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Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2009

Volume 708: debated on Thursday 5 March 2009

Motion to Approve

Moved By

That the draft order laid before the House on 21 January be approved.

Relevant Document: 4th report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

My Lords, the Government are delivering the biggest shake-up of the immigration system for 45 years. Improvements and new services do not come for free, and our policy is that the burden of paying for them should not fall entirely to the United Kingdom taxpayer. In accordance with our legal powers, this order sets out new applications and services for which we intend a fee to be payable in future. The proposed fee levels have been published, and will be specified in subsequent regulations in the near future. The fees we intend to charge for each new service will be at or below the cost of delivering it.

We intend to charge a fee for the UKBA to issue a letter to confirm a person’s status in the United Kingdom when, for example, that person has lost their initial grant letter or the passport in which their leave had originally been placed. Those are currently provided free on request, at cost to the agency. We believe it reasonable that the applicant, who benefits from the letter, should contribute to the costs. I would like to clarify the position on these status letters, as there was some concern in the other place about whether charging a fee for this service would cause people either to go to their MP, or to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act to avoid having to pay the fee. My right honourable friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration will shortly write to reassure Members on this issue, and a copy of that letter will be made available to both Houses.

I would also like to offer assurances to your Lordships that we believe there will be no adverse impacts on MPs. If the UKBA receives a letter from an MP requesting confirmation of a constituent’s immigration or nationality status, the MP will be advised —without charge—of the new application process and will not be sent a status letter free of charge.

I can also confirm that a person could not receive this information through a freedom of information request, as such requests relate only to non-personal information. They could make a request for a subject access request under the Data Protection Act and would receive copies of what is held on file. If a status letter is on the file, they will receive a copy of it. However, this would only cover copies of historical documents on file and would not necessarily confirm current status.

The order also allows us to charge a fee when we provide one of the following optional services: attendance by a representative of the Secretary of State at premises other than at an office of the UKBA or Consular premises; or services provided by a representative of the Secretary of State outside office hours. These services are already charged for outside the UK. We want to be able to set a fee for this service in future within Home Office legislation, and also to have the enabling power to charge a fee for offering the same optional service within the UK. We will return to the House later this month to make further regulations specifying the actual fee levels, relying on the powers in Section 51 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 and Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Act 2004, as amended by Section 20 of the UK Borders Act 2007. This will provide your Lordships with the opportunity to debate the actual fee levels the Government propose for the services and applications set out in this order. So there will be an opportunity to look at that in some detail. I commend the order to the House.

My Lords, as the Minister said, this order is in effect one of two parts. He said that we would look on another occasion at the actual fee levels to be paid; today we are looking at the question of the application and the services provided by UKBA, for which a fee should be paid.

We on these Benches have no objection as a matter of principle to the notion of payment for the use and benefit of the range of immigration and nationality applications and services; we believe that those who use the service should contribute proportionately to the costs of the system, rather than having the costs met entirely by the taxpayer. However, I should like to ask one or two questions about the effect of the application of the system.

The Minister has helpfully clarified some of the points that arose in another place, and I am grateful for the information that he has given. On the effect of the fee levels, Britain benefits from visitors and certain forms of immigration. Have the Government undertaken any kind of analysis to determine what effect implementing fees for these services will have on the number of general visitors or skilled migrants? If the number of applications for these services is reduced as a result of the charges that are applied, this money will also be available to contribute to the UK Border Agency’s running costs, which is presumably part of the point of making charges.

The Explanatory Memorandum notes that fees and charges are reviewed annually, and that application trends are monitored by a cross-Whitehall fees committee to ensure that fee levels generate sufficient revenue to cover the UKBA delivery costs without adversely impacting on the economy. Can the Minister say more about how this committee makes these assessments and calculations? It will be crucial that we get the balance right and do not end up either with damage to the economy or a reduction in revenue such that there is damage to the revenue base of the service.

Finally, the Explanatory Memorandum notes two things about consolidating fees for immigration and nationality applications and services. It notes that the Government intend to,

“consolidate all previous changes should there be any further amendment to the Order”,

and also that the Government are,

“working to consolidate the Fees Regulations which see fee levels in reliance of this Order, to improve understanding for stakeholders, customers, practitioners and officials”.

Unless I have misunderstood what that means, why are not the Government currently consolidating all previous changes? It seems an opportunity to do so, so I should like to know why it is not being taken. If it is not, when will consolidation of the fees regulation be completed and when will the new fees for application services that they are considering at the moment be set, so that we have a final system in place?

