The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Burns,
Mr. Simon
(West Chelmsford)
(Con)
Clarke,
Mr. Tom
(Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
(Lab)
Cryer,
Mrs. Ann
(Keighley)
(Lab)
Green,
Damian
(Ashford)
(Con)
Gwynne,
Andrew
(Denton and Reddish)
(Lab)
Holloway,
Mr. Adam
(Gravesham)
(Con)
Hughes,
Simon
(North Southwark and Bermondsey)
(LD)
Huhne,
Chris
(Eastleigh)
(LD)
Kelly,
Ruth
(Bolton, West)
(Lab)
McCabe,
Steve
(Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)
Mercer,
Patrick
(Newark)
(Con)
Prosser,
Gwyn
(Dover) (Lab)
Reid,
John
(Airdrie and Shotts)
(Lab)
Shepherd,
Mr. Richard
(Aldridge-Brownhills)
(Con)
Spellar,
Mr. John
(Comptroller of Her Majesty's
Household)
Woolas,
Mr. Phil
(Minister for Borders and
Immigration)Chris Stanton,
Committee Clerk
attended
the Committee
First
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Monday 23
March
2009
[Jim
Sheridan in the
Chair]
Draft
Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations
2009
4.30
pm
The
Minister for Borders and Immigration (Mr. Phil
Woolas): I beg to
move,
That
the Committee has considered the draft Immigration and Nationality
(Fees) Regulations
2009.
It
is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr.
Sheridan, and to discuss the regulations on charging for immigration
and nationality services. The regulations are part of the
Governments changes to and shake-up of the immigration system.
The improvements and new services are not free, and our policy is that
the burden of payment should not fall exclusively on UK taxpayers. For
2009-10, we estimate that we will spend about £2.2 billion on
securing our borders, and managing the migration system.
There is
widespread agreement with the Governments policy that those who
benefit from the services that we provide should contribute to the cost
of them. About 30 per cent. of the total cost of securing our borders
and managing our immigration system is recovered through fees for
applications for the services that we offer. The remaining costs are,
of course, met by
taxpayers.
The
regulations are made under section 51 of the Immigration, Asylum and
Nationality Act 2006 and in accordance with the powers in section 42 of
the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.)
Act 2004, as amended by section 20 of the UK Borders Act
2007. Under section 42 of the 2004 Act, the Secretary of State may set
a fee for an application at a level exceeding the administrative cost
of determining the application. We set the fees above cost to subsidise
some of the lower fees, and to contribute to the extra £100
million for
enforcement.
The
way in which our legal powers are defined means that we must also
specify fees in separate regulations under section 51 of the
Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. Those regulations are
subject to the negative process and are not debated, as was pointed out
to Members during a previous debate on the powers. They set the fees
for applications, processes and services provided at or below the
administrative cost of determining those applications. I am happy to
take on board today any points raised about those fees, subject to your
permission, Mr. Sheridan, as they are outwith the specific
regulations before
us.
When
we set the fees, we take into account a broad range of factors. We
welcome the contribution that legal migrants make to the economy and
cultural life in the UK, and we have ensured that the proposed fees
will maintain the UKs position as an attractive destination for
work, study, visits and cultural exchanges. We have considered the fees
in other countries, and set our fees
at levels that will not damage the UKs international
competitiveness. We have also ensured that the charging system is fair
to those using the system in terms of the price paid for consideration
of their application. We think it is right that those who benefit most
from the immigration system should pay proportionately more towards the
cost of the system; a highly skilled migrant under the points-based
system or someone applying for British citizenship receives
greater benefit from their application, so it is right that
they should pay a higher
fee.
We
have conducted extensive research into what level of fees migrants
would be prepared to pay in return for the valuable entitlements they
receive, and that research has concluded that the fees are only one,
often marginal, factor among many others, and that there is no evidence
of any correlation between fees and volume of demand. We believe that
factors other than our proposed fee increases have a significantly
bigger impact on
numbers.
Simon
Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD): The Minister
says that he or his civil servants carried out research, but the notes
that we have received, and which I guess he will have seen, from those
who represent universities and colleges, say that there was no
consultation with them about the proposed increases. If that is true,
and it seems self-evident that it was, why was there no consultation
with the very organisations that must process all the
applications?
Mr.
Woolas: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising
that question, which gives me the opportunity to reassure him that the
external groups we consulted did indeed include Universities UK. I know
that because it complained, initially, about several factors as well as
the fees, such as the duration of the student visa.
