Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the very open way in which he has approached this whole subject, not just today but in weeks and months gone by. I also express my gratitude to the many NGOs and charitable organisations which have provided us with really superb briefing—almost too much of it. It took me most of yesterday to absorb some of it, but how helpful they have all been and how much work they have put into it. I shall say a little about relations with European Union countries, about safe and legal routes and about children, but let me start by saying just a bit about public opinion.

The whole debate about immigration and asylum has been bedevilled by the way in which public opinion has been quoted and what public opinion is believed to think. There are times when senior people in office—of either party—have a responsibility to talk about asylum seekers and refugees in ways which make local communities feel more sympathetic, rather than hostile. I remember walking down the road in Hammersmith many years ago, when we had earlier legislation, and somebody was shouting at me. Normally, when people shout at any of us, we know it is abuse, do we not? We have all had it happen to us. But oh no, she shouted at me, “Keep going with your amendments!” Not a dramatic slogan, but goodness me, I was so encouraged by it. I believe that we must, in debating these issues, be aware that public opinion has to be won over. It is no good saying that public opinion is always going to be hostile. It has to be won over. I welcome the measures in this Bill that will defeat smugglers and traffickers. There are things about the Bill I would like to see changed, and no doubt Committee will give us many opportunities to do that.

I turn to co-operation with EU countries. I understand that the Government have tried very hard to have better arrangements with EU countries, and there have been numerous discussions with France. It is a little concerning that we see or we hear reports on television that the French police do not have the power to deal with the boats once they are just offshore, and I believe the Government are going to deal with that. It is essential that we have better agreements with all these countries. We cannot defeat the smugglers and traffickers unless those agreements are based on firm and good co-operation. We have action plans with Italy and Germany; I think we need to do a little more with France. Perhaps the Minister could confirm that we are hopeful of having a new agreement before too long with the French. I welcome the Government’s firm commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Let me turn for a little to safe and legal routes. We keep talking about them; I think they matter. I have met the people in Calais on several occasions, and it seems to me that they would not be there unless there was no other way of getting to safety. Some of them have good reasons for wanting to come to this country, such as family reunion or because they had an education here or they speak English. It is notable that when we had the Ukrainian programme—and there were faults with it—the fact is that, in all that time, only five or six Ukrainians actually came across on the channel. They were persuaded that there were other ways of getting to safety, and they made use of them.

I am concerned about immigration detention, and I hope that we can look in detail at the proposals for immigration detention, new detention powers and what safeguards there are for people who are being held in detention, not because they have necessarily committed any criminal offences. I am also a bit concerned about the Home Secretary’s powers to impose tagging and curfew requirements on anyone with limited leave to enter or remain in the UK. I have confidence that the present Home Secretary would use those powers properly, decently and responsibly, but, of course, it may be that the Home Secretary is changed from time to time, and we have to give them powers which do not depend on the humanity of the individual holding the office at the moment.

About 18 months’ ago, I visited Calais on one of many occasions, and I met children and young people who were trying to get to the UK. There were some from Sudan who said to me very clearly, “We can’t afford to pay a trafficker. We haven’t got the money. The only way we can get to the UK is if there is a trafficker who says, ‘You steer the boat over and you’ll get a free trip’”. That, of course, means that they are committing a criminal offence in this country. So it is a way, sadly, of making victims the people who are going to be punished. We have to be very careful about the way in which they use the criminal law in such a way. Of course, like everybody else, I would like to see the traffickers got rid of and their miserable, dangerous trade disappear.

I think the Bill should give an opportunity for family reunion, including for children who are outside the UK to be able to join family members here. We have had such legislation before, and it was passed, but somehow or other it then disappeared under the last Government as well. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate what assessment the Government have made of the White Paper proposals to restrict family reunion rules. I think there are some restrictions there, particularly if the language and financial requirements are too onerous for people who do not have the money. I hope the Minister can respond to that. I wish the Minister well, and I thank him again for his willingness to be so open and discuss these issues both here and, of course, outside.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 26th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I think this may be the moment to remind ourselves that “illegal” and “irregular” are not the same thing. Amendment 7 refers to “illegal migrant crossings”. It is not illegal to seek asylum, and a crossing is not the same thing as entry. I ask noble Lords to forgive me for that slightly pompous comment, but I think it is important.

I say again that it is the Secretary of State who holds the responsibility and the liability, if you like. I may be misunderstanding this, but there is a muddling of responsibility by, for instance, including prosecutions within the functions and, similarly, running UKBI casework and returns. I would also say on Clause 8 that one cannot know whether someone does not have leave, or has leave obtained by fraudulent means, and therefore the commander cannot leap straight to making arrangements for the return of such persons.

