Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2023

Baroness Lawlor Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Borders (Lord Murray of Blidworth) (Con)]

My Lords, this fees order sets out the immigration and nationality functions for which a fee is to be charged, and the maximum amount that can be charged in relation to each of those functions. In the order we are debating, we are proposing a number of changes that will facilitate major government policy, play an important role in the simplification of the Home Office’s fee structure, and allow vital decisions to be made to ensure that the migration and borders system is properly funded.

Before I set out in detail the changes proposed in the order, I reiterate that the Government’s aim is to reduce the burden of operating the migration and borders system on the UK taxpayer. The fees set within the parameters of this order are a vital part of the Home Office’s funding settlement. Without the flexibility afforded by the order to adjust fees for all immigration and nationality routes through separate legislation, it is not possible for the Home Office to take a balanced approach to setting fees.

It is therefore vital that the maximum amounts set out in the order allow appropriate choices to be made on individual routes to support a balanced overall approach, avoiding the potential for increases to fall disproportionately on routes where there is flexibility to adjust fee levels. Noble Lords will be aware of proposals to increase fees across a number of immigration and nationality routes. Those fees can be set only through separate legislation, which will be laid later this year, and not the instrument we are debating today. That separate legislation will be accompanied by the production of a full economic impact assessment.

Turning to the changes we are proposing to the fee maximas, the majority of these have not changed since the previous order was laid in 2016. The changes we propose, which are accompanied by an economic impact assessment, will provide the necessary flexibility to make changes to fee levels where they are required to ensure that the sustainability of the migration and borders system is maintained and that we are able to set fees at a level that recovers the cost of processing an application.

As the Committee will know, the United Kingdom is launching an electronic travel authorisation scheme that will strengthen the security of our border and support our wider ambition for digitising the UK border. This is a familiar concept to the majority of international travellers, with many of our international partners having had similar schemes in place for a number of years. My Written Ministerial Statement on 6 June this year outlined the intention to set a fee of £10 for each application on the initial rollout of the scheme. The order before us provides a power to charge a fee for the scheme and sets the maximum fee that can be set by the Home Office for each application. Although we have announced our intended fee level of £10, that fee cannot be set through this order. We will set the fee formally through the immigration and nationality fees regulations, which, as I said, will be subject to approval by Parliament later this year.

We are continuing to simplify our fee structure by removing fees that have become increasingly redundant as part of the wider transition to digital evidence of immigration status or that are no longer required to support wider policy objectives. We will remove the chargeable function for biometric enrolment for all remaining instances of the £19.20 fee in the regulations, reducing the number of fees that customers are required to pay in relation to an application in respect of biometric enrolment. We are removing the £161 fee charged in country for a transfer of conditions for those with limited leave to remain because this fee is now largely obsolete, with all new customers applying in country now issued with a biometric residence permit or digital status.

We are also removing the fee to amend details on physical documents—such as name, sex marker, nationality and photograph—for those with limited leave to remain. This will bring these customers in line with those issued digital status and those with indefinite leave to remain, who are not charged a fee to make this sort of amendment. Finally, the order provides that we will no longer charge a fee for a like-for-like replacement of a biometric residence permit where that document has expired. This will primarily benefit those with indefinite leave to remain, whose cards have a maximum 10-year validity, with most due to expire in 2024.

The final changes that we are proposing in the order will ensure that it and subsequent fees regulations are aligned with the wider policy changes being made in the migration and borders landscape. Under new arrangements being rolled out as part of broader reforms to the innovator route, contact point meetings—a term defined in the order—will be required between an endorsing body and the individual applicant to assess progress against their business plan. The fee maximum for these meetings is set at £500. The fee for each assessment will be £500 and will be set in the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations in the next year, ahead of these meetings being chargeable in April 2024.

The current sponsorship system is being reformed, with the existing system of certificates of sponsorship being phased out and replaced with the “sponsor a worker” service. This will happen in stages with a limited beta test in 2024, during which both the certificates of sponsorship and the “sponsor a worker” scheme will operate side by side. The amendment that we are making in this order will facilitate this charge, providing a fee maximum to be set at the same level as the certificate of sponsorship, which is £300.

