Baroness Lawlor (Con)

I am grateful to the noble Lords who spoke in the debate and particularly to my noble friend Lord Sandhurst for spotting this. I had thought about it in respect of other amendments, but I did not include it in this one, and that is indeed a gap—I agree with the Minister. Certainly, if I am to bring it back on Report, I will take account of that. But my overall position remains that, with provision for the problems pointed out by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst, I really cannot see that we can tackle the problem of visa switching by those who enter in, or not in, good faith. There are indeed reports of students who came here and fraudulently deceived the university authorities, saying they would take a course when they subsequently admitted that they had no intention of doing so. This is a problem, and we have no way of dealing with it. Unless we crack down quite strictly on people claiming asylum when they have no reason to other than a desire to stay in this country, and when they have made this clear subsequently—it is clear from the evidence—then we will not tackle this problem. It is very grave for our universities, student communities and taxpayers. So I will consider this. Perhaps I can work something out with my noble friend Lord Sandhurst. I hope to bring this back again on Report.