Contribution
My Lords, I really do not envy the Minister in this situation. Obviously, we have debated this issue on a number of occasions; it was debated in the other place last Wednesday.
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the Second Reading of this Bill in the other place and in this House—even more so, it is fair to say, since the Home Secretary unveiled her new policies on the asylum system and immigration policy, which, in many respects, supersede this Bill as it currently stands. I mention this because it is my firm view that, had this amendment been debated several months ago, with this Home Secretary, it would undoubtedly have been accepted; indeed, the Government may also have been minded to put down a similar amendment to my own.
We can potentially be cynical about the new policies that have been developed by the Home Secretary. Some may say that they are performative smoke and mirrors—that, in the absence of a policy to leave, or at least to derogate from the ECHR, they will rely on discretionary powers; that there will be little deterrent effect; and that far too many loopholes were still in place, even with the new policy—or we can believe that it is a genuine and workable programme to tackle uncontrolled immigration. We shall see, but let us take the Home Secretary at her word.
One of the key aspects of the Home Secretary’s new policy is a new work and study visa route. On Report, the noble Lord, Lord German, asked this: if we cannot collect data on student visas and criminality, how can we properly assess the risk of abuse of the visa system when the Home Office and universities are obliged to take such factors into account in their decision-making? Also, if we do not collect all the relevant data, particularly with respect to students, we cannot—this was articulated by the Home Secretary—pursue a policy of visa bans for countries that fail to co-operate with returns policies.
These are issues of openness and transparency. The Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Lemos—failed to reassure us on Report. He actually supported the thrust of our argument when he stated:
“I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, that without proper information on this and a number of other matters, it is very difficult to have an informed public debate”;
as I said earlier, the Government could have moved their own amendment, but they have chosen not to do so. The Minister also said:
“The Home Office does propose to publish more detailed statistical reporting on foreign national offenders subject to deportation and those returned to countries outside the UK”.—[Official Report, 5/11/25; col. 1944.]
More to the point, the Minister was unable to address the substantive point made by my noble friend Lord Harper about information collected on the propensity of different nationalities to commit crime. I understand that he has received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Lemos. We look forward to a clearer answer on that particular question; perhaps my noble friend will reference it should he choose to speak in this debate.
Your Lordships’ House will be aware that many other jurisdictions routinely collect, collate and publish this type of data. Examples include Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; the Department of Home Affairs in Australia; and the United States’s SEVIS, or student and exchange visitor information system. All of them publish this data as a matter of routine. The question is: if we already have this data, why not publish it to enable proper, informed debate and fact-based policy-making? Ministers have failed—both here and, last Wednesday, in the other place—to articulate a coherent rationale for resisting this sensible, practical and helpful amendment to the Bill. With all due respect, their arguments were threadbare, to say the least.
Surely the acid test are the answers to two questions. First, will this amendment damage or impede the central premise of this Bill? Secondly, will the amendment help His Majesty’s Government develop public policy, which is of significant public concern, based on real-time, robust empirical data? For the benefit of the Minister, the answers are no and yes. Even now, the Minister can accept this amendment and break free of what I described earlier as a significant culture of secrecy and obfuscation in respect of this data. If Ministers want to be taken seriously and to restore trust in their proposals and policies, they can make a good start in good faith by conceding what would be, in the great scheme of things, a minor amendment. On that basis, I beg to move.