Immigration Bill

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, immigration features high on the agenda of all political parties. It has become one of the biggest public policy debates in recent times. It will also be one of the major issues that will dominate the general election in 2015. Immigration and asylum issues are fairly emotive. Despite the nature and effects of various immigration and asylum legislation in the past, the circumstances surrounding them remain contentious.

I do not dispute that all major political parties subscribe to fair and just immigration policies and procedures. The policy is to admit those who are eligible and to exclude, subject to the appropriate humanitarian principles, those who are not. However, the greater the emphasis on excluding the ineligible, the tougher are the rules introduced by successive Governments; and the more intensive these checks are and the more complicated they are to introduce, the more there is delay, denial and expense to those who are eligible. Is it any wonder that a culture develops over time where administrators are expected to deliver targets and results which often lack fairness and justice in the process?

Let me make it clear: we on this side of the coalition do not condone illegal immigration. We do not condone entry by those who do not qualify to be here. What I ask of the Government is to proclaim at the highest level the contribution that migrants make to the British economy. We need a shift in priorities towards greater emphasis on the rights of those who are eligible to enter the United Kingdom. It is time we stopped playing the numbers game and based our policies on the needs of our country.

Of course, it is right that migration policies take into account Britain's national interest, both economically and socially, and we must always put the safety and security of our citizens at the top of the agenda. There is no dispute about that, but we should avoid the temptation to ratchet up the system for political expediency. We must respond to the changes around us. The economy is no longer national, it is global.

Let me make one point. Whose brilliant idea was it to roll out immigration vans around our cities asking people to leave the country? The Home Secretary has recently admitted that that had not been such a good idea. I am not sure what the returns were, but little regard was paid to the hurt feelings of a large number of our diverse community lawfully settled in this country. I ask my noble friend to tell your Lordships’ House how many migrants returned as a direct result of that publicity. I am sure that the returns were not worth the cost of petrol used by the vans in our cities.

Have we reached the stage in this country when one has to carry one’s passport as proof of identity? The debate on immigration is so skewed that during Second Reading and Report in the House of Commons, not a single Member of Parliament outlined the benefits of immigration.

Let me declare my interests here. I am one of the vice-chairs of Migration Matters, a body ably chaired by Barbara Roche, the former Home Office Minister. It is a cross-party body that has done much to bring sanity to the ongoing debate on immigration. We have long believed that without a clear view of how immigration benefits Britain, it is difficult to understand the danger of indiscriminately cutting immigration or discouraging migrants from coming to the United Kingdom.

Let me spell out the three key benefits for Britain from properly managed migration. The first relates to skills. Britain’s public and private sectors need migrants’ skills. Figures from the Health and Care Social Information Centre show that more than one in four of NHS doctors are migrants. Without immigration, our health service would suffer. In industry, according to the CBI, we have major gaps in sectors such as engineering and IT. Without immigration, our firms would not be able to operate successfully or compete globally.

The second benefit relates to growth. Migrants’ contribution is essential for growth and reduces our debt. For example, the largest single group of migrants each year is international students. They make up almost 40% of new migrants and, according to the Government, contribute £18 billion in fees. This funds hundreds of jobs across the country, boosting tax revenues and reducing our debts.

The third benefit relates to investment. Investment in Britain by foreign businesses is worth billions of pounds to the UK economy. That is responsible for thousands of jobs. Do we really want to pass on a message that Britain is closed to business? Do we want to endanger that investment?

We ought to be clear. No one owes us a living. Either we remain as Little Englanders, or we play a full part in the global economy. The dangers of skewed public debate in the past few months are obvious. It has been characterised by hysteria and hyperbole, which makes rational discussion extremely difficult. The debate has been driven by UKIP in the run-up to the relaxation of transitional controls on Romanians and Bulgarians.

The Home Office is yet to produce any figures. No wonder UKIP is peddling figures which bear no resemblance to reality. UKIP leaflets claiming that 28 million Romanians and Bulgarians can now come to Britain have been pushed through letter boxes in Kent in the past few months. The reality and the evidence suggest that immigration from those countries will be moderate. I trust that the Minister will enlighten us with reliable statistics, so that we can nail such lies. The danger of such a toxic debate is that it sends a hostile signal to the rest of the world—in particular, to international investors, students and skilled workers, who boost Britain’s economy by billions of pounds each year—that we no longer need or want their contribution.

