Contribution
I am grateful for the contributions from noble Lords and from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. I want to remind the Grand Committee of something it already knows, but it is worth putting it in context at the beginning: there is no increase today in the fee levels, and impact assessments for each potential future fee increase, if this order were to be approved, would be put in place. There would be an impact assessment for each potential new fee level determined by the Government, in due course. That fee level may or may not be put forward by them at some point in the future, up to the maxima being agreed today, and would include an assessment of the impact on tourism, jobs, investment, growth and on the appertaining costs of any fee as a whole.
I know that the Committee knows that, but it is worth putting it in context. This is the hors d’oeuvre to a meal; it is not the main meal, because that will come downstream when potential new fee levels are put before both Houses of Parliament for approval, with an appropriate impact assessment covering the many points made by Members here today.
I will start with my noble friend Lord Rowlands, who I am pleased to see in his place. We shared a long time together in the House of Commons and it is good to see him again here today. He touched on a very important point. First, there is the scrutiny of legislation by the statutory instruments committee, which was also touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. The points my noble friend made about that, and the performance of the Home Office, are well made. They were made in the previous debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton; I am hoping that they will not be made in future debates, for the reasons I outlined then. The Government intend to make sure that statutory instruments have proper Explanatory Memoranda and are thoroughly investigated and overseen by Ministers, and that measures which are brought forward are appropriate and testable by the SI committee, and defensible by Ministers accordingly.
My noble friend Lord Rowlands made a clear reference to the failure to provide legislative cover for fee increases. This was round about April of last year. My first defence is that, as he will know, I was not the Minister responsible at the time. Why it happened is a matter of conjecture, but it has. I am not going to put the proverbial political boot in to previous Ministers or officials. That is where we are and, in their defence, there was a general election, which has impacted upon any timescales to rectify that error, but that error has existed. When it was noticed, measures were brought to the attention of Ministers in the current Government, and we brought forward regulations at around Christmastime. Those were taken through the Grand Committee and the House and approved accordingly, so that the fees now being charged are on a legal statutory basis.
As my noble friend mentioned, that leaves a gap of some months—maybe April to November—where fees were charged accordingly, with no legal backing. He asked, rightly, what measures there are to ensure that we take action on that. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill has within it measures to provide retrospective statutory authority for those fees that were charged in connection with services provided by Ecctis Ltd. On that basis, that Bill, which has been published in the House of Commons, is correcting the position on fees charged to date.
Those who have previously been charged have received a service that they have paid for. We want to avoid putting an additional burden on taxpayers, so we do not intend to issue refunds, because although the fee was charged without that legislative cover, the service that the fee provided was still received by the individuals concerned. We are trying to ensure that we regularise not just the situation, as we have now done, but that gap which happened—not on my watch, but it did. It is now being regularised by this legislation, which will be challenged. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also mentioned this point. It is open to scrutiny and to approval, rejection or amendment in this House, but it is the Government’s position to try to resolve something we were not responsible for. I hope that answers my noble friend’s point, but I will happily take an intervention.