I have never been known not to support an amendment that requires consultation, and I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, is not here to speak to his amendment, which seems to be in the usual formula. I thought it would be a rather good hook, and I will push it a little by saying that yesterday I received, as no doubt other noble Lords did, a briefing from the Bar Council, which refers to the importance of independent oversight and suggests that the independent inspector—I can never remember the words; the ICIBI—might have a role here. But since the amendment has not been spoken to, I had better not go that far.

We have Amendment 25 in this group. Again, it is a probing amendment. Under the Bill, the board is given a function to assist. But, as the commander’s functions are co-ordinating and setting priorities, perhaps “assist” cannot mean an operational role. My amendment proposing “advise” in place of “assist” probes how the Government envisage that the board will function and seeks to understand whether there is or is not—I assume there is not—any operational role here. Amendment 71 is in this group as well, but I will leave my noble friend to introduce that.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton is unable to be here and has therefore asked me to speak to his amendment. I tried to add my name, but it was too late for the deadline.

Clause 9 requires the commander to comply with directions and “have regard to guidance” by the Secretary of State about the exercise of the commander’s functions. The amendment requires the Secretary of State to

“consult such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate before issuing or revising directions or guidance”

under Clause 9. That is fine, but the issue is whether we will ever know what guidance the Secretary of State has given; in other words, the purpose of the amendment is to ensure that, when the Secretary of State issues this guidance, she shall act in a transparent manner and consult appropriate persons before issuing or revising directions or guidance under Clause 9. It is a matter of having some openness in how this thing happens; otherwise, we will never know quite what instructions have come from the Secretary of State.

I understand that the Law Society of Scotland produced a pretty good briefing on this. Although the amendment does not, of course, confine itself to Scotland but covers all parts of the United Kingdom, nevertheless, my noble friend and I are indebted to the briefing from the Law Society of Scotland. This is simply a bid for openness in the way in which the functions are to be exercised.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Cameron, which seek to flesh out what the role of this organisation is to be and to put more detail on objectives and functions. If one looks at the functions of the commander, one sees that the meat of this is really in two points made over four and a half lines, so it is very thin indeed. It is an organisation that has already been established, as we know, and there is already an incumbent, so I think it would help the Committee a great deal if the Minister were to explain what the organisation is really going to look like. We talk about the border commander as if it is an individual, and indeed that person is an individual, but then we go on to talk about the command—the organisation.

The Minister has talked in terms of hundreds of millions of pounds, potentially, at the disposal of this organisation, or if not at its disposal, then it would have a high degree of influence over it. These are very considerable sums of money when one considers the overall budget, for example, of the Border Force, so will the Minister set out what the actual border commander’s organisation, the BSC, will look like? On what sort of scale will it be, in terms of staff, for example? A figure of £150 million was mentioned that will, in essence, be put at the disposal of the commander. What does that mean? What is the operating budget of this organisation going to be? Can the noble Lord help us? To look at this as an organisation rather than as an individual, £150 million gets you a lot of co-ordination. Can we hear more about the structure, the functions, the skills of the staff that will be working there, the type of experience, the operating budget and what returns are sought on the budgets that are being put forward?

I welcome the opportunity for the Minister, in response to my noble friend’s amendments, and indeed the others that have been discussed, to come forward and help the Committee establish what type of organisation we are talking about. He might care to illustrate it through an example of how the new organisation will interact with the Border Force. Who is going to be, in a sense, holding the strategic priorities? Which organisation is going to have influence over the other? I am sure it would help the Committee a great deal if the Minister were able to do that.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

It could also cover lots of people who produce information or research for a purpose that is not to try to assist with people getting to the UK. These amendments seek to shift the emphasis of the clauses to those who profit financially from an immigration crime, and we consider that these clarifying amendments will bring the Bill, therefore, closer to the Government’s stated aim of targeting smuggling networks.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to several of these amendments, tabled by my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton, who regrets he is unable to be here today and has asked me to speak to the amendments on his behalf. I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord German, just said in relation to the earlier amendment. I am also grateful to the Law Society of Scotland for some of the briefing it has provided, although I should emphasise that the amendment is not confined to Scotland: it is, of course, a UK-wide amendment.

I will take the argument in summary. Speaking to an earlier amendment a few minutes ago, my noble friend said:

“The gangs are the target, not the refugees”.


The point, particularly of Amendment 50 is, in fact, to give effect to saying the gangs are the target and not the refugees. Amendment 50 seeks to make the legislation consistent with the spirit of the refugee convention, ensuring that vulnerable people are not debarred from refugee protection on the basis of criminal acts they have committed in order to claim asylum in the UK.

