Dame Meg Hillier

Dame Meg Hillier

Labour (Co-op) — Hackney South and Shoreditch

Speaking in the House of Commons on 25 April 2025

Debate

Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Contribution

That is exactly the point. The hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry puts great faith in Committee stages. I have been here a long time, and they are not always as good as people say that they will be. Even if there was a Committee stage, there are so many other elements. That is one of the challenges with a Bill that is simply one line long. There are issues and knock-on effects for not just the Home Office, but all the other cross-UK institutions. I spent more than a decade on the Public Accounts Committee, and I know that if we pull a lever somewhere in Whitehall, unintended consequences flow into places we would never have thought of. The skill in government is to try to work that out, and a Bill like this would not deliver that necessary joined-up approach.

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