Baroness Brinton (LD)

My Lords, I cannot sit at the right desk, so I apologise for being in the wrong place. I thank the Minister for explaining the reason for the order, although I think his description of “an oversight” for fees that have actually been charged illegally, because they were not approved by Parliament, is a bit of an understatement. I am also concerned that we still have no opportunity to see a new Explanatory Memorandum that sets out the record, but I will come back to that. I particularly thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for its careful and thoughtful third report of Session 2024-25. However, before I come on to that, I want to note that this is the second Home Office SI on immigration matters that has come to Grand Committee since the Summer Recess which has not just been problematic. The other one—the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (Amendment) Regulations 2024—corrected policy matters in the Act that meant it could not be enacted because they were wrong, so it was also illegal. Therefore the amendments that the Grand Committee saw—I was going to say last month but it might have been a little before that—were to remove retrospective elements of the Illegal Migration Act that were themselves illegal.