Clearly, none of us accepts that traffickers have any legitimate basis at all—they are vile people. But some of the people who cross the channel as a result of their efforts—I hope we can stop these traffickers—are, in fact, refugees. If their only offence is to cross the channel by boat, we are making the vulnerable the victims, and that seems not a sensible thing to do. Elsewhere in the Bill, the Government’s approach is to concede the point, and I do not see why it should not apply in this section. If we do not amend the Bill, we will create a Kafkaesque situation in which we would remove protections on the basis of steps taken by refugees in order to seek these protections in the first place. That seems a fairly clear point, and I would have thought the Government would be willing to tidy up the Bill to achieve this particular end.

I will make it clear that the refugee convention has a provision in it about particularly serious crimes, but it is designed to exclude individuals whose record of criminality rendered forfeit their claim to asylum. But that should never apply to those asylum seekers who are forced because there are no safe and legal routes to enter the country by these other means, which we have labelled in previous legislation as illegal.

If we had safe and legal routes—and I do not want to get into a Second Reading debate on this—the whole system would work in a much better way. Furthermore, Amendment 56 is a limited and, I hope, constructive amendment that seeks to remove an inconsistency within Clause 16. This clause creates a defence of collecting information for use in immigration crime, but subsection (6) has a defence for anyone who does it for the purpose of a journey made only by them. The point of Amendment 56 is that if people are traveling in a family group, they will also be able to have that defence. This is a very simple point indeed, and it goes fully in the spirit of what the Minister said earlier. I repeat: gangs are the target, not the refugees.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, we have Amendments 51 and 51B in this group. Amendment 51 would add mobile phones and chargers to the list of relevant articles. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, is just leaving; he may be coming back. There are innocent examples of the use of mobile phones in the JCHR’s report. Mobile phones are very common, and we are looking for proportionality in all this. Some years ago, I quite often heard opponents of asylum seekers and refugees, who were outraged, say, “They even have mobile phones”, as if that was some sort of great luxury and that having them meant they would be perfectly capable of getting, possibly not first-class seats, but certainly seats on a plane, because they were clearly very civilised, well-equipped and moneyed. I have not actually heard that for some time. Mobile phones are not a luxury these days; they enable asylum seekers to keep in touch with their family. I think that is hugely important, not for any sinister reason but because they are a lifeline for mental health, quite apart from more practical examples.

Amendment 51B speaks to the regulations which I mentioned in the last group. The Secretary of State can, by regulations, alter the list of relevant articles, and my amendment would provide for consultation with organisations that aim, without charge, to assist asylum seekers. I think that that point was made by one of those organisations in its briefings to noble Lords. After all, if there is to be a change, it is perfectly reasonable and proper that the people who know what happens on the ground—I am not suggesting that the Government do not—and who have that particular take on it should be consulted.

I have signed Amendment 56, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has spoken. People travel in groups—not everybody, but some people—and it seems natural, to me anyway, that a husband would perhaps carry documents for his wife and children, or a mother would carry documents for her children. I think that it would be right to make that change.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

The noble Lord has reminded me that I have not declared my interest as also being supported by the RAMP organisation.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Rees and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, have said. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord German, for reminding us that our good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has been injured. We wish him a speedy recovery. He plays such an important part in our debates.

When I have talked to people claiming asylum in this country, they have had two main wishes: either they want to complete their education, which has been damaged through difficult journeys here and dangers in the countries they have fled from, or they want to work. They want to work because it is the right thing to do; they want to contribute to our society. There is this idea that they want to benefit from benefits but, frankly, I have never heard that. I am quite convinced that when they say they want to work and contribute to this country, they are telling the truth.

Then there is the argument about pull factors. I have heard that argument used about every single group of people we might be talking about. When I was discussing child refugees many years ago, I was told that if those children come, others will follow. It is the argument that Governments have used since the beginning of time, and I am just not convinced by it. There are much stronger arguments the other way.

The point about other EU countries is important. If our labour market is such that people want to come here, why is it that other EU countries which allow people to work do not appear to have a pull factor? I think we should get in line with other countries instead of being different.

The noble Lord talked about people being willing to work for lower wages. Yes, but I think that is regrettable. I believe and have argued before that it is up to the trade unions as much as anybody else to ensure that people do not work below the proper wage level for the industry they are in. It is difficult. I know that today may not be the best day to argue the case for trade unions, but I believe that it is important that people do not undercut wages. It should be done by strength and unity at the workplace.

