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Gurkha Settlement Rights

The hon. Gentleman, who speaks with great knowledge, is concerned that the decisions do not have the unintended consequence of damaging the brigade. The point about the potential resource implication of this is important, and the Prime Minister referred to it earlier at Prime Minister's Question Time. Let me be clear because the numbers have been challenged, I think unfairly. I looked at the numbers after I had met representatives of the campaign. I cannot base the advice of the Government on the "Channel 4 News" fact indicator; I have to base it on the best information available to us, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has explained the derivation of the figures. But it is an important point. The Government have never said that 100,000 people would apply and would get settlement. We have to look, as we do under all immigration law, at the potential, and our best estimate is that it is 100,000. It may be more, it may be less.