Immigration: High Court Ruling

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we are members of the European Union and there are obligations for free movement of labour within the European Union. The noble Lord is right to say that we honour our obligations.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, would my noble friend suggest that somebody in the Home Office should advertise on the internet on one of the job vacancy websites such as Gumtree and see who answers the advertisement? She would find, as I have found, that a large number of the applications would come from people who have student visas—I am glad to see the noble and learned Baroness over there, because she has had experience of getting caught on this, as I very nearly did—and that many of them, when one replies and asks for their immigration status, disappear very smartly. There are masses of people coming into this country seeking work illegally, so does the Minister not agree that the suggestion of my noble friend of having exit checks would be one way of finding out whether those who are admitted, for example as students, ever leave the country at all? Also, surely she agrees that it would be extremely foolish for the Government to set the precedent of publishing, as has been requested, the legal advice given to Ministers in confidence. That would not be the way of ensuring that Ministers receive blunt, honest and open legal advice in future.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

On my noble friend’s last point, the Government are clear that we are not going to publish the legal advice that we get, for precisely the reason that he has stated. Such advice needs to be given in confidence by our advisers in the knowledge that it will not subsequently be made public.

On my noble friend’s other points, I entirely agree that there are a number of people who try to take up work illegally in this country. It is precisely that practice that the Government want to end. This is why we are introducing refinements of the controls that are already in place and making the qualifying criteria for ability to work in this country tougher. The object of the exercise is undoubtedly to ensure that those who get the right to work here are legally here under the qualifications that we are setting. He is also right to say that a number of people apply under categories of so-called skilled labour when they are clearly unskilled. That is a practice that we also intend to bring to an end.

Lastly, on the point of external immigration checks, the Government are aware of the concern on this issue and they are, indeed, going to bring in these exit checks. There are problems related to the contract which the previous Government negotiated and which we have had to end. That means that we have to find other ways of bringing in that exit check, but we will do so as early as we are able to. I have given my noble friend who asked the question earlier an estimate of when we are going to be able to do this. If we could do it earlier, we certainly would.