My Lords, we have obviously benefited somewhat from the debate and questions raised in the other place. I am sure that MPs will be glad for the reassurances that the Minister was able to give today. As he says, the fee levels will be subject to a further debate, which we will work on when it arrives. In the mean time, when UKBA is holding the documents and is asked to provide a letter confirming someone’s status, although it has all the other documents for various reasons, because it needs them, would the fee still be charged? If the person has to have letters because their status is not confirmed, because of delays, the UKBA would seem to be making money out of its own delays, which would be an immoral position. The Complaints Audit Committee noted that for 2007-08, there were 1,875 complaints about delays in decision-making. That is five a day, which is a very high rate.

We are discussing in the House—as we were last night and will again next week—the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill. In Part 2 of that Bill the Government have been quite clear on their intention. The Minister himself said:

“We want to integrate migrant workers into the country in a way that benefits both the migrants and the communities that they join”.—[Official Report, 11/2/09; col. 1130.]

It would be a very unfortunate start to that process if there was a feeling of unfairness about it. While we entirely recognise that charging a fee is reasonable, it has to be in reasonable circumstances and not because of the one that I outlined, for example. It will have to be at a reasonable level, which is an issue that we will address when the matter comes back before the House.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses for their useful input to this debate. As I said, I am sure that we will be able to take advantage of further opportunity to discuss these matters when we return to them in the near future. So there is an opportunity for further discussion.

The concerns raised around charging for status letters will be addressed in a published response from my right honourable friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration. There is a cost to the UKBA for providing the service and, just as we charge for other applications and services, I believe that it is entirely right that we charge for the provision of these letters, which greatly benefit those who apply for them. Having used a lawyer for some private business, I know that the cost of these letters is dramatically less than the lawyers’ letters that have been provided to me.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, asked a number of questions, which I shall try to tackle. On the effect of the fees on numbers, we do not assess the impact of our fees on numbers when we set them. It is based on price estimates and market research and comparing our prices with those charged in other countries. It is a very interesting point that she raises, however, because these measures could clearly have an impact as she describes. I shall go and ask a few questions about that, because it would make sense to do so, even if done in only a rudimentary form, without putting too much effort and cost into it. I thank the noble Baroness for that point.

In setting the fee levels, we work and will continue to work within the strict financial limits agreed by the Treasury. Within that overall limit we set fees, bearing in mind the value of a successful application to the migrant themselves, while maintaining the UK as an attractive destination. We need to do a little more work on that last bit to see what impact it will have. We also take advice from the independent Migration Advisory Committee and the Migration Impact Forum and will continue to work extensively with our stakeholders in the education, employment and arts and entertainment sectors as we introduce these new fees. These issues are addressed. We are working separately to consolidate fees regulations, which set fee levels in relation to this order to improve legibility for all stakeholders, customers, practitioners and officials. They will all have an oversight and a view.

I might have confused noble Lords a little about the immigration status letters. If an MP sends a request on behalf of a constituent, asking for confirmation of their immigration status, information is provided to the MP. We are removing the involvement of the MP in such an inquiry, so that the request is made by the applicant directly to the UK Border Agency, which provides the response directly to the applicant. When the new system is introduced, we will no longer provide a status letter to the MP but will request that the constituent submits an application. I hope that this clarifies that point, with which I probably confused noble Lords.

I am afraid that I do not have the specific answers that the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked for, but I will write to her on those points. The proposals in this order are in line with our objective of recovering the costs of the Immigration Service from the users of the system, rather than relying on the UK taxpayer. I seem to have part of an answer for the noble Baroness. Where the UK Border Agency holds documents, would the fee still be charged as a result of any delays? No, these letters are optional and do not, in themselves, confer leave; they simply set out the current status of the applicant. We believe that the fee level is reasonable. I will get back to the noble Baroness on her other questions.

My Lords, I have a further question about consolidation, following that asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones. As the noble Lord has frequently told the Committee on the Bill, there is a consolidated version of the legislation on the web. Why can that not also be done with the fees regulations? The Minister also did not explain to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, why the consolidation that is planned for the fees regulations could not have been accomplished in respect of this order. Why could this order not have been consolidated with all the previous orders, instead of leaving it until some future date to achieve that purpose? My main question is about whether the existing regulations are consolidated on the web and where one might find them. Are they, for example, on the UKBA website?

My Lords, I do not know the exact answer to that question, but I will write to the noble Lord and to other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I imagine that the regulations are on that website, but I do not know for certain. I will check and come back on that. I commend the order.

Motion agreed.