In closing, the changes that we are proposing through this order are vital to providing enough flexibility to amend fee levels, with the approval of Parliament, to ensure that the system is sustainable. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

May I ask my noble friend the Minister about something to do with the policy background? In discussing the changes for which the order provides, both in function and fee levels under the regulations, my noble friend referred to one of the policy objectives: the overall security of our borders. In discussing security here and elsewhere, the Government have referred to pre-entry checks that will facilitate entry at our borders. My related question is: is there any proposal or plan to have ongoing checks, including checks when a successful applicant leaves the country, given that the proposed electronic travel authorisations will last for up to two years for short visits? If so, what does the Home Office intend to do to operate these?

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I want to raise two main issues with the Minister. He will undoubtedly not be surprised to hear that the first is a process issue; the second will deal with the operation and impact of this SI.

As the Minister knows, he is the Minister responsible for all SIs in the Home Office. I am sure that he will have seen and noted the criticisms and comments expressed in the 44th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of this House, which draws this SI to the special attention of this House, and its findings on the Home Office’s approach to SIs more generally.

I also note the Minister’s remarks to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in giving evidence on 11 May. There is much information in that evidence, so I will restrict myself to looking at Explanatory Memorandums and the Minister’s role in all Home Office SIs. The committee’s report states:

“The Home Office’s Explanatory Memorandum (EM) omitted key information about the wider context of the policy changes, something that has been a theme of our comments on recent EMs from the department”.


As this is where the examination of these matters is concerned, would the Minister like to respond to this point?

Secondly on the Minister’s role, I note the judicial analogy he gave in evidence to the committee. The question was being asked by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who is of course a former Supreme Court judge. He asked the Minister,

“do you look at the Explanatory Memorandum before it is sent out, or are you a bit like some Silks who never read the skeleton argument that they will subsequently have to defend?”

The Minister replied:

“I cannot confess that I read every SI that the Home Office lays before Parliament and every Explanatory Memorandum. If there was a really controversial or difficult SI, the expectation is that it would be raised with me as the SI Minister and I would review it”.


The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, then went on to ask:

“Do you then, in that process, go through it, read it and say, ‘Look, this hasn’t got the right disclosure. You ought to be making this point and that point’, a bit like you would as a Silk dealing with your junior?”


To this the Minister replied—and I am sure he remembers this:

“I shall certainly take that away and adopt that as best practice”.


Could the Minister tell us how that best practice is going, having adopted it? There are clearly criticisms in this report and the Committee would like to hear how the Home Office Minister is responding on behalf of the whole Home Office.

I turn to the content of the SI, on which I have three issues to raise. The first is the impact on tourism from the ETA, the second is the impact on universities—I shall cite Cranfield University in particular—and the third is the operations of the common travel area. This SI touches on all three and there are certainly matters that could do with further explanation.

First, on tourism, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report, in paragraphs 7 to 10, outlines the range of potential negative economic impacts. Given that the figure the Minister referred to is based on the cost of ETAs and processing them, rather than the impact on the tourism industry, and given the flexing from the difficulty in understanding how many people this will deter from entering the United Kingdom, why has visitor expenditure not been quantified in the documentation that accompanies this SI? I am sure that there are data that outline visitor spend per head in country. Any tourist who comes into this country will be spending money here on hotels, food, visitor attractions and so on. Does the Minister agree that it is possible to quantify the level of expenditure per head? If the reduction is 1% or whatever figure is inherent in the documentation, you could quantify that as a loss to the tourism industry.

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How will it work? I do not understand how that understanding of who will do the checks and what will be checked will work.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

I have a point of clarification. What I do not understand, behind the noble Lord’s probing, is that if it is a requirement under law to have an ETA for all visitors coming, for instance, from the Republic of Ireland, if they travel on a ferry, as the noble Lord suggests, over to somewhere else, or indeed if they come to this country—it will not be required for the Republic but it will for Northern Ireland—is it not the law that they must have it? For instance, it is very important for insurance purposes if they are taking a car on the ferry. They must be covered under law and they must have an authorised travel document, as I understand it. So why would this be an issue, given the way that our law works? If you are obliged to do something, it is expected that you will do it.

[Lord German (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness; she has asked the question to which I particularly wanted to know the answer: how do you enforce it? There is no way of knowing whether anyone has any documentation at all. Whether people avoid it deliberately or because they do not know and they are just moving around, at some stage we have to know—and we do not know. It is easy if you are coming in from Europe, because if you are doing so in any other capacity there is definitely a documentation check, but there is no documentation check coming into the United Kingdom and Great Britain. That is the bit I am trying to find out and that is why I have asked the question. I know this is very tricky and that discussion is going on about it, but I just do not understand how enforcement of any sort will—or could—take place.