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Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2009

My Lords, we have heard several times about the benefits migration can bring to the UK economy. I do not think that the Government would dispute that. There is a principle here that we are now charging much higher fees to those who enter legally. They are increasingly helping to pay for the cost of securing our borders, but they are securing them against those who would be entering illegally, possibly with malign purposes. So those entering legally are paying an increased price for our wish to secure our borders and they have to pay up front in one go rather than the cost being spread and paid for by the general tax base. If these fees are going to increase year on year to pay for border security, this will begin to pose quite a problem. The issue of student fees has been quite widely explored. The universities were nervous about falling behind in terms of competitiveness. The Minister is likely to say a little more about that. The best value bit of the entire proposition seemed to be the long-term visit visas for people wishing to visit a multiple number of times, which seems a fairer move in terms of fee basis. I was surprised by the checklist for all the specific impact tests in the Explanatory Memorandum. Somebody obviously must have done all the tests, and the answer was no in every case, all the way down the list, in both "Results in Evidence Base?" and "Results annexed?". If that is the impact on the cost-benefit analysis—apparently there is no impact on anything at all, including rural-proofing, which is interesting; I cannot imagine that there was real rural-proofing—was the checklist filled in in a fairly casual way down the back of the Explanatory Memorandum? The impact tests are supposed to be the first place you check what you need to look at in more depth, so they are quite serious.