Higher Education and Research Bill

My Lords, I think that we are all very grateful to my noble friend Lord Dubs for bringing back this amendment in an amended form. We should also credit the Minister for arranging a meeting with his counterpart in the Home Office, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, which was extremely helpful in identifying two things that allowed us to make progress. One was that the original drafting seemed to imply a much larger number and a much larger problem than could have been resolved within the scope of the clause as originally proposed and amended. After a very good discussion, we were able to get that down to a very narrow point. It seemed to be a point of considerable unfairness in relation to the people whom my noble friend mentioned. I also thank the Home Secretary, to whom reference has been made, for taking the trouble to see my noble friend Lord Dubs today to make sure that he understood the context within which the decision, which we hope to hear shortly, has been made.