The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Chairman:
Dr.
William McCrea
Brake,
Tom
(Carshalton and Wallington)
(LD)
Burns,
Mr. Simon
(West Chelmsford)
(Con)
Evans,
Mr. Nigel
(Ribble Valley)
(Con)
Gilroy,
Linda
(Plymouth, Sutton)
(Lab/Co-op)
Green,
Damian
(Ashford)
(Con)
Gwynne,
Andrew
(Denton and Reddish)
(Lab)
Havard,
Mr. Dai
(Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney)
(Lab)
Huhne,
Chris
(Eastleigh)
(LD)
Liddell-Grainger,
Mr. Ian
(Bridgwater)
(Con)
McCabe,
Steve
(Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)
Sharma,
Mr. Virendra
(Ealing, Southall)
(Lab)
Shepherd,
Mr. Richard
(Aldridge-Brownhills)
(Con)
Smith,
Mr. Andrew
(Oxford, East)
(Lab)
Stuart,
Ms Gisela
(Birmingham, Edgbaston)
(Lab)
Thornberry,
Emily
(Islington, South and Finsbury)
(Lab)
Woolas,
Mr. Phil
(Minister for Borders and
Immigration)Chris Stanton,
Committee Clerk
attended
the Committee
Fifth
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Wednesday 25
February
2009
[Dr.
William McCrea in the
Chair]
Draft
Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order
2009
2.30
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)
(Amendment) Order
2009.
It
is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr. McCrea,
for what I believe is the first time. The statutory order concerns the
charging for immigration and nationality services. I thank hon. Members
for attending this debate, which is a game of two halves. In the first
half, we are asking Parliament to approve the power to raise fees. In
the second half, which will take place on 23 March, we will debate what
those fees are. Let me explain the background to this
order.
In
our budget for 2009-10, we plan to spend around £2.2 billion on
border security and the management of the immigration system. Our
policy in previous years has been to recover about 30 per cent. of that
amount from fees for applications for the services that we offer. The
remaining costs are met by the taxpayer. In accordance with our legal
powers, the order sets out new applications and services for which we
intend to charge a fee in future. The actual fee levels, as I have
mentioned, will be specified in subsequent regulations.
The order
before us allows us to charge some new fees. It allows us to charge a
fee for applications that we currently offer for free. One example
would be the issuing of a letter to confirm someones
immigration or nationality status. Hon. Members will be aware that
constituents often ask for that information. Indeed, sometimes we are
asked to issue a letter to confirm that someone has not acquired
British citizenship. That is often to do with property rights in
countries of origin.
The order
allows us to charge a fee when we provide optional services such as
attendance by a representative of the Secretary of State at premises
other than the office of the UK Borders Agency or the consulate, or,
for example, services provided by a representative of the Secretary of
State outside office hours. These services are already charged for
outside the United Kingdom, but we want to be able to set a fee for
this service in future within Home Office legislation and to have the
enabling power to charge a fee for offering the same service within the
borders of the
UK.
The
processes and services described in the order are provided at a cost to
the UK Border Agency and we believe that it is right that we recover
those costs from people who benefit directly from the immigration
system. That may be migrants themselves, employers or educational
institutions, and it will help to reduce the burden on the taxpayer. We
welcome the contribution that legal migrants
make to our country, to our economy and to our cultural life. We will
continue to ensure that fees for immigration and nationality
applications or services are set at levels that maintain the United
Kingdoms position as an attractive destination.
As I said, we
will return to the House next month to ask for approval for further
regulations specifying the fee levels in the areas that I have
outlined, relying on the powers in section 51 of the Immigration,
Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 and additional powers in the Asylum and
Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004, as amended, as I
am sure that the Committee will be aware, by section 20 of the UK
Borders Act 2007. In essence, we are asking for approval to raise fees,
and we will return to the House to agree them. I think that the order
is reasonable. Some of the services that we provide to facilitate the
system have relatively high marginal costs, because they are not core
activitiesif I can put it that way. I admit that it sounds
strange to ask the Committee for approval to set a fee for somebody to
receive a letter stating that they are not a British citizen, but
hopefully hon. Members will have had experience of such
incidents.
2.36
pm
Damian
Green (Ashford) (Con): It is a pleasure to serve under
your chairmanship, Dr.
McCrea.
The
Minister made it clear that, as he put it, this is a game of two
halves, and that today we are dealing with general approval for the
setting of the fees. However, I have some questions for him that I hope
can be answered after half time, as it were. The Committee might feel
that this is an in principle debate and that we can
move to the nitty-gritty of the fees afterwards, but there is no great
mystery about what those fees will be, given that they appear in the
explanatory memorandum. Some of them are extremely high. Under the
points-based system, there is currently no fee for new applications for
leave to remain made at a public inquiry office, but the maximum
proposed fee next year for tier 1 general applications will be more
than £1,000, when the unit costs are just less than £250.