There are aspects of the Bill which we welcome. Then there are areas of concern which will require probing amendment in Committee. My noble friend the Minister commands great respect in this House, and I am sure he will listen to arguments that we will advance at that stage. Our purpose is to avoid the shambles we saw in the other place. We welcome the provision to deal with sham marriages and sham civil partnerships and will support further legislative changes to eradicate these practices, which are designed to evade immigration controls.

The Bill proposes a new referral and investigation scheme for proposed marriages and civil partnerships involving a non-EEA national subject to immigration controls. Will my noble friend the Minister accept that this does not solve the problem of a non-EEA national’s entering into a sham relationship in an EEA country? Has the Home Office discussed this matter with our European partners? The Home Office has no powers to prevent such marriages taking place in these countries, and no powers to deny entry to the UK if the couple decides to settle here. Will the Minister reflect on this and advise how he will deal with such arrangements?

We also welcome the provision of a statutory code of conduct and registration with the Immigration Services Commissioner by providers of immigration advice. The exploitation of clients by unscrupulous advisers is a matter of serious concern. While a code of registration applies to those providing such services in the United Kingdom, it does nothing to stop such practices abroad. Surely this is a matter that should be the basis of bilateral discussion whenever Ministers are on delegation abroad.

Then there is the serious issue in Part 6 to amend powers to deprive persons of British citizenship. We need to clarify how such powers are going to be used against those who do not have dual nationality. Will the Minister explain how a stateless person would leave the country? Where would he or she go? I note that this provision would affect only a small number of British citizens, and the matter is still a work in progress. It is right, however, that terrorists whose activities affect the safety and security of our nation should be dealt with by the full force of the law. We need to spell out if such a person has any residual and consequential rights similar to those of refugees and other stateless persons. The last thing we need, when we deprive citizens of citizenship, is for this to be used as a badge of honour by jihadis who cannot be deported. There are other issues which colleagues reflect upon. For the present, the Government have a golden opportunity to raise the level of debate on immigration matters. Let us hope that we will give a lead that will result in a fair and just immigration policy.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, let me congratulate my noble friend Lord Paddick on his excellent contribution. He brings with him his vast policing experience and it is right that we will have further contributions from him on these subjects. We also must not forget his experience as a mayoral candidate in London, which brought him into contact with our very diverse communities. A word of polite warning to my noble friend: his experience on the TV programme “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!” no longer applies because he will find that until the House of Lords is reformed he will remain here.

My objective in looking at any proposed legislation is to see what priority is being given to crime prevention in its broadest sense and to diverting young offenders from the criminal justice system. This may sound a soft approach, but we pay little regard to the strictly limited contribution that courts and prisons make in reducing crime. The end product of judicial decision has little impact on the overall pattern of crime. Prisons, to many, are a revolving door and an expensive way to regulate behaviour. Public expectation of prisons to prepare inmates for their eventual release is high, but the ability of prisons to deliver that is fairly limited. Of course, prison confinement is appropriate to those whose offending makes other alternatives unacceptable, but it would solve many problems if we ensured that those sentenced to prison stay there no longer than absolutely necessary. That is my starting point in this debate.

I welcome many of the measures in the Bill, including provisions to improve the law and practice relating to anti-social behaviour, sexual offending, forced marriages, dangerous dogs, policing, and extradition. In common with a number of other noble Lords, I have reservations about some aspects of the Bill, including those relating to victim support and the eviction of families of those engaged in anti-social behaviour. I hope the Government will be prepared to listen to arguments and consider amendments on these points in Committee.

I am pleased to see that the Government propose to abolish the discredited ASBO, which is a crude and thoroughly flawed measure. ASBOs have a high breach rate overall and a particularly high breach rate for young people. One of the central flaws of ASBOs is that their provisions are purely negative. In other words, courts can include provision in an ASBO requiring somebody to refrain from doing something but cannot require somebody to take part in positive activities to provide them with support and rehabilitation. It is true that courts can provide support for a young person by making an individual support order alongside an ASBO, but in practice they do this only in a small fraction of cases. In the absence of support, it is hardly surprising that young people in dysfunctional families with chaotic lifestyles so often end up repeatedly breaching the order.

I therefore welcome the abolition of the ASBO and various related orders, and their replacement by the new injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance in the criminal behaviour order. I welcome the fact that the injunction will be a civil order and that breach will be treated as a civil matter with a maximum penalty on breach of two years’ imprisonment rather than a criminal conviction and five years’ imprisonment, as is now the case. This was always a draconian penalty for behaviour which was anti-social but did not amount to a criminal offence. The fact that the new injunction is a civil order will avoid unnecessarily criminalising young people for breaching the order, which the current ASBO does.

