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Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Order 2007

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his expressions of gratitude and congratulation and I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, for the brevity and completeness of his support. My noble friend Lord Tomlinson is right that we are doing two separate things. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will be aware that in order to implementa new flexible charging model for in-country immigration and nationality applications, we need to use a combination of secondary legislation to set out the new fees. It is a two-stage process. We need to take a Section 51 order through the affirmative process in both the Commons and the Lords. That is this order, which sets out the principles of a flexible approach and the routes that we intend to apply to the new model. That is the first stage. Only when that first stage is complete in both Houses are we entitled to move to the second stage and to take regulations made under Section 51, in reliance on Section 42, through the affirmative process in both the Commons and the Lords, detailing the new fees where they have been set at levels above simple cost recovery. The dates for the future debates will be set in due course. The whole purpose of issuing the information as soon as we could with this order was that the House would have the advantage of seeing the principles on which the fees were to be set and of deciding whether they were acceptable—and I am grateful for the indication of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that he does accept them. After that, we will have a fuller, detailed debate about all the other issues that the noble Lord has properly raised on fees and citizenship and on how education and other factors are dealt with. I thank him for the fullness of the questions, because it will be enormously helpful in preparing for that second debate to have an opportunity to look at those issues. There will be a gap between this order and the regulations. I hope, therefore, that when the noble Lord has a moment of more mature reflection, rather than looking at this so quickly—and I commend him for the speed with which he has absorbed all this information to make the critical questions so clear—he will be able to come back so that we can deal with the matter appropriately. I endorse what my noble friend Lord Tomlinson said. We have spent some time and not inconsiderable trouble in researching this issue comprehensively—more comprehensively perhaps than such issues have ever been researched before—so that we understand it better and can target the fees in a way that makes sense for those who wish to take advantage of the services that we will provide and, we hope, provide ever more efficiently. We very much take into account the worries and concerns of the different sectors, not least about education. I pay credit to my noble friend Lord Tomlinson, who has been of great assistance and who has participated with great energy in this consultation process. I hope that, with the assurance that we can come back to all these issues when the regulations come into play, the noble Lord will be content to have that fuller debate at that time. I thank him for his gracious acceptance that this order, which sets out the framework within which the fees will be set, is something with which he and his party can concur. On Question, Motion agreed to.