Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

The driver for some of these issues is to ensure that we have self-sufficiency on costs for this area. Obviously, I am talking today about the potential for maximas. We are not talking about what those fees are going to be. They may be the maximas and they may not. The Home Office will take that decision and it will lie predominantly with Ministers who are Members of the House of Commons, rather than of the House of Lords—such as myself. We will discuss those fee increases. That is a decision taken by the Minister for Migration and Borders, who is a Member of the House of Commons in the Home Office team. We will look at that and these orders will come forward to both Houses in due course. I will take feedback and discussion, as I am doing now with colleagues in this House. The general principle of this is that we ensure that we raise that resource and potentially look at challenging behaviour so that we give opportunities for people to say, “If it costs X to bring someone from Y country, are those skills available locally to boost the economy locally?” That is a perfectly legitimate policy objective that I think was shared by the last Government and which is not difficult for Members to accept and understand. I hope that I am covering all the points. The final point that I want to make is on Northern Ireland. Citizens of the UK, including citizens who live in Northern Ireland—whether they identify as Irish or British—will not have an ETA to go to Ireland, and, vice-versa, Irish citizens will not need an ETA to go to Northern Ireland. There will be tourist movement from other countries into Ireland and Northern Ireland, and potentially into the United Kingdom as a whole through that route. I am cognisant of that and we are aware of it. We will make an assessment on that. Again, I repeat my record that says that we have not yet made the decisions on the figures. We have not brought those forward or made the impact assessment but when we do, I will be ensuring with colleagues that that impact on Northern Ireland tourism is assessed, as will be the impact of the collectability of that ETA in relation to the island of Ireland and the common travel area. I am grateful to noble Lords who have raised that issue but it is something on which we have worked closely with the Northern Ireland Executive and the Irish Government since the inception of the ETA policy. We will continue to work with those partners to understand the impact of ETAs in Northern Ireland. By requiring an ETA on crossing the land border, we will also have a better understanding of those who are seeking to come to the United Kingdom. However, as noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Foster, will know, the land border issue in Northern Ireland is sensitive and not one that we wish to see imposed—as it was, even in the times when I was a Northern Ireland Minister 20 years ago. With that, I hope that I have answered the points made. I commend this order to the Grand Committee.