Twelfth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation |
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Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): I have a very quick question, with reference to relationships with third parties—principally North Korea; I have been passionate about raising the issue of the way in which people from North Korea who seek asylum in China are regularly sent back to Korea. I just wondered whether there were any implications— The Chairman: Order. The scope of the order is extremely limited and does not extend outside China. 10.25 amMr. Browne: I thank the hon. Members for Woking (Mr. Malins) and for Cotswold and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). I understand my hon. Friend’s point and I think that I will be able to deal with it. It may be relevant, but I will be guided by you, Mr. McWilliam, when we come to it. If certain decisions are made, this may be one of the last opportunities for us to have a debate with each other in our current roles. I thank the hon. Member for Woking for his contribution today, which was characteristically pertinent. I have always been impressed by his thorough research and his understanding of the issues and I have been regularly impressed by the sensitivity with which he has dealt with some difficult issues. I am all the more impressed that he does all that without the benefit of the support that I have as a Minister. I should like to put that on the record. I thank the hon. Gentleman and his party for their support for the measures. I accept his congratulations in the genuine spirit in which they were given. The regulations put in place provisions that we should all be pleased to see. The hon. Gentleman’s description of how Chinese people travel using ADS agreements reminds me of my introduction to international travel. I remember travelling tentatively when I was comparatively young, not exactly travelling first class, staying in not exactly first class hotels and not spending much money. I had small amounts of money in my pocket day by day. If the provision leads Chinese tourists to opportunities like the ones that I have had as I have got older, with increased spending power, and means that they are able to develop their interest in international travel—and if they get half as much
The hon. Gentleman asked about numbers. I gave some indicative numbers, but on the basis of the experience of other EU member states, groups comprise between 15 and 50 members. Those are not unwieldy numbers, and I think that they can be managed. We estimate that the total number of people at the beginning of the process will be somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000, but those figures will be a function of a number of things, not least of which is how welcome we make the tourists and how they report back to their families and friends about their time in the United Kingdom. The UK is one of the principal international destinations that Chinese nationals have in mind. The hon. Gentleman also asked a number of questions about readmission. He shares my view that the key to securing our borders is our ability to return citizens to their country of origin, in the event that they are in breach of our immigration rules. The key to securing our borders is sending the message that people may, with great ingenuity and at great expense get round our immigration rules, but if they are discovered we will return them to their home and their expenditure and time will have been a futile waste. We should be interdicting the actions of those agents who prey on people’s dreams, desires and wishes to persuade them that they should try to get round our rules. The hon. Gentleman is right to home in on that issue. It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman that when we were discussing the measure, the thing that was foremost in our minds was getting an enforceable agreement that would allow us to return the small number of people whom we expect will not comply with the rules of the scheme. I refer to a small number, because the Australian and European experience show that there are only small numbers of people involved. I am not sure whether my recollection is accurate, but I was briefed that the Australians, in their whole experience of ADS, had fewer than 20 people about whom they had cause for concern. That shows how well an ADS scheme can be run if it is properly supervised. We drew heavily on the Australian experience and other experiences when drafting the memorandum. There is no question but that documentation is the key to readmission. That is why the tour operators and the British embassy in China will keep copies of the documents of those who visit under the scheme. So even if those documents are destroyed, we will have copies. The hon. Gentleman asked about the longer term, which goes beyond the four corners of the order, but the question is pertinent. He asked what our plans were for the future to ensure that those who obtained visas could be returned if they destroyed their documents? On 7 February, we set out a five-year strategy—an ambition to take the fingerprints of