There was a
full public consultation exercise on charging for immigration
and nationality applications from 30 October to 22 December 2006,
supported by the publication of a consultation on a new charging regime
for immigration and nationality fees. That consultation document was
made available on the Home Office website. The formal Government
response to the public consultation was published on 7 March 2007 and
established the principle that from April 2007 onwards the UK Border
Agency would be operating a flexible pricing approach to the setting of
fees for immigration services.
That is the
background. I think that the hon. Gentleman was referring to this
years specific student fee increases, on which we of course
consulted with wider external bodies. If he wants to return to the
issue I can provide him with more reassurances. There was a robust
debate about the issue and many hon. Members engaged in correspondence
about it when I put forward my draft
proposals.
Simon
Hughes: Obviously I have not been party to what has
occurred; I merely put on record what Universities UK has said to me
and, I assume, other hon. Members, in the briefing:
Universities
UK was disappointed by the Government's announcement on 12th February
to increase visa fees. The changes have been made without any
consultation with the higher education sector, and come at the same
time as a number of other changes in the UKs immigration
system.
There is a note
about
the poor
communication of the immigration changes abroad, and the effect this
may have, as well as the IT system that will underpin the
changes;
the note elaborates on
that. Whatever consultation happened two years ago, there appears to
have been no further specific communication about the amount of the
increase and its effect.
Mr.
Woolas: We did engage with Universities UK and other
educational organisations, including the association for private
universities and colleges, about the specifics of the fees. There was
not a formal consultation with Universities UK about them, but hon.
Members will know that we made our proposals clear and, as I have said,
there was significant and robust discussion about them. As to the
specifics of student feesthe hon. Gentleman may want to pick me
up later if he catches your eye, Mr. SheridanI was
keen to point out to colleagues in Whitehall and in the universities
that much greater factors were the exchange rate changes and the
tuition fees themselves. Student visa fees make up a small part of the
total.
Perhaps
I may finish my explanation of the regulations, so that hon. Members
may contribute; I will then try to answer further specific questions
from the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members. As I was saying, for
each fee we analysed the estimated impact of the price increases on
demand, and we built the revised volume demands into the fees
modelling. That is a difficult exercise, because the elasticity of
demand is different for each of the different areas of service for
which fees are provided. Of course there are many more external
factors, which our research suggested were more important than the fee
itself in determining whether an application would be made.
It is also
true that the proposed fees balance the wider policy aims of the
Government. For example, we set the student visa fees, which we have
just debated, below the cost of providing those services to help with
our initiative to increase student migrants coming to the UK, and in
response to the earlier consultation and feedback on it that we have
just been talking about. We have also held steady the sponsorship fees
paid by businesses, and maintained lower fees for small businesses and
charities, in recognition of the views of UK businesses and charities
and the benefits that we derive as a whole from migrant
employment.
Given
the action that we are taking to be more selective, we expect the
number of migrants coming to the UK from outside the European economic
area to fall during the next financial year and, for different reasons,
from inside the EEA as well. This years fees take account of
that to ensure that the UK Border Agency can continue to offer a
world-class service. Our overall aim is to ensure that income from the
fees makes an appropriate contribution to the end-to-end costs of the
immigration system, thereby reducing the burden on the UK taxpayer. Our
method of fees setting balances a number of complex factors. Members
will be aware of the new migration impact fund, which is funded from
the moneys that we raise through the over-and-above-cost fees, as part
of the
agreement.
Finally,
I should like to address a point raised by my right hon. Friend the
Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) in the recent debate on
fees ordersif ever there were a
lesson on having senior Members on Statutory Instrument Committees, that
was it. My right hon. Friend, who was supported by a number of hon.
Members from all parties, made a strong point. I undertook to take
advice, which I have done, and I am delighted to pass on that advice
briefly to the
Committee.
