Lord Harper (Con)

On that point, briefly, it is good that we have the surcharge. It was brought in under one of the pieces of legislation I was responsible for in a former life. We can argue about the amount. For younger people in their late teens and early 20s, it is probably a reasonable amount of money. We looked at the costs at the time, and that cohort of people do not bear a huge weight on the health service—but they have some cost, and it is right that they meet some of it. The second definitional point I want to touch on is in Amendment 166, about the use of the language “unmarried partner”, where I strongly agree with my noble friends Lord Jackson and Lady Lawlor. In my experience, that would be a massive red flag to anybody who wishes to come to the United Kingdom and make a definition. There is no way of proving or disproving somebody’s connection with such loose language. Spouse and civil partner are very clear. They can be evidenced, and documents can be produced to do that. As soon as you say “unmarried partner”, almost anybody can be said to fit into that category and there will be almost no chance of the Home Office making refusals on that basis—it will just be a large chasm. I also support my noble friend Lord Jackson in Amendment 171, adding into the list “the importance of maintaining a secure border”. There is a very long list in Amendment 166, but they are all—in one way—things that the Secretary of State should consider, which would mean that the Secretary of State would have to let in more people. If the Secretary of State is making a judgment, it is very helpful to have a balanced list to weigh up. I hesitate to say this in your Lordships’ Committee—there are so many lawyers here—but the problem with having the catch-all at the end, saying “any other matters the Secretary of State considers appropriate”, is that, certainly when we were drafting things, as soon as there is a list and things are not in it, weight is put on the fact that they are not in the list. If there is a very long list all in one direction, it is very helpful to put in that the Secretary of State also has duties to protect the border, because that enables the Secretary of State to put proper weight on that consideration in a way that is capable of withstanding legal challenge. I will pick up another issue on language: the reference to adoptive parents and adoptive siblings in Amendment 166, which clarifies that it also includes “de facto adoption”. I have no objection to people bringing in adoptive members of their family, where that has gone through some legal process, but if it is de facto and there has been no legal process, it again becomes very difficult for decisions made by the Secretary of State to be upheld in the courts. If we do not have some kind of process, this becomes an open door. Finally, reasonable-sounding language has been snuck into Amendment 165 with the reference to “any dependants”. If a child is in the UK, we define someone who can come and join them. That sounds very reasonable, but that person can then bring any number of dependants with them. Although it says that there would be no recourse to public funds, which we might discuss in relation to housing costs, there are a number of things that I think most people would consider were public funds, such as the NHS and universal credit, but that are not counted as public funds in that definition.