The hon. Gentleman asked me questions the answers to which would be well outwith the four corners of the order. We may find another opportunity soon to discuss returns to China and, in particular, the experience of the secondment to the UK of Chinese officials who have been assisting us to re-document illegal migrants in order to return them to China. In the event that we do not have that opportunity, I undertake to explain in writing to the hon. Gentleman where we are with that scheme. We are still part of the way through the process and cannot evaluate it totally at this stage, but to the extent that I can share with him the success or otherwise of the scheme thus far, I will write to all members of the Committee and to you, Mr. McWilliam, so that you can decide whether another debate is pertinent. Mr. Clifton-Brown: It sounds like another order. Mr. Browne: It does not sound like another order to me. It is well known that we have been working hard with the Chinese Government to overcome problems such as the barriers to readmission of Chinese illegal migrants in this country. For all the reasons that the hon. Member for Woking articulated, the scheme is not simply about numbers but about the danger to which some of those people are exposed, particularly when working illegally. As I, and others, have said, we need advocates to get the message back to communities in China generally and in one province in particular that they are being duped by those who are selling them a dream in the UK, sometimes at significant expense, and that life is not like that here. We are doing all that under existing rules within the existing legal framework, and there is no reason to change that, although we may need another order at some stage to require fingerprints for visas. In fact, I am almost certain that we will need such an order to determine where we roll it out, such as in parts of Africa. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud is known in the House to be a champion of those who face the deprivations of life in North Korea. Perhaps not enough people speak up for them and they are often forgotten. He rightly identifies a problem in the way in which those people are treated when they seek asylum, particularly in neighbouring countries. I cannot give him any comfort in relation to this scheme because, as I pointed out in my introductory remarks, it is for Chinese nationals only and will have no particular relevance to the issue raised by my hon. Friend, although that issue is important. We may need to find another opportunity to debate it. Mr. Clifton-Brown rose— Mr. Browne: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, because I cannot remember his question and am failing to answer it. Column Number: 14 Mr. Clifton-Brown: That was precisely why I wanted to intervene. I hope that he will be able to answer my two questions, which I shall re-phrase if the Minister would like me to do so. Mr. Browne: I should be very grateful. Mr. Clifton-Brown: First, is there any reciprocal parallel arrangement for British citizens going to China? Secondly, could such an arrangement be used for short-term students? Mr. Browne: The answer to the first question is that there is no reciprocal arrangement in this context. Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman was not in Committee at the beginning of my remarks. I understand why he was not here and do not criticise him for that. However, I explained in some detail that we have to have the scheme because the Chinese Government will allow groups to travel from China as tourists only if they are travelling to somewhere that has what they call approved destination status. That is why this is known as an ADS order; is about Chinese nationals travelling. The supplementary question would then be whether there are any difficulties for those who want to travel to China. I am not aware of any. It is not my particular responsibility, as the hon. Gentleman will understand, but I have no knowledge that anybody has any difficulty in trying to visit China as a tourist. We are welcomed there with open arms, and people have no difficulty in getting visas to travel individually or in groups. There is no need for reciprocity; the order is designed to meet a particular set of circumstances that is generated by the Chinese Government’s relationship with its own citizens, not ours with ours nor China’s with ours. The hon. Gentleman’s final point was about whether this method of travel could be used to allow people to do short-term courses. He said that in the context of his constituency knowledge of the importance of Chinese students to our colleges of education. He is right to point that out. There has been a significant increase in their numbers. There has also, recently, although there has been an increase in applications, been a percentage increase in refusals. I think that that is what he was alluding to. That is a function of the effectiveness of our risk assessment units in Beijing and other consular offices in China. Thanks to the development of the risk assessment unit, we are now much better at identifying forged documentation supporting applications. Therefore, I am pleased to be able to say that the number of refusals has increased, because it has increased for the right reasons—spotting false applications and abuse. That will be reflected, so far as colleges of education are concerned, in an increased number of refusals. However, that will be a transitional phase and, when we get through it, the market will continue to grow because people will have more confidence in it. Part of the problem was that there was a significant, albeit not overwhelming, incidence of fraud. We needed to increase our capacity to identify it, and we have done so. In addition, the fraudsters were cheating the students. Money that people had saved for their
The order applies specifically to group tourism, and it will not be allowed to be used for any other purpose. That is why all the other visa routes are still open to Chinese nationals if they want to come here as students
Question put and agreed to. Resolved,
Committee rose at twenty-two minutes to Eleven o’clock. |
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