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Gurkha Settlement Rights

I shall make a bit of progress, if I may. An indication of what the true situation would be if we accepted the motion, and if the Government followed its recommendations, is provided by the number of pre-1997 Gurkhas who made their application for settlement before the Government's deadline of October 2006. We know from what Ministers have said that there are only 1,350 outstanding Gurkha applications on the desk of the Minister for Borders and Immigration. Those are people who applied in the knowledge that discretion could be applied. Is the Minister really saying that if the right to enter were to be automatic, in line with the post-1997 situation, there would be nearly 30 times more applicants? If so, I merely thank heaven that he is not a Treasury Minister in charge of the Budget forecasts.