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Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

My Lords, again the noble Baroness has said, as she did constantly in Grand Committee, that we have to forget about the existing system. The same people are going to operate the new system, which is what makes us anxious. The same entry certificate officers, who, as the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, has pointed out, had 25 per cent of their decisions overturned on appeal, will be dealing with the new system. Even though one tries to be as objective as possible, they will still have to exercise an element of judgment, which will be subject to only an internal administrative review, about which the noble Baroness has been able to tell us very little. The issue is not simply whether the documents are forged or not, which is a matter of fact that can be determined by reference to the original institution. However, if the idea, which is so meritorious and which we all accept, of having the sponsorship of an academic institution or an employer removes the element of intention from the decision by the ECO, why have we not introduced it already in the immigration rules? I ask the noble Baroness that question and I wonder whether there is an answer to it, or whether we should have embarked on this in a series of steps that would have enabled us to judge whether they were effective. The system whereby academic institutions are on the register is already in place. They are recognised as being responsible for judging the applications of students, so the ECO does not have to go behind those, except to say whether the course is appropriate or whether the institution meets the particular needs, as in the case of the famous student who wanted to study English in Northern Ireland. We would not have any of those nonsenses if we had already instituted the system of established sponsorship by an academic institution or by an employer and if we had been able to treat that as conclusive in removing the element of judgment by the ECO on whether something was going to comply with the immigration rules. One could have done that in the existing immigration rules and we would not have had to abandon the rights of appeal because, by definition, there would have been a much smaller number of appeals against decisions which are now made on the basis of someone’s assessment of intentions. As the noble Baroness said—this has been echoed by every noble Lord who has spoken—we do not know enough about the system to evaluate it. I am most grateful to the Minister for saying that at least we will have the report of the consultation on a points system before Third Reading. I honestly believe that we would have a much more fruitful and productive discussion if we had that document before us. As I am about to withdraw the amendment, I look forward to a further discussion at Third Reading and I hope that on that occasion we will be able to make progress. We shall know more clearly what is intended and many of the blanks that we face at the moment will be filled in. We will know how the points system has been evaluated by those who have been consulted on it and we will perhaps know more about the administrative review, about which the Minister has been able to say very little, but which clearly, in the minds of the academic community, and particularly in the mind of the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, is of vital importance. We will not get over the subjective decisions when, to quote the noble Baroness’s department’s document, Tribunals for Diverse Users,"““Its key features need to be independence, professionalism, accessibility and efficiency””." Perhaps the noble Baroness could say—I would be delighted if she interrupted me to do so—whether this document applies to the administrative review that we are talking about. She was referring, as I understood her, to the White Paper, Transforming Public Services: Complaints, Redress and Tribunals, so I rather inferred from that that the comments made in this document applied pari passu to the administrative review to be introduced under this Bill. That would be very important, because we would at least have an independent yardstick by which to judge the process when it is finally introduced. If the noble Baroness does not want to interrupt me, perhaps we can come back to that point on Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.