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Lord Rooker: My Lords, when I joined the Home Office, I had resigned nominally as honorary vice-president of the all-party war crimes group but I did not stop working. I do not claim any credit. The work on war criminals was continuing. There had been discussions and meetings between the former ministerial team and the all-party group. The issue needed picking up and dusting down but I assure my
noble friend that the measures implied by the section on war crimes will be in the legislation being introduced in April.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, in declaring an interest as director of the Foundation for Citizenship at Liverpool John Moores University, I strongly welcome the provisions in Chapter 2 concerning the teaching of citizenship. Can the Minister say more about how that teaching will be discharged and by whom? I welcome also the proposal in Annex B for an affirmation or oath of loyalty. The words used there are simple and clear and place proper emphasis on the teaching of duties and responsibilities. I welcome the Minister's comments about common shared values being celebrated in a proper ceremony.
As to Chapter 5, will the Minister give a firm commitment today to incorporating in whatever legislation is eventually laid before the House the definition of people trafficking from the Trafficking Protocol to the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organised Crime? Does the Minister agree that that would help to persuade countries where people trafficking routes have their origins of the international obligation to tackle trafficking and to assist the Government's proper objective of stamping it out?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the White Paper is very much a strategy document and foreshadows several consultation papers on various issues. I do not know how many but probably half a dozen. We are not being prescriptive but genuinely want to consult. Our intention is to make use of our excellent further education colleges. One will not pop along to the Home Office for citizenship classes because it is not competent to deliver that quality of education. The further education system will be brought on stream and resourced.
I do not carry around the definition for which the noble Lord asked—and it is easy to locate. I assure the noble Lord that the definition of people trafficking, as opposed to that of smuggling, will be delineated in the legislation. That needs to be done because we shall be upping the sentences for anyone involved in people trafficking. We expect the courts to take a robust line, which is why we shall increase the maximum sentences.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I counted a score of individual announcements in the Statement that I am delighted to welcome unreservedly. There has been disproportionate asylum-seeker pressure on individual local communities and their authorities. Does anything in the Statement promise alleviation in that regard?
Pursuant to one of the questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, will students from the third world automatically get transferred to the work permit scheme? Finally, does the Minister detect any recovery of self-confidence and morale in the Immigration Service? That is potentially a key factor in the success of the policies.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, the dispersal arrangements will continue. We are not abandoning dispersal away from London and the South East, although it is true that we have some special rules for young people. We plan to pilot four accommodation centres. Noble Lords will have seen the list of eight potential sites. Others will be added before a decision is made. Those sites are away from London and the South East. We do not want a return to the days when those areas were under pressure, so dispersal will continue. If, in due course, the system comprises exclusively accommodation centres, they will be away from areas that caused problems in the past. We want to even up the pressure on authorities, not place a greater burden on those with a disproportionate share at present.
I am not sure that student transfers to the work permit scheme will be automatic. The present discretionary policy allows individuals who cease to be students to opt into work. That has not been an upfront policy, so we do not know the scale of applications. We will get a better idea of the situation by including the policy in the immigration rules and making it known more publicly that we will operate that policy. As it will be possible to opt into work permit-type arrangements, that option probably will not be open to all comers. The decision will depend on various factors. Although the arrangements are not necessarily directed at students from the third world, neither are those students ruled out.
As for morale in the Immigration Service, I visit immigration ports of entry as often as I can. A couple of weeks ago, I spent five hours at one port of entry on a Friday, and five hours at another on a Saturday—at Gatwick and at Heathrow. The staff are high-quality people. Although many of them have joined only recently, because of the extra resources, they truly enjoy their work. They are also always telling me how to do things better. We have very good people, and we are doing what we can to ensure that their terms and conditions are good. We want to ensure that they are not overwhelmed because we have failed to provide resources for one part of the system so that it is a misery for them to come to work each day. We want it to be a joy to work each day.
We have done much dispersal within our own system in the immigration and nationality directorate to Liverpool and to Leeds. We are ensuring that staff have the type of conditions, such as the provision of crèches, that are available to people in the South East. We are working to ensure that conditions are good.
Export Control Bill
4.31 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Sainsbury of Turville.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Elton) in the Chair.]
Baroness Miller of Hendon moved Amendment No. 1:
- Page 1, line 2, after "order" insert ", after consultation with the relevant industrial organisations,"
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak to Amendment No. 1 and my noble friend Lady Anelay will speak to Amendment No. 2 which is grouped with it.
In introducing this same amendment to the Committee of the other place, my honourable friend the Member for Aldershot described it as "very important". That view was clearly shared by the Committee, where no fewer than nine Members took part and for which the report covers 10 columns of the Official Report. Perhaps it was just the excitement of being the first debate in Committee on the Bill's detail. Having spent a large part of the Christmas Recess and the weeks since working on the Bill, any excitement that I may have felt has long since been subdued. However, I do agree about the importance of this deceptively short amendment.
The fact is that the Bill's core is not in the body of the Bill itself but in the secondary legislation. I make no apology for reminding your Lordships that we still do not know for certain what the contents of that secondary legislation will be. We have now had the advantage, which Members of the other place did not have at the Bill's early stages, of seeing what the Government call the "dummy orders"—a new phenomenon that I have not come across before, but which is somehow different from a draft order. However, dummy or draft, there is something out there for consultation with what the Government believe to be "interested parties".
Assuming, as I am prepared to do always, that the consultation is not a piece of window dressing, we cannot be sure whether the dummy orders will be identical to their final form. But that is not the end of the matter. As the subsection that we are considering—the very first subsection of the first clause of the Bill—makes clear, the Secretary of State will have a continuous power to make fresh orders that can add to or detract from the type of goods governed by the legislation. He is also seeking power to amend from time to time the schedule which contains the nub of the Bill by describing the purposes for which control orders can be made.
At the moment, the Government are not offering to make all these orders, which drastically alter the powers we are about to give them, subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, although that is something that we hope we will be able to alter later in Committee. On Second Reading in the other place, the Government made considerable play of the extent of the consultation that they had undertaken since publication of the White Paper and the draft Bill early in 2001. The Government are now consulting widely about the dummy orders.
Are we to assume that the Government's philosophy is that the moment Parliament has agreed to this Bill and the first batch of dummy orders, a line will be firmly drawn under the consultation process? Is it the Government's intention that the Secretary of State will then be free to make such further orders as he wishes without seeking the opinions of the defence industry, and subject only to such cursory parliamentary scrutiny as the parliamentary process allows for secondary legislation?
I have to point out that by accepting this amendment the Government will not be seriously circumscribing their powers. As my honourable friend told the Committee of the other place, what they would be doing is to consult those affected before they exercise the sweeping powers that they are taking, and advertising to industry and commerce that they desire partnership with them.
To answer a question that was asked in the other place, and before it is asked here, I should tell your Lordships that my noble friend Lady Anelay is dealing with the matter of cultural objects. I should also mention that if, as I hope, the amendment is accepted, identical amendments will be needed to Clauses 2(1), 4(1) and 5(1). However, those can be dealt with as part of the tidying up process at a later stage. I beg to move.
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