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Immigration

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) for giving us the opportunity to hold the debate. I agree with many of the remarks of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). When we make changes such as those that we are discussing, it is important that a parliamentary process is involved. That is why there is an opportunity to pray against rules and have such debates. However, I also agree that it would be helpful in future to try to hold them before rather than after rules are introduced. The hon. Member for Eastleigh said that he had made representations to the Leader of the House. I shall check whether she has received them. I want to start with some context and then I shall rattle through my notes because I do not want to detain the House much longer. Hon. Members know that we are making one or two changes to the immigration and the border security systems in this country this year; the introduction of the points system is among the most significant. We had a rather good debate on the points system a week or two ago, when I hope that our intention to make the rules much simpler came across. We want to make them clearer and easier, not only for the Government to administer, thus reducing the room for mistakes that derive from 10 measures since 1971, but in order to reduce the space for bad immigration lawyers to take people for a ride. I agree with the remarks that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) made about that. When there is a complicated system of rules, vulnerable migrants often get taken for a ride and end up paying quite a high price.