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Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

No, my Lords, the independent monitor does not play a role in this. The independent monitor is much further up the system. He will be in a full-time position, looking across a sample of cases. We talked about this a lot in Committee. He will perhaps look at particular countries where there have been particular issues. I am describing a process— which we still have to work out and which is not set in concrete—where someone more senior in the area looks at whether someone has misread bank account details or miswritten the number of points. We are talking about a very clear administrative system. The individual can reapply; there is nothing to stop anyone reapplying. That is the kind of process that we seek to put in place to address precisely the questions that will be raised, bearing in mind that the subjectivity has largely been taken out. The one area where we still have to have a discussion—and I am grateful to my noble friend, because she mentioned this area in her letter this week—is where you believe that the documentation before you may be forged, or something of that nature, in which case one might say that professional judgment has a part to play. That is what my honourable friend Mr McNulty referred to when he said that you can never 100 per cent rule things out, because you have to consider whether the information before you is forged or accurate. We have to think about that. We are talking about an administrative review, not an independent anything. It is not an appeal by the back door. I will not pretend to your Lordships that that is what I am looking for. I am looking for a system that will provide a greater and better impetus for people to come to this country as students or workers; I am looking for a system that is much more transparent and makes it much easier for people to understand what they have to provide to do so. The system should give them greater opportunities to participate in education or in work in this country; that is the ambition behind it. I will now address the specific points that noble Lords have raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, gave me a series of questions. Some of them will be answered when the documentation is available, but I will seek to deal with those questions as best I can. We have a five-year strategy to roll this out in a phased way, so I do not have a specific timetable at this point of how it will come in. The idea is to phase in the different tiers over time. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we need to think about the number of staff that we need for training. Part of the design is how we make sure that we have got the right kind of training in place; we absolutely do not underestimate the importance of that. Whether we take a country-by-country approach will be part of looking at what will work best. We will use a phased approach, but we need to think about how to do that—whether it should be country by country, or all of one tier. On the quality of initial decisions, I hope that I have given a flavour of looking for transparency and objective criteria so that people can understand the process effectively. We are looking at the details now so that we can make sure that people get the information in a clear, objective and transparent way—for example, if they are refused. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, raised the issue of small employers, on which we are consulting. Not surprisingly, members of the Chinese community have raised it with us, because they represent a large number of small employers. We are looking carefully at how to ensure that we involve them appropriately and how we make contact and keep contact with them. That is much easier with big employers who have a number of people coming through and where we will be able to develop personal contacts for them. We need to make sure that we have got that right. That also applies to an accreditation system for small businesses. We want to ensure sure that the basic procedure is in place so that we can obtain the initial ratings. We will aim to have more compliance checks while people get their ratings right. There might be a provisional rating that will then come into force as we have more compliance checks. I am not seeking to prevent people from participating or to discourage or discriminate against them because they do not have a long track record. The use of compliance checks is to help them. I can tell my noble friend Lady Warwick that the administrative review is available to anyone who is refused. Written reasons will be given, as I have indicated. There is no regional tier involved. Such regions are huge areas of the world, but my noble friend and I can continue to talk about this. I have indicated that the independent monitor will carry out a sampling exercise. I have talked at some length about the administrative review and, sneakily, I thought that my noble friend would start quoting my department at me. I have the quotation, too. The noble Baroness quoted section 3.13. Section 3.12 states:"““The first and most direct remedy is to dispute decisions directly with departments and agencies””." So I stand by what we said in 3.13. The noble Baroness will know that I am responsible for tribunals within my own areas of policy. We are saying that we need to make sure that people dispute with departments and agencies. We are doing that and the administrative review enables it to happen. There are still rights of appeal on human rights and race relations grounds; there is a route to judicial review; there is a level of independent scrutiny by the independent monitor; and the noble Baroness may wish to note that the document states on page 15:"““Both the public and private sectors need to create and maintain suitable and cost effective means of redress””." Noble Lords will remember from the debates at Second Reading that we are seeking to achieve a better use of resources across all our work on asylum, immigration and managed migration. It is important that we achieve that. Turning briefly to the amendments that have been spoken to, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, will be surprised that I do not accept Amendment No. 6. However, I am interested in Amendment No. 9, which I hope will please the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour. She wanted me to accept that amendment here and now. My difficulty is that there is a technical problem with the drafting, as I have already explained to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who accepted that explanation. The amendment is worthy of consideration for the exact reasons that noble Lords have stated. I am happy to take it away for further consideration and return to it at Third Reading. My noble friend Lady Warwick and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, know that I shall resist Amendment No. 10 regarding creating a review of the kind that it describes. I understand why noble Lords want to put matters on the face of legislation—it is a guarantee of what the Government are seeking to do—but there is no reason to fear the introduction of our administrative review system. It is important that we introduce the system and we are committed to it, but making that process statutory on the face of legislation would bring with it all the difficulties of creating rigidity in a system that needs to be flexible. It is also an administrative review, which would not sit well with being statutory. However, we are committed to doing it and will work closely on it with my noble friend and others. I shall not accept the idea that Clause 4(1) cannot come into force until at least January 2010, because this is a better system for future students and employees; when we are ready to introduce it, we should do it properly. I do not want to be captured by legislation that sets out a date that may be inappropriate for many reasons, although I understand why noble Lords want to set a date. Regarding Amendment No. 77, I bow always to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I have not yet failed, nor do I plan ever to fail, to accept what it says. So when it does not say something, I take that to mean that noble Lords on that committee are reasonably content with what we have done. They made no comment on the procedure in Clause 59 and, therefore, I do not propose to accept that amendment. I hope that the explanations and the commitments that I have given about Third Reading may offer some cheer to noble Lords and perhaps some greater understanding of why we are proposing a new system with a new process rather than thinking about the old system and the concerns that quite rightly noble Lords have had. On that basis, I hope that at this stage the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.