Although I consider the orders a distinct improvement on the ASBO, I have some reservations about the details—these can be considered in Committee. We should reconsider whether the new injunction should be available for conduct which merely causes nuisance or annoyance rather than the stronger test of harassment, alarm, or distress which applies to the ASBO. I would also like to see a stronger prohibition on the reporting of names of children subject to this proceeding. The naming and shaming of children is almost always counterproductive. It can seriously hinder a child’s rehabilitation. In some cases people react by regarding this notoriety as a badge of honour. Then they try to live up to their reputation by increasingly extreme behaviour to look hard in front of their friends. I would like to see the law include a strong presumption against reporting children’s names in these proceedings.

There is one aspect of the new powers in relation to the anti-social behaviour order which I am unable to support: the provision of the mandatory eviction of whole families because one of the family has breached an injunction to prevent nuisance or annoyance. Courts should have the discretion to order possession when this is appropriate in all circumstances, but the Bill gives the courts very little discretion. This could lead to a large number of families rendered homeless and destitute because one family member has been involved in offending or anti-social behaviour. As homelessness increases the chances of criminal behaviour, this is more likely to increase crime than reduce it.

There are other issues that, again, we need to look at in Committee. For example, there is the provision in the Bill to protect the victims of forced marriage. By making breach of forced marriage protection orders a criminal offence, the Bill will ensure that the police always have the power to arrest those who breach the order. The new offence of inducing someone to leave the United Kingdom and travel to another country to be subject to a forced marriage is another valuable provision, but we all know that changing legal powers is not enough by itself to tackle the problem of forced marriage. Legal change needs to be accompanied by much greater efforts to enable people at risk of forced marriages to seek help in the knowledge that they will receive it. Much more also needs to be done to educate teachers, health workers and other professionals to recognise and act on the signs that someone is at risk of forced marriage if the provisions of the Bill are to have maximum effect.

The Bill includes important provisions to strengthen the power of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I was delighted to listen to the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Paddick, such as on the extension of the IPCC’s jurisdiction to include complaints against subcontractors. At a time when an increasing number of police functions are outsourced to private contractors, this is an important safeguard. Alongside the strengthening of the IPCC, I am delighted to see that the Bill makes statutory provision for the establishment of a College of Policing, which will help to promote professionalism and standards across the police service.

The Bill includes some important reforms to the powers of the police, and immigration and customs officers to detain travellers at ports and airports under the Terrorism Act in cases where there are no grounds for reasonable suspicion that the person is involved in terrorism. I particularly welcome the reduction of the maximum period of examination in these cases from nine to six hours, the extension of the right to inform other people and consult solicitors, the restriction of the grounds on which strip-searching can take place, and the repeal of the power to seek samples of blood and other body fluids.

I would certainly like to see the Government go further and end the power to detain people without any suspicion. I also favour further safeguards for people detained in these circumstances, including the video and audio recording of these examinations. However, the provisions in the Bill are a valuable move in the right direction and the Government obviously ought to be congratulated on taking this important step.

There is one other area of the Bill that we have failed to mention so far and on which I hope the Government will be prepared to think again: the provision to devolve funding for victim and witness support from central government to police and crime commissioners. At present the Ministry of Justice provides funding to a range of organisations which support victims and witnesses. The central backbone of these services is provided by the excellent organisation Victim Support. The existence of a properly funded national organisation guarantees that high-quality support from well-trained volunteers is readily available to victims in all areas of the country. The staff and volunteers are supported by an experienced organisation with 35 years’ experience of providing high-quality services to support people who have suffered loss, injury, damage, abuse and distress from crime. It is difficult to see the sense in proposals to break up this high-quality service and to leave the provision of victim support provision to the varying decisions and priorities of police and crime commissioners.

In conclusion, I welcome the Bill, which includes many valuable reforms that will improve the quality of justice in many areas of the law. I trust that with a constructive attitude on all sides of the House and openness on the part of the Government, we can work together in Committee to change a good Bill into an even better one.

Undercover Policing

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Many senior police officers are aware that there is far too much focus on management and not enough on leadership. It is, after all, the police force that we are talking about. Police forces need leadership and command and a sense of direction and focus. All that the noble Lord has said, from his vast experience, points to the disappearance of some of that focus in modern policing. The Home Office is determined to get it back. I hope that addresses the issues that concern him.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, this is one of the most positive Statements to have emerged from the Home Office on this episode. Obviously, differences of opinion remain about the nature of the inquiry. I will make three points.

