My Lords, I am sorry, but it is me again. I am the second signatory to this amendment. I spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, earlier, and he sends his apologies to the Committee; he has had to leave but has asked me to move Amendment 178. I also support Amendment 185 in this group, in the name of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, but I will leave him to speak to that.
Amendment 178 deals with an issue that has huge cross-party support and that has been raised for years. Most recently, we tried to fix this in the Armed Forces Act, and now we are trying again to fix it here. The amendment seeks to prevent Commonwealth veterans being charged frankly extortionate fees to remain in the country that they fought for.
I have some questions. Does the Minister agree that this is not a general immigration issue but is about the treatment of people who have served our Government and our country? Parliament has repeatedly been asked to wait for the Government’s response to the consultation, but the consultation closed in July 2021, so where is it? The Government’s consultation is based on a possible reduction of fees after 12 years of service, but the former Defence Minister, Johnny Mercer MP, said that that number was
“plucked out of the air”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/12/21; col. 300.]
Can the Minister explain why the figure of 12 years has been consulted on, rather than the four or five years in Amendment 178, for which there is widespread support?
It is difficult to understand why the Government are so reluctant to act on this. How much would it cost to implement, if done on the terms of this amendment? Can the Minister confirm that, since 2010, the fees have increased from £840 per person to £2,389 per person? What percentage of the current fees being charged to service men and women—more than £10,000 for a family of four—is profit?
This support for our Commonwealth veterans is long past being debated. There is huge support for this change and it is about time the Government got over just giving us warm words and actually acted. I beg to move.