The Government are giving themselves a pretty high profit
margin.
From previous
debates on similar fee-setting structures, the Minister will know that
Conservative Members have no objection in principle either to the
concept of charging for such services or, indeed, to the explicit
overcharging for them, which the Government are doing. I agree with him
that those who benefit most from the immigration systemthose
who come to this countryshould make a contribution, but my
question throughout this series of statutory instruments on the
secondary, practical parts of recent pieces of immigration legislation
is: at what point do we reach a tipping point where we will start to
discourage people whom we might wish to come to this country?
I may have
slightly misunderstood the Minister, but I detected a change in policy:
in previous debates, there was the explicit notion of raising
£100 million from these various fees, but in his introductory
remarks, he mentioned 30 per cent. of a figure that was not
£300 million, so I think that the figure might have
changed. Clearly, the amount of moneywhether or not it is
£100 million to be raised is dependent on the
number of people coming to this country and asking for such services.
If the fees that are asked for discourage people, it will be
much more difficult to raise that £100 million. Have we moved to
a percentage target cover, because he recognises that fewer people will
come?
Ms
Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab): I would be
grateful if the hon. Gentleman helped me, because I cannot see the fees
in my explanatory memorandum. Perhaps I have not spotted them, but he
may have a different
memorandum.
Damian
Green: I may have a fuller explanatory memorandum. I am
not making this up; I do not carry in my head proposed fee levels for
different classes of visa and unit costs. I apologise if I have a
different explanatory memorandum, and if it is the wrong one I
apologise even more. I quoted from the explanatory memorandum that I
obtained, I think, from the Vote Office and not from any other
sourceI say that before they try to have me arrested
again.
Moving
swiftly on, there are questions that I hope the Minister can answer,
either in this debateI will understand if he cannot do
soor in the next debate on fee levels. Has a sensitivity
analysis been done on whether the Government now expect fewer visitors?
Given the general economic climate, we might expect fewer people to
come here either to work or as general visitors. Is any effect expected
from the new large fees, and is such an effect part of the purpose of
the policy? Are Ministers actively trying to discourage people either
from coming to this country or from staying once they are here? My
underlying worryand the Minister and I agree on thisis
linked to my belief that Britain benefits from immigration but not from
any or all immigration: we want to attract people who will benefit the
country. As I said earlier, are the Government not in danger of
reaching a tipping point at which Britain will be seen as an unfriendly
country, actively discouraging people from coming
here?
Stepping
back from the details of the order, immigration policy over the past 10
years or so reminds me of a badly driven car that was accelerating much
too fast for a long time. The Minister is now slamming his foot on the
brakes and trying to bring the car to a screeching halt. We are getting
squeals and noise and lots of tyre smoke but that is not an effective
way of slowing the vehicle down. We have gone from one extreme to the
other, like a badly done stunt on Top Gear, and the
Minister is in danger of becoming the Richard Hammond of
immigration policyupside down in a
field.
Behind
that metaphor is a serious point. I think that it is universally agreed
that for most of the Governments period in office, immigration
policy has been uncontrolled. There are effective ways to reduce
immigration and the Ministers way is not very effective. What
we have before us is a sub-set of reasons showing why that way is not
effective. Placing huge fees on people who we might want to come here
might discourage them, but at the same time it will not reduce the
numbers in the controlled way that Opposition Members would like. I
hope that the Minister will address those questions. I will understand
if he does not wish to do so in this debate, but I hope that he will do
so in the debate next month on the detailed
figures.
2.43
pm
Tom
Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): It is a pleasure
to serve under your chairmanship, Dr. McCrea. I thank the Minister for
his clear description of the purpose of the order and for giving us
advance notice that we will be in Committee again on 23 March. I like
to get statutory instruments into my diary early because I hate to miss
an opportunity like
this.
The
Minister set out the cost£2.2 billionfor the
management of the immigration system, the aim of recovering 30 per
cent. from fees, and what new applications and services the Government
want to be able to charge for in the near future. As the hon. Member
for Ashford said, we do not object in principle to fees, but we have an
argument with the Government about whether the fees are set at the
right level, whether sometimes they could be set higher for large
employers, or whether in some cases they should be set lower. Nowadays,
if someone applies for indefinite leave to remain they have to
pay a fee approaching £1,000, which for many people is a big
challenge. I am not sure whether that meets or assists the
Governments intention as set out in the Borders,
Citizenship and Immigration Bill of integrating migrant workers into
the country in a way that benefits both the migrants and the
communities that they join. With the proposed fee levels it might be
difficult for some to integrate in the way that the Minister
wants.