First, we endorse the sentiment expressed with regard to the tragedy and the further agony that the Lawrence family will experience on realising that the undercover operation was actually trying to implicate them—the nasty part of British policing. Two questions arise. The Macpherson inquiry talked about institutional racism. Would that inquiry have stopped talking about institutional racism if it had known that the police were involved in such an undercover operation? Would it not have recommended at that stage the need to criminally investigate police who were involved in this undercover operation? I raise this because there has been botched operation after botched operation in the investigation of this case.

My second point concerns the nature of the investigation, which the noble Baroness from the Opposition spoke about. I have full confidence in the IPCC and how it is supervised. However, public perception is still that the police and others tend to investigate themselves no matter how one supervises them. I do not believe in that. In this case, it is matter of innocent people against whom the police acted wrongfully. We need clear answers and that can come about only through an independent investigation.

The third point, if the Minister could reply, is that whereas one endorses what he says about covert operations where matters of national security are involved, this is an ordinary family who had lost a family member. What is the matter of national security in relation to this case? The sooner we get to the root of this problem with an independent inquiry, the better for British policing.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The Macpherson inquiry was only as good as the information that was made available to it. I said in my earlier response that if the Macpherson inquiry had had knowledge of the allegations that we are now aware of, there would have been a fuller investigation of this particular aspect, which may have changed the tone of that report even further.

I emphasise that the Ellison inquiry is an independent report. It stands outside the police force. However, we know that we need the police to investigate these sorts of matters. They are the vehicle in this country—they have the powers of arrest. They have the power and we need that power if we are going to pursue these allegations fully. Having Mark Ellison working alongside them, investigating the scope of these investigations at the same time, we have that degree of independence, which justifies the parallel passage of these inquiries and investigations.

Visas

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I certainly would be prepared to meet the noble Baroness and any people she wishes to bring along. As I have emphasised, we want to expedite visa processing. Ninety-four per cent of visas are processed within 15 days. That is a pretty good figure. It can be improved but 94% are processed within 15 days and, in the case of China, the figure is 99%.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, what arrangements are in hand to review the decisions of entry clearance officers? My noble friend will be aware that in the past immigration adjudicators overturned the decisions of entry clearance officers in many cases. How do we ensure that there is no bias in the way decisions are taken, particularly as regards family visits and visits to attend marriages and funerals, when people wish to be in the country for a very short period?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. He has a strong focus on this issue. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is presenting a report, which we will be debating shortly, on the whole question of family visas. We need to make sure that we have a proper balance between safeguarding our own position and our commitments within the wider communities here in the United Kingdom and, at the same time, facilitating visits to this country.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I am delighted that the gracious Speech contains measures to reduce crime and protect national security. As one who promoted the legislation on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act in my Private Member’s Bill, I welcome the coalition Government’s intention further to legislate for reforms in the way in which offenders are rehabilitated in England and Wales. I congratulate the coalition Government on some of their major successes so far, and I do not mind if my noble friend Lord McNally takes credit for them.

The first three years of the coalition Government have seen some important steps towards achieving a fairer and more effective criminal justice system. The Government have abolished the discredited and unjust IPP sentence, legislated to reduce unnecessary remands in custody, reformed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and given legislative underpinning to restorative justice. Over the past four years, we have seen a dramatic and welcome reduction in the number of juvenile offenders in custody. Moreover, the rate of increase in the adult prison population has slowed down. In the past three years, between 2009 and 2012, the prison population has risen by an average of 1% a year compared with 2.5% to 4% a year during the period of the Labour Administration. I am particularly pleased to note that the Government are developing a determined strategy to divert mentally disordered offenders from the criminal justice system into medical and social care.

So far, so good, but we still face many serious challenges. Even after these welcome improvements, the size of our prison population remains a national disgrace. At the end of October 2012, 78 out of 131 prisons were holding more prisoners than they were built for, and over 20,000 prisoners were being held two to a cell in cells designed for one person. This country now has 153 prisoners for every 100,000 people in the general population compared with 102 in France and 83 in Germany. Far too many offenders are still sent into custody for short sentences and then released after no more than a few months. These sentences serve little purpose. They are far too short for sustained rehabilitation programmes, but long enough for offenders to lose their jobs and homes, which makes them more likely to reoffend.

