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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I rise to respond to the very powerful arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury and my noble friend Lady Whitaker, and with regard to the enormous respect that we all have for the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the powerful case that he puts yet again. I have several pages of Civil Service prose to read out and, indeed, for the remainder of the amendments to this part of the Bill I have copious pages of Civil Service prose. However, I should like to suggest a different approach. In responding to Amendment 90—it seems a long time ago, but it was on Monday—I gave an undertaking that the Government would consider amendments from the noble Lord. I suggest that we should consider Amendments 92 and 101A, along with the remaining amendments to clauses in Part 2, with the exception of Amendment 105A which, to my embarrassment I must return to, having failed to deal with it on Monday. The purpose of my suggesting that I discuss those amendments not in the form of a considered debate today, which would take a very long time, but in the form of a discussion, is to look at the cases that have caused noble Lords to table the amendments, to consider the decisions taken in respect of those cases and the principles behind those decisions, and to see whether policy and other practical measures can be found to resolve them. The noble Lord will, of course, be perfectly able to bring back any or all of his amendments at Report, but I hope that we can at least make some progress on some of them in the intervening period. That would be the most practical way in which I can offer the House urgent attention to the points raised, with the opportunity for a fuller debate at Report.