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Immigration: Statement of Changes in Rules

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the very welcome concession that he made at the beginning of his speech but express the reservation that it was not done in another way; that is, by withdrawing the order and then bringing back an alternative set of amendments to the Immigration Rules that would set out the exemption until 1 October 2008 in the order instead of dealing with it in this extra-statutory way outside the rules. I take it that the noble Lord was telling us that paragraphs 33 to 39 and 47 and 48 are to be left in the measure but not brought into effect until the date he mentioned, and that nobody would be made to suffer under those paragraphs until the expiry of that period. If that is what he was saying, I certainly welcome it. It would take care of a large part of what my noble friend said about the transitional arrangements because people would be able to make the necessary adjustments to their lives in time. I share the unease of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, as regards what he said about appeals. As I have said twice, there is nothing in the measure which says that a person can appeal. There is a complete blanket prohibition on a person who is guilty of an offence under these paragraphs, whether it was inadvertent or whether, in the case of a child, it was done without his knowledge. One would have liked to see set out in the measure a provision that there could be appeals against refusal for those reasons. I share the anxieties expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, about students. It is not enough to say that if a person realises he is late and puts in a fresh application within 28 days, it will be heard. There may well be cases where it takes longer than 28 days to do that. That person’s whole future and the payments that he has made for his university course may hinge on being able to appeal against the refusal. To say that after 28 days a person has no right whatever to appeal against a refusal when it may have been due to some inadvertent clerical error or mistake in a document will not satisfactorily take into account every case. The reason for declining to participate in the EU ban was not because we considered this should be dealt with by member states; that was made perfectly clear in the quotation that I read out. At the time the Home Office made its submission on the EU-wide entry ban it considered that it was improper to have a ban as long as 10 years and that it was perfectly satisfied with the non-mandatory ban in the immigration rules, particularly the one that is being amended this evening. I conclude by saying that we have to be satisfied with the concession that the Minister made. We are grateful for it as far as it goes. We hope that as a result of the further discussions with the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association that he mentioned other extra-statutory concessions may be made to take into account the many valid points that it made. But in the meanwhile I shall not press the Motion. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion, by leave, withdrawn.