On release, most of these prisoners do not receive supervision by the probation service, and the reconviction rates are much higher than those for other prisoners. I am pleased to see that the Government are now consulting on proposals to provide post-release supervision for short-term prisoners and I welcome the announcement made earlier by my noble friend Lord McNally. However, most of these offenders will be better dealt with by community orders. These orders can provide a longer period of supervision and of work to change offending behaviour than a short period of post-release supervision would provide. Our prison system still does far too little to prevent crime and rehabilitate offenders. We need to rethink an approach which spends such a high proportion of its resources on custodial measures which produce high reoffending rates.

The Government should legislate to make sentencing guidelines take into account the capacity of our prison system. This proposal was first made by the Carter report on the prison system in 2007, and it still makes sense. At a time when all other areas of public services have to work within the reality of limited resources, there is no reason why sentencing should be exempt. Requiring sentencing guidelines to take account of all available resources would concentrate sentencers’ minds on the evidence concerning the most cost-effective disposals available to the courts. Sentencing guidelines should scale down the number and length of prison sentences except for the most serious crimes. They should remove prison as an option for low-level non-violent crimes. Courts should be prohibited from using prisons, except for dangerous offenders, unless they have first tried an intensive community supervision programme.

We also need a strategy to reduce the use of imprisonment for women. Most of the women we send to prison are neither violent nor dangerous and most of them have few previous convictions. Imprisoned women have high rates of mental disorder, histories of abuse, addiction problems and personal distress arising from separation from their children. I was pleased to see the Government’s recent announcement that they are establishing an expert advisory board, to be chaired by my honourable friend Helen Grant, to develop policies for female offenders. I hope that with the assistance of the advisory board, the Government will set improved standards for women’s community sentences, resettlement and rehabilitation, mental health services, family contact and culturally appropriate support for foreign national women in our prisons.

We should also do more to keep restorative justice at the forefront of sentences, to help ensure that it becomes a central part of our criminal justice system. I greatly welcome the new provision in the Crime and Courts Act which provides for restorative justice in conjunction with deferment of sentence. The Government should build on this in future legislation by making restorative justice one of the statutory purposes of sentencing and by enabling courts to include specific restorative justice requirements in community orders and youth rehabilitation orders.

We should reduce the rate of imprisonment of people who have breached community supervision—for example, by missing appointments or being late back to their probation hostels. The number of people jailed for breach has escalated alarmingly in recent years as probation officers’ discretion over breaches has been restricted. The Government should consider introducing a graduated scale of punishment for breach of supervision, with prisons being used only for breach when less severe penalties have first been tried.

We should introduce tighter statutory restrictions on sentencing and sending young offenders into custody. This would involve reversing some of the measures taken by the last Labour Government, who legislated to enable courts to detain children at an increasingly younger age and for less serious offences. We should also raise the country’s unusually low age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 12. I hope to reintroduce my Private Member’s Bill on this subject next week. It would be more humane and more effective to deal with offenders under that age in family proceedings courts, as other European countries do.

A great deal remains to be done to eliminate racial discrimination from the criminal justice process. The disproportionate use of stop and search is even more extreme than it was when the Stephen Lawrence inquiry reported, and the proportion of the prison population from racial minorities is now higher than it was in the late 1990s. We should place a clear statutory duty on all criminal justice agencies to adopt numerical targets for reducing racial disproportionality in all their operations.

There is overwhelming evidence of the importance of providing practical help for offenders in order to reduce reoffending. I make no apologies for repeating the key statistics on this point to the House yet again. Getting offenders into jobs reduces their likelihood of further offending by between one-third and one-half. Providing accommodation for offenders reduces reconviction by at least one-fifth. Drug rehabilitation programmes cut the volume of reoffending by up to 70%.

Alongside the Government’s welcome proposals for post-release supervision for short-term prisoners, we should commission voluntary organisations to provide a national resettlement service for these prisoners to ensure that they receive support with their practical needs for accommodation, employment and drug rehabilitation on release. Such a strategy would help to move this country away from the unenviable position of having the highest prison population in western Europe. In doing so, it would help to concentrate resources on the measures that are most likely to protect the public by rehabilitating offenders and reducing reoffending.

