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Immigration

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about what is, in reality, a kind of informal adoption. I was just about to come to that. Unfortunately, there are within the world of immigration law some extremely incompetent, inefficient and corrupt advisers who are no good or help to anybody, as well as a lot of very good and overworked immigration solicitors who have great difficulty in coping with their work loads and the pressures that are put on them. I have come across cases where children have come to this country, perhaps from Nigeria or Bangladesh—from many different places—as quite young children, probably unaware of what was going on, and have been effectively adopted by an uncle or an aunt. I am not saying that there is anything bad about the uncle or aunt in question, who may often have looked after them and brought them up very well. That child came to this country to be with their adoptive parents; those parents either did not understand the system or did not do anything about it, and when the child reaches the age of 18 and becomes an adult, they apply for all the things that adults want and discover that they are not legally allowed to be in this country. I have had cases where 18 or 19-year-olds who have been all the way through the education system in this country are removed. Under the rules, they would be banned from even visiting again within five years because they had come here by what someone has decided is a process of deception. I can think of families where at one level it could be argued that there had been deception. I would argue that there is a huge degree of ignorance and that those families needed help and support. Above all, why are we penalising the young people in question? They are not the ones who created the deception or problem in the first place.