I
have a couple of questions that I hope the Minister will answer now or
later in writing. How many requests are made by individuals for
confirmation of their status? In what percentage of those cases is
written confirmation sought? Their papers are held by UKBA, in some
cases for many months or years. Is it appropriate to charge people a
fee for confirmation that they could provide themselves if they had
their papers? I hope that the Minister will provide clarity on that
issue. If people are charged a fee, are they entitled to a prompter
response or a guarantee of the time scale within which the response
will be made? The fee could be waived if the time scale is not met.
Will the Minister clarify whether there is any such intention? That
point applies not only to fees and applications, but to the services.
Will the Minister say how many requests there are for services such as
home visits? That would enable us to get a feel for the scale of active
intervention that is required. We will return to the issue of fees, and
we will have to look carefully at whether they are punitive. As has
been said about many similar SIs, we must consider whether the rates
will discourage people who we want to come to the UK from
doing so, which could be detrimental to UK
plc.
2.47
pm
Mr.
Andrew Smith (Oxford, East) (Lab): I wish to ask a couple
of questions and to stress the importance of avoiding perverse
incentives.
I
add my voice to those who express caution over the fee levels. This is
the sort of measure that can slip through a Delegated Legislation
Committee quite quietly, but face a storm of protest when people are
faced with the bills. I urge the Minister to think carefully about
that. What assessment or market research does he have on the
matter?
Tom
Brake: Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that
the Government have not responded to the decision from the House of
Lords, which stated that the fee level could infringe some
peoples human rights? We may already have reached the tipping
point where some people cannot afford the
fees.
Mr.
Smith: I take the point and look forward to the
Ministers
response.
As
well as responding on the fee levels, I hope that the Minister will
give assurances on some obvious perverse incentives that occur to me.
First, it is not uncommon for people to come to my advice surgery to
seek clarification of their status or to extract such information from
the agency or the Minister. I am sure that that is the case for other
hon. Members. If Mr. X comes to me as his MP and I write to
ask whether he has leave to remain, will the Minister reply that he
knows the answer but cannot supply it until the constituent coughs up
several hundred pounds? If he answers that Mr. X has leave
to remain, there will be a perverse incentive for people to get
confirmation by going to their MP, rather than by coughing up the
money.
Secondly,
what happens if somebody seeks, through the Freedom of Information Act
2000, access to papers covering their status? Would not that be a
cheaper way of getting the same information, even given the fee for
freedom of information inquiries? Have those points been properly
considered?
2.50
pm
Mr.
Simon Burns (West Chelmsford) (Con): I do not intend to
detain the Committee, particularly because the right hon. Member for
Oxford, East has raised the main issue on which I wanted to question
the Minister. Some 96.2 per cent of people in my constituency
are, by ethnic designation, white. Of those who are not
designated white, a significant proportion come to see me. Twenty years
ago, it was noticeable if I got an immigration case once a fortnight.
Now, half my fortnightly surgeries are taken up by peopleit
must be said that many of them have no right to be in this
countrywho ask me to seek clarification, from the Minister or
the UK Border Agency, of their current status and what is happening to
their application for indefinite
leave.
Picking
up on the right hon. Gentlemans point, I would like the
Minister to assure me that, when I write to the UK Border Agency rather
than directly to him to find out peoples current status, I am
not going to be charged for the reply to my letter. I assume that the
Minister will say that I will not be charged. If so, there will be an
unintended consequence. The spiv lawyers who operate mostly out of the
east end of London, often on a legal aid basis, will
immediatelythey do this alreadyrecommend that their
clients come to a Member of Parliament. That is an absolute disgrace,
because, to add insult to injury, they charge either their client or
the legal aid people for advising people to go to see their MP. If they
were lawyers, they would know the law, and that a Member of Parliament
can do nothing more than them, save get the information required more
quickly [
Hon. Members: Free] And
free. The spiv lawyers, plus those members of the community who are
better attuned to how the system operatesit is remarkable how
quickly people become attuned to how a system
operateswill not bother to pay a fee and make an application to
ascertain their status. Instead, they will come to us as right hon. and
hon. Members and get us to do it
free.
How
does the Minister envisage stopping that loophole emerging? To all
intents and purposes, within, I suspect, a fairly short period, the
loophole will totally invalidate what the Minister intends to do in the
next order that we discussnamely, to impose a fee to ascertain
the status of someones indefinite
leave.
2.53
pm