Immigration Bill

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Rosser]

4: Clause 1, page 1, line 8, at end insert—
“( ) The primary purpose of the Director is to secure the enforcement of labour market legislation, as defined in section 3(3) of this Act.”

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

Before I start, may I say that I certainly do not wish to comment adversely if the Minister got a little confused as to where he was in his notes, if only because I am pretty confident that that is going to happen to me on probably more than one occasion through the passage of the Bill. It is nice to know that I am already in good company.

As we pointed out at Second Reading, the Explanatory Notes to the Bill say:

“The purpose of the Bill is to tackle illegal immigration by making it harder to live and work illegally in the UK … The intention behind the Bill is that without access to work, illegal migrants will depart voluntarily, but where they do not, the Bill contains other measures to support enforced removals”.

Those two sentences are not tucked away at the back of the Explanatory Notes, almost as an afterthought, but are in the second of two short paragraphs at the very beginning of the Notes that constitute the first section, “Overview of the Bill”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

But within the budgets set by the two departments, as we have just heard. I do not think that anyone is arguing against efficiency, but those budgets are being spent, I assume, to their maximum now. So it is a discussion that will go on.

With regard to the point about the regulations and the possibility of extending the scope of the director’s work, the Minister mentioned parliamentary oversight. Of course, that is a very current issue, because oversight only goes so far. Indeed, one might say that it is “sight” but not “change”, because we cannot do anything about secondary legislation.

I want to comment on the points that have been made about trends and the work, other than that to which the noble Lord and I have pointed, on the protection of workers. I realise that the way in which I have worded my amendment was perhaps not the most felicitous. I did in my speech mention things such as monitoring and trends, and I meant that in a very wide sense. I understand, for instance, that the GLA—this is a very important part of its work—has been extremely successful in its relationship with employers and runs a liaison group with employers and agents in the sectors in which it currently works. One might take any survey with a pinch of salt, but a 93% approval rating—I think I have got that right—from employers in their view of their own regulator strikes me as being pretty high, and I for one certainly do not dismiss the points that have been made by the two noble Lords on the other side.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I will be brief in responding, with just one or two points to make. I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said in response but, frankly, I think that we are making a meal out of not being willing, as far as the Government are concerned, to put the primary purpose of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement in the Bill. I certainly do not accept any argument that it would somehow restrict the functions of that particular post.

I appreciate what the Minister has had to say about his willingness to send a letter relating to resources, and I am sure that that will be extremely helpful. It is certainly my intention to come back to the issue of resources in a later group of amendments.

On the issue of the involvement or otherwise of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement in the immigration system, the Minister repeated the part of his letter that I also referred to: that the new director’s role did not cover immigration control and that nowhere in this Bill is the director given the purpose or power to do that, and if he or she did they would be acting outside their statutory powers. This is a genuine question and not a challenge, but if the Minister is going to send a letter on resources, will he consider adding to it an indication of which clauses of the Bill would preclude the director from being involved in any aspect of immigration enforcement and control? I ask that partly in the context of Clause 2, which states that

“A labour market enforcement strategy … is a document which … deals with such other matters as the Director considers appropriate”.

What happens if the director considers that a strategy relating in part to some involvement in the immigration process is appropriate? Is he entitled under that particular subsection to get so involved? It would be extremely helpful if in his letter the Minister would address that point. With those comments, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.