Lord Jamieson (Con)

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for speaking on this matter. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for clarifying—it is an important clarification—that the aim is that the clause should apply only to people where there has been a determination that they have leave to remain, not to those where the determination is that they have been rejected. That is my understanding of what the noble Baroness said. Our concern on this side is that, with the way in which the Bill is written, this measure could potentially apply both to those who have leave to remain and those who have been rejected. Obviously, I do not want to withdraw this, because that is not the process. However, we wish to leave open the fact that we want clarity—and want there to be no confusion—that this measure would not apply to those who have had their case determined and rejected. This is a critical point on which we would like some assurance and to which we will come back in terms of the drafting of the Bill. The points that we have made about those who have had their application rejected are perfectly valid. I have not heard anyone here say that, for those who have been rejected, they have an objection to our comments. This measure is for those cases where people have had their application accepted, so to speak. I completely understand the comments that have been made in this Chamber—if I am entirely honest, when I was the chairman of the LGA, I pushed for something not entirely dissimilar—but I would definitely say that this is not what we should be doing for those who have been rejected. We are looking at the drafting to make sure that this is absolutely clear and cannot be misinterpreted by some eagle-eyed lawyer. Obviously, I am not going to withdraw my clause stand part notice, because that is not the process here; I just wanted to be very clear about where our concern is, which is in the drafting. We want to make absolutely certain that this measure does not apply to those who have been rejected.