Immigration: High Court Ruling

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the Statement will deal with the changes in the rules. Perhaps I should take this opportunity to say that the rules will then change immediately—that is to say, the rule change will be commenced immediately to rectify tier 2. Also, as was contained in the Statement, the Government will be closing tier 1 on 23 December. As a result of these timetable changes, it will not be possible to meet the 21-day convention for laying rules, but we will write to the Merits Committee about that matter.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, if the object of the Government’s policy is to reduce net migration, is not her noble friend’s question about numbers of people leaving the country extremely relevant and should not that therefore be taken into consideration?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Hundreds of thousands of people leave the country. This is normal travel. Among that number are those who are here on some kind of immigration visa for the purposes of employment. As I said, very few of those who come here to work come without any kind of sponsorship. There is a small category of entrepreneurs and investors who are in that position. Otherwise, people who come here to work have sponsors. Sponsors are not able to replace them. There cannot be a net increase in the migration to this country in the absence of the person who sponsored the employment giving notification of the departure of the employee and the reinstatement of a new person, if they wish it. We can therefore keep control and knowledge of movement of people in this position.