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Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2009

My Lords, certainly, it includes local authorities which can make the case, the police and other bodies which have increased costs and primary healthcare trusts. All those organisations are eligible for benefits under the fund. We do not want to overlay prescription in terms of what the fund might be used for. It is essential that local services have the opportunity to shape the use of the fund in their local area. However, police services and hospitals could use the fund to reduce the cost burden of interpreting, the recovery of police community support officers from migrant communities or providing a pool of interpreters across services. The fund could be used to provide extra support for teachers and children’s services in areas where migration has led to a high turnover of pupils in schools. In addition, the fund could help with projects to improve community safety, ensuring, for example, that migrants are aware of the rules. Without being comprehensive, there are several areas and eligible bodies that will find themselves under strain as a result of migration flows. They can make very good use of what is a modest amount of money. It is a sensible policy to price into migration some of the social costs that are borne by communities. Many of these issues have been raised by Members in the other place, on behalf of local authorities and other constituency bodies. I hope that is a more comprehensive answer.