships referred to the Home Office will be considered for investigation.
Clause 49 provides the basis for the conduct of an investigation into a referred marriage or civil partnership where the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to suspect that it is a sham and decides to investigate. Clause 50 makes further provision for the basis on which such an investigation will be conducted.
Clauses 49 and 50 provide for regulations to be made by the Secretary of State relating to the investigation of a proposed marriage or civil partnership under the scheme. These regulations will set out the requirements with which the couple must comply as part of the investigation. It will be necessary for the couple to comply with these requirements in order to complete the marriage or civil partnership notice process.
The committee is right to point in particular to the significance of the implications arising from non-compliance with an investigation. A couple failing to comply with an investigation will not be able to marry or form a civil partnership on the basis of that notice, and will have to give notice again if they still wish to marry or form a civil partnership. The committee recommended that the affirmative procedure would be appropriate for regulations made under Clauses 49 and 50.
We accept that it would be appropriate for the first set of regulations made under each of these powers to be subject to the affirmative procedure, and this is provided for by Amendment 59. This will enable both Houses to give full consideration to the substance of the regulations when the referral and investigation scheme is established. However, we do not consider that the affirmative procedure is appropriate for subsequent changes to the regulations which may be necessary after the scheme has been implemented. To require a debate in both Houses would be unnecessarily burdensome, as any such changes are likely to be minor.
Paragraph 2 of Schedule 6 provides for the disclosure of information by registration officials to the Secretary of State and other registration officials for immigration purposes, such as preventing immigration offences. The Secretary of State may by order specify further immigration purposes to enable the disclosure power to keep pace with developments in the law and in operational requirements.
Clause 53(6) makes equivalent provision where the referral and investigation scheme and these information-sharing provisions have been extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland by an order under Clause 52. The committee’s view was that these powers are similar to the power to extend information-sharing contained in Section 20 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, which is subject to the affirmative procedure. The committee has therefore recommended that they should be subject to the affirmative procedure. We have accepted the committee’s recommendation. Amendments 60 and 61 provide for the order-making powers under paragraph 2 of Schedule 6 and Clause 53(6) to be subject to the affirmative procedure. I beg to move.