Finally, I am interested in the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made about ID cards. It is becoming higher up on the agenda and we shall all have to consider it very hard indeed. I agree with all the amendments, apart from Amendment 154A. The denial of the right to work has been so fundamental for many years; for heaven’s sake, let us deal with it sensibly.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord German, in sending good wishes to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I wish them both a speedy recovery. They have played a very full part in debates on this Bill and, although they are not often on the same page as the Opposition, I have always welcomed their incisive arguments.

The amendments in this group are primarily concerned with granting asylum seekers the right to work, after various timeframes have elapsed, much more quickly than is currently permitted. The position of those of us on these Benches is clear and already well known. It has not changed and therefore I will not detain the House for too long, only to say that we believe that the current system, which allows those who have been waiting for a year or longer for a decision to apply for permission to work, is sufficient.

We are also clear that, if we were to allow a looser approach to those in the asylum process being allowed to work, it would create a clear incentive for people to come to the UK illegally. That is self-evident and will encourage even more people to endanger their lives and the lives of others in crossing the channel and the money will ultimately just flow back into the pockets of the people smugglers. It will encourage people to come and often to work illegally.

I note that the previous Home Secretary, who recently moved on, said that:

“Illegal working undermines honest business, exploits vulnerable individuals and fuels organised immigration crime”.


Therefore, for those reasons, despite a fascinating and wide-ranging debate—I particularly enjoyed listening to the noble Lord, Lord Rees, talk about his experience—I am afraid that these Benches will not support those amendments that seek to permit this sort of working.

I move on to the final amendments in this group, which relate to the fishing industry, brought by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. They raise some very interesting questions and I welcome them to that extent. As someone who represented the Highlands and Islands of Scotland for eight years in the Scottish Parliament, I am very alive to the issues in the workplace in the fishing industry, particularly among people from abroad working in very difficult conditions on boats for periods of time. We must do everything possible to stamp out exploitation in the workplace and in sectors such as fishing where vulnerable people can so easily be taken advantage of.

No one in this Chamber would want to see labour abuse tolerated. Where there is criminality, it must be cracked down on swiftly and decisively. I have one caveat about these amendments. This worthy objective cannot come at the expense of somehow opening up a sort of back-door route, if I can put it like that, for those who come to this country illegally to remain here. That would risk undermining confidence in the system.

We need a balanced approach—one that ensures workers are protected from abuse but preserves the integrity of our border and Immigration Rules. To do that, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, seeks, we have to understand the true scale of the problem and what practical steps can be taken to address it. These amendments are directed towards discovering and learning more about this. I look forward to hearing the Minister provide some clarity on how the Government will tackle this labour exploitation.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendment 165.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

I do apologise.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Lib Dem amendments but I want to speak in particular to Amendment 177. I thank the noble Lord for giving way.

The proposition here is a very simple one. It is that asylum-seeking children should be enabled to join refugee family members who are in the UK. This amendment is very straightforward and I am grateful to the many NGOs which helped me draft it. I am also very grateful to the other signatories—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—for their support. I am influenced by the speech that the Prime Minister made at the Labour Party conference. I do not want to bring too much in the way of party politics into this debate, because I am seeking to get support from all parties, but he made a speech in which he talked about asylum seekers, refugees, human rights, and so on, which I think was very important.

I believe that the proposition in this amendment is a fair one. It will have some effect in reducing the number of people seeking to come over in boats and, above all, it will influence public opinion. I am aware that public opinion is in a volatile state at the moment, but I believe that if the point is put to the British people that what we are seeking to do is to enable children to join their family members in this country, most people in this country would say, “Yes, that is a reasonable and fair proposition”, even if they are hostile to some other aspects of present policy on asylum seekers and refugees. I think public opinion would come on board, but there is a history to this.

At the time we were leaving the EU, I tabled an amendment saying that we should achieve something very similar to what is in this amendment. It was an amendment that was accepted by this House. It was accepted by the Government and was part of the 2017 Act. It was then taken out in the 2019 Act, for reasons which were never made clear to me. Although I had meetings with Government Ministers about it, it was never clear to me why they had gone back on it, beyond the fact that they said, “It will be all right. There’ll be other ways for child refugees to join their families”, but of course there were not and there are not.

There is a positive history to this, because of the way it went through: it passed the Commons, so the Conservatives supported it. The Lib Dems supported it and many Cross-Benchers and Bishops supported it—and, of course, the Labour Party supported it. Are all these groups going to say no to this similar amendment? Are they going to say, “We have changed our minds”? Now, I know that the Lib Dems will not; I am not sure about my friends on the Labour Benches. We will have to see what happens. I look to my noble friend the Minister to see what he is going to do. I have had a discussion with him about this and will have another in the next little while.

