Fourth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation |
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Mr. Malins: Could the Minister write to us—certainly not today; I do not expect him to have the figures to hand—giving some indication of how the costs are broken down? He mentioned £1,700 for an appeal. I should be interested to know how that sum is made up, what hourly rates are charged and so on; ditto for the applications of, say, £500. It would be helpful to receive that information in the next few days. Mr. Browne: I will share with all Committee members information about how we have deployed the full cost-recovery formula, as it is known. It would not help to go into the elements of full cost-recovery now because it would take up almost all our remaining time, and if I stood here and tried to explain it, I am not sure that we would be much the wiser. I shall write to all Committee members. If they have concerns and want further explanation, they should respond to the letter and I will provide as much information as I can. The hon. Member for Woking asked whether there were analogies with spreading the cost of appeals and the fees for the initial application in the judicial or quasi-judicial system. There are no analogies, but there are parallels. They are not directly in the place where he encouraged me to look. There are some examples in the administration of applications, whereby all applicants pay a proportion of the fee towards the overall cost of running the system, including the appellate system. For example, the fees for driving licences include the cost of enforcing the system for the benefit of all, including law-abiding people. That is not a direct analogy, but there are none. We have developed this policy on fees for the reasons I have tried to explain, and we will keep them under review. I am inclined to take two views. We should improve the initial decision making so that we can dispense with appeals for many of the applications. The decisions will be much more objective, less discretionary and present fewer difficult problems for entry clearance officers or officers in the Home Office. The decisions will be much more transparent and simple. People will
My hon. Friend the Member for Selby characteristically, because of his consistent support for the further education sector since he has been in the House, drew my attention to the fact that I had not shared information about further education. I have some figures for the average cost of undertaking an English language course in the UK which highlight part of the problem we face. As he explained, I do not get quite as good arithmetic out of the figures, but it is still pretty good, so I shall take him through them. The average life in weeks for an English language course in the United Kingdom for which entry clearance is sought, and for which leave to remain is sometimes subsequently sought, is 6.6 weeks. The cost per week of tuition is £250 on average. The cost of living per week is calculated at £138 on average, giving a total cost of £388 and making the total average cost of the course £2,560. The total average cost of the course, including the current charges, ranges between £2,715 and £2,810, and the total average cost of the course, including the proposed charges, ranges between £2,895 and £3,060. That gives a percentage increase as a result of the proposed charges of between 6.6 and 8.9 per cent. of the total cost of the study. That is not quite as compelling as the figures for higher education, which come down to between 1.5 and 2.1 per cent. I have shared with the Committee the average between the two. The figures are much better in the higher education sector than in the further education sector because of higher tuition fees, but there are still marginal costs. Of course, economic activities are sometimes subject to elasticity at the margins. I understand that, and we must get better at working out whether that is right. However, some of the arguments about the education sector have been exaggerated. It is our partner in this joint project to encourage as many international students as possible to study in the United Kingdom, consistent with our ability to educate them while educating our indigenous student population, and consistent with our economic needs. I am grateful to hon. Members for giving me the opportunity to deal with some of those arguments. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby raised important points, which have been brought to our attention by the Immigration Law Practitioners Association. He is right that some doctors and dentists get only six months’ leave at a time—I understand that—and they might well be subjected to multiple fees. The length of contract or training period determines the period of time for which leave is issued. We need to work with the British Medical Association to ensure that our processes support postgraduate doctors and dentists and do not create unreasonable
My hon. Friend also honed in on the £500 premium fee, particularly in relation to the transfer of leave. The optional £500 service is just that—an optional service. The transfer in the normal course of events is done by post and we have increased that fee by £5. Individuals do not have to have a conditions transfer. They can continue to travel on their new passports while carrying their existing travel documents with them. People can hold on to the passport that has the leave to remain in it and carry their new passport from their country of origin with them. They can carry both of them—the new passport with the request from their Government to be allowed to travel freely and the old passport with the leave to remain in it—as evidence that they have leave to remain in this country indefinitely, or for whatever period. Immigration officers at our border posts will accept that. I understand that people may find that inconvenient. Some find it difficult to hold on to one passport, never mind two. The convenience of having things in one passport is helpful, but it is merely a convenience. Should they choose to take advantage of the premium service, then that is an optional extra. At one time, I would have accepted the argument that people would be reluctant to hand over their passports to the immigration and nationality directorate because it did not have a good record in finding or returning them. However, there have been significant improvements in that part of the service during the past 12 months. The system is consistently secure when handling documents received through the post. People have a real choice. They can take the much less expensive service, which is a much improved one, or they can opt for the premium service, which processes 98 per cent. of applications the same day and gives people significant opportunities to engage with the officers involved and to deal with problems. It also gives them the benefit of a checking system, which ensures that their application has been checked and will meet the standards and necessary conditions before it is presented. That is an expensive provision. Those who take advantage of the premium service and the passport office know that there is a significant difference between a postal and a premium service, which is an expensive service. We will continue to keep it, as we will continue to keep all other fees, under review. We are increasing the fee for travel documents quite significantly to ensure cost recovery, because the fee has not been increased for a decade. It has been fixed at the same level for 10 years and has to be increased so
I do not think that there is anything else that I need to cover, but I will look carefully at the Official Report of the Committee and, if there is anything that I failed to respond to, I will endeavour to deal with it when I write to hon. Members. Mr. Clifton-Brown: The Minister has been patient with the Committee and his explanations have been lucid, so this will be the last time that I intervene. I always get worried when I hear the phrase “full cost recovery” uttered by any Department or local authority. It seems to be an excuse to keep increasing their costs, rather than an incentive to reduce them.
Mr. Browne: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be aware that, even in the short time in which I have been responsible for this policy, the costs of the immigration and nationality directorate have gone down significantly. The Treasury gave me compelling targets in the latest settlement. There is no greater incentive than not having the money to pay increasing costs. It is not our intention to try to make up the deficit in this process. In all aspects of the business, we will continue to bear down on costs, because that is our obligation in the current financial settlement. Question put and agreed to. Resolved,
Committee rose at thirteen minutes to Six o’clock. |
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