The
point at issue was the new service. We were seeking power from the
House to charge for a fee for some new services, one of which is the
issuing of certification notices determining the status of a person,
whether a certificate to show that one is a citizen of the UK or, in
some instances, to show that one is not. A letter setting out the
immigration status of a person from a Minister in response to a letter
of inquiry from a Member of Parliament has no particular legal status
in and of itself; it is the same as any other piece of correspondence
in that it sets out the Ministers view of the position. Because
the letter is from a Minister to Parliament, it can be expected that it
does not misleadbecause to do so would be in breach of the
ministerial code. It will be assumed that what the Minister says is
correct. Such a letter might therefore have some evidential weight
attached to it by a third party. The issue then is not about the legal
effect of a letter: it is a practical issue about whether someone would
place any reliance on such a letter. It is for that third party or
institution to decide whether they would accept a letter from a
Minister or an MP as evidence of a persons status or not. That
is to say that, in effect, producing a letter from a Minister or an MP
saying that this or that person has a driving licence, for example, is
not the same as producing the driving licence itself. The additional
security provided by having the actual certificate is required. We will
make that clear in our policy statements and letters when we begin to
issue
them.
With
that explanation, I hope that I have the Committees support for
the regulations. I commend them to the
Committee.
4.44
pm
Damian
Green (Ashford) (Con): The Minister has described the
discussions in the previous Committee as the first half and said that
setting the fees in detail would be the second half. He will
rememberhe has just mentioned itthat the first half of
this performance degenerated into chaos, due to the many questions
about the exact legal status of a ministerial letter with regard to the
status of an individual. I assume that that is why, having suffered
some heavyweight shelling from behind
him
Mr.
Simon Burns (West Chelmsford) (Con): And from the
Opposition.
Damian
Green: Indeed. I am coming to my hon.
Friend.
I
have observed, as I am sure that my hon. Friend has, that there is even
more heavyweight reinforcementif it were possiblein
this Committee than in the previous Committee, with two former Cabinet
Ministers present. However, I am sure that the Minister is hoping for a
quieter
time.
Let
me start with the Ministers explanation, for which I am
grateful, because it was clear that neither he nor the rest of the
Committee members understood the
import of the change. He has made it clear that a ministerial letter
saying that it is a Ministers belief that somebody has a
particular status that may or may not entitle them to a job is
simply a Ministers view, and that, although a Minister would
not seek to mislead, so people may put some weight on such a letter, a
ministerial letter is not a legal
document.
I
want to mention the practicalities. If an employer is trying to decide
whether somebody has a right to work and that person says, I
have been in this country for some time. I believe that I have the
right to work, and if their Member of Parliament has a letter
from a Minister saying, As far as we know this person has a
right to work, then, in practical terms, that person may not
shell out large amounts of money to get a legal document, because most
employers will be convinced by a letter on Home Office paper passed
through their own local MP. I suspect that the effect will be that many
people will not bother to get the legal document. I invite the Minister
to address that likely scenario in his closing remarks. As soon as
people discoveras they dothat they do not have to pay
the fee but can get a free letter from their MP instead, many of them
will take that route. Therefore we will be in precisely the impasse
that reduced the previous Committee, including the Minister, to a state
of some
confusion.
To
be fair, the Minister has tried to answer the question, which other
hon. Members and I raised in the previous Committee, about what
sensitivity analysis had been done in respect of the effect of the rise
in fees on the numbers coming here in future years. The Minister has
made it clear todayhe did so then, toothat it is not
his intention to use the level of fees specifically as a deterrent to
people coming here. He says that research by his Department backs that
up, which is interesting. Will he place that researchor at
least a summary of itin the House of Commons Library, so that
hon. Members can judge the interaction between fee levels and
applications at every level? He is right to say that there is not a
simple algorithm, because the calculation will be different for people
with different incomes and different levels of expectations of income
when they come to this country. It would be useful if that research
were made public to hon.
Members.
Like
the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey, I have read with
interest the Universities UK briefing, which is clearly a subset of the
wider concern that the increases in fees will act as a deterrent.
Universities UK not only strongly opposes the increase, but flatly
states that the changes have been made without any consultation with
the higher education sector. The Minister has said that it was not a
formal consultation, but that the universities were consulted. In that
case, I am sure that Committee members will go back to Universities UK
to find out what it means, not least because it has said that
the
Government
is in serious danger of sending out a message that it does not welcome
international
students.
I
know that the Minister does not want to send out that message. If the
universities think that he is sending that message, there has, at the
very least, been a serious failure of
communication.
I
want to take up the point made by Universities UK about the IT system,
because individual universities have impressed it on me. Universities
UK is worried
that the new system that will underpin the changes has not been tested
properly. If the IT does not work, and if applications from people on
the other side of the world start going wrong, it could be catastrophic
for British universities in a competitive international market for the
best
students.
The
Minister does not need me to rehearse the various IT disasters that
have afflicted the
Government.