The proposition is so simple. I do not believe that even the extreme right of British politics could criticise the concept put forward in this amendment. It seems to me that we have public opinion on our side; we ought to have all parties of this House, and the Commons, on our side, and it ought to become the law of the land. Goodness me, it would be a sign that we have not turned our backs entirely on the basic principles that have underpinned our attitude to human rights, refugees, and so on. It would be quite a bold step but a fairly easy one, in one way.

Of course, family ties are one of the key reasons why children make the dangerous journey. Again, I am not saying that it would stop all the boats—we would have to have a wide range of measures to stop the boats—but it would certainly help and be a generous move by us to show that we can accept people who are so vulnerable.

On the figures, although there is some difference of opinion between the Government—the Home Office—and me and some NGOs, such as the Refugee Council and Safe Passage, in fact the number of children who would be affected by this is very small. The principle is important, and I am not playing a numbers game, saying, “It’s okay because it’s small. It wouldn’t be okay if it was more”. There is an important principle here, but in practice it would affect fewer than 2,000 visas in the first year, I think, and possibly 200 to 300 in the second year. I repeat: the principle is important. It would show that as a country we have not turned our back on the rights of at least some asylum seekers, and we have not turned our back on some elements of the Geneva conventions and some of the human rights measures we have supported.

Unless something dramatic happens, I plan to bring this amendment back on Report. I think the Minister knows that that is my intention. It seems that the Government have three options. They can accept the amendment, which is of course what I would ideally like to see happen—they may want to tinker with the wording, as Governments like to do; they may wish to modify it, but they would have to be careful because modification can either be a way of improving something or it can be a negative; or they may reject it.

We will have to see what happens on Report, but I am conscious that, if the Government decide to oppose this, it will be embarrassing for them to oppose a policy that the same party accepted in the Commons not that long ago. It would be embarrassing for the Government not to do it, but it would be a sensible gesture anyway, because it would show that we do not have to be victims of the sort of publicity that the extreme right in British politics is putting forward, and that we have the strength to stick by our principles. At least there would be one group of people—namely, very vulnerable children—helped by this measure.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

It is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I was delighted to add my name to Amendment 177. I have very little to add to his introduction of the amendment, but it is important that the Minister makes it clear to the Committee what the present position on refugee family reunion is. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, we saw the announcement on 1 September that the refugee family reunion process had been paused temporarily. As I understand it, applications submitted before 1 September are being handled—perhaps the Minister will confirm that—but no more applications are being looked at until a review has taken place.

On 1 September the Home Secretary was very clear that this was a temporary pause, but on 2 October, No. 10 announced:

“In her forthcoming asylum policy reform, the Home Secretary will introduce a fundamental change to the rights provided to those granted asylum in the UK, looking to end automatic family reunion rights”.


That seems to indicate not a temporary pause but something a bit permanent and, to my mind, on the face of it, shocking.

I do not know exactly what is meant by “automatic” in the No. 10 statement, but I guess, charitably, one could assume it simply means “free”—that one should no longer have the right to apply to bring in the lost child without an application fee, attaching a cheque for jolly nearly £2,000 under present rules. For RFR cases there is no cost attached: there is no health surcharge or application fee. You could construe—this is the good interpretation—that the “automatic” in the No. 10 statement actually meant “free”. But people are going to have to pay to bring in the lost child, which is the opposite of what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has so eloquently argued for.

I do not want to say that I hope that is the explanation and the correct interpretation. But the alternative seems to me to be worse: that we are going to end people’s ability to bring in the lost child. What kind of country do we think we are? That is what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is saying in his amendment. The lost relative who turns up in the transit camp in Libya or Turkey is not entitled to come to this country, and the bona fide refugee here—the member of the family who got here, whose case for asylum was established and who was granted protection status—is not allowed to bring in the child, wife or cousin who got lost on route. That is a shocking idea. Surely that cannot be what the No. 10 announcement on 2 October meant. I strongly support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I would be with him in saying that, if it is not accepted now, it should be debated on Report.

But I do not know on what playing field this match is taking place. What happened on 2 October? All these amendments were drafted before the summer: before the Home Secretary paused the policy at the beginning of September and No. 10 apparently killed the policy—or at least announced its massive modification, depending on what “automatic” means—on 2 October. We need to know before Report what the present position and policy are. I of course support Amendments 165, 166 and 178.

I might surprise the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, by saying that I think Amendment 168 is a rather good idea. I expect that the Minister will say that it is not necessary because thorough and satisfactory checks are carried out in any case. But, if I am wrong about that, I would be happy to support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson.

However, before we go much further in Committee, we need to hear from the Minister what the real situation as of today is. Have the Government decided to abolish the RFR route?