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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall come to that in a moment. Clause 46 will enable controls on air and sea routes for people travelling within the common travel area between the Republic of Ireland and the Crown dependencies and the United Kingdom. This step will enhance the UK’s security and will be augmented by increased intelligence-led operations on those entering the UK, via the land border in Northern Ireland. Let me be clear that the common travel area will remain and that we do not intend to introduce fixed controls on the land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland or for those arriving from the Crown dependencies. Clause 47, which was mentioned, introduces a change to the conditions for foreign students who come to the UK to study to allow their permission to be linked to the particular institution which sponsors them under the points-based system. At the moment students come here, go to an institution, move after a few months and then disappear. In future, we want to ensure that there is a responsibility on both the educational institution and the student to inform us that they will move to another course at another educational institution, which must be properly sponsored and registered. That is to ensure that we do not have a loophole, which has caused considerable problems in the past.