Police: Racism

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Of course, that hazard would apply to any candidate. However, I am confident about that policy and I believe it will enhance the policing profession. I have some figures here. There are 6,604 BME officers in the 43 forces in England and Wales, representing 5% of total police officer strength. The proportion of those of chief inspector rank or above is only 3.7%. I think that bears out the point that the noble Lord is making, one with which I do not disagree. There are too few at that level.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for a very helpful Answer. Does he not agree that, 20 years after Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death and after the Macpherson report on institutional racism, it is time to look at this issue again? In particular, does he not agree that it would be right to ask HM Inspectorate of Constabulary to undertake a thematic review of race relations policies to see what progress has been made since then?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Since the Macpherson report, which was the initial report, as noble Lords will know, there have been a number of allegations. Indeed, currently there is a review investigating allegations of a conspiracy to cover up this case. We will take that review seriously. It does not alter the fundamental strategy, which is to try to make sure that police numbers and the ethnic make-up of policing reflect the communities that they serve.

Police Integrity

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

It is intended that an enhanced vetting process will apply to all senior appointments within the police force. All police recruits should be vetted at the point of recruitment, but the vetting process for senior posts within the police will be enhanced.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, as one who was a member of the former Police Complaints Authority who now serves on the small review group looking at serious cases for the IPCC, I welcome what the Minister has just announced. Perhaps I may ask him two questions. The first relates to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Condon, about the implications of a transfer of resources from local areas to the IPCC. Has the Minister worked out the figures that we are talking about, bearing in mind that the cuts that have been imposed on police forces are causing serious problems in local areas? Has he worked out what the implications of the transfer might be, because many lower level cases are best dealt with at the point at which they occur; that is, in the local area. Secondly, the Minister mentioned the powers that are required by the IPCC and said that we can expect legislation. Will he consult not only the IPCC but the many other relevant organisations which have repeatedly raised concerns about the existing powers of the IPCC? What will he do to ensure that their views are taken into account before the legislation is formed?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

On the noble Lord’s latter point, if there is to be legislation, there will have to be a period during which Parliament and the wider public will be engaged in considering what might be in it. On resources, the Home Secretary will write to the IPCC, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, PCCs and the college itself to seek detailed proposals on how the transfer of resources might take place and over what period. I think that will help the noble Lord, Lord Condon, in his question to me. This is a matter of consensuality. I think that there is sufficient consensus within the police service to enable this to be done on a consensual basis, recognising that integrity in policing is holistic and not specific to one particular force.

Ibrahim Magag: Disappearance

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I can confirm the latter point. The last time he was seen, he was reported as getting into a taxi.

The noble Baroness misconstrues the nature of the TPIM system, which succeeds the control order system but is designed to provide proportionate supervision for people where evidence does not exist to secure a conviction. The only true way of dealing with terrorists is to find the evidence to convict them and to put them into prison; that is the only secure place that we can put them. That is a process of law for which we require evidence. TPIM is a mechanism whereby we can at least prevent the movement and control the location of individuals in the way that we have done.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, Parliament rightly put TPIMs at the heart of our intelligence, but in the case of Ibrahim Magag they obviously did not work. Is the Minister satisfied that the system, particularly the machinery and equipment available, is adequate for the operation? If not, what further improvements are necessary?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

We can, of course, always review the circumstances of this particular incident in the light of experience, but we know that the resources available to deal with people such as Magag are considerable, and that they have been designed to prevent things like this from happening. As I said, it is very difficult to prevent people from absconding. We know that it happened under the old regime; this is the first—unfortunate—case under a TPIM.

Immigration: Home Office Meetings

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

That is exactly the message that the Government are sending. In fact, as has been shown in the most recent reports, university numbers are holding up very well. UCAS acceptances of international students are up by 4%, showing that our policies are having the right effect. There was a 1% increase in visa applications for students attending universities. The university sector now accounts for three-quarters of sponsored visa applications, up from about half in the equivalent period last year.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, at my noble friend’s next meeting with the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, will he insist on records being kept of cases of domestic violence where there is evidence that judicial decisions on permanent settlement have been overridden by the Executive?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I have recently written to the noble Lord because he asked a similar question last week on this issue. Obviously, it is important that we have a regime that is capable of ensuring that people who come to this country are fit and proper persons to be here.

UK Border Agency

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am afraid that I have not been following what the Mayor of London has been saying.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, does the UKBA await the outcome of court judgments on domestic violence cases before the right to settle in the UK is granted? Is the Home Secretary consulted before the UKBA exercises such authority over judicial decisions?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Lord has asked a specific question to which I cannot give a detailed answer, except to say that the rules governing entrance into and settlement in this country are extraordinarily complex. We had an opportunity to debate elements of them yesterday. I will investigate the matter and write to the noble Lord.