Clause 1 - Variation of leave to enter or remain
Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill
11:15 am
Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow, Labour)
The hon. Lady said a lot about students. I do not wish to repeat that. In fact, my point is narrower. Essentially, the clause deals not so much with entry clearance as with people who are already in the UK and who are applying for variation of leave.
It is important to stress that there are people who are in the UK legitimately and who have abided by immigration law. We are not dealing with someone who is here illegally and who does not have a valid visa, but with people who have come here legitimately, with valid documentation, who, when they have applied for extensions or variations of leave have been refused.
Students will not be the only people affected. The clause will have an impact on people who are here for other reasons. It is difficult to know precisely whom the clause will affect until we debate later amendments connected with subsection (4) of the clause, which gives the Minister powers to make orders that will give some rights of appeal to certain types of people whose variation of leave is refused.
We must assume that the main provision will apply to a wide range of people, which, as well as students, will include people who have business visas. Potentially, people who might otherwise have come here as business men looking to invest in the country will be more wary about doing so if they think that uncertainty will arise over how long they can stay. In particular, clause 1, in connection with clause 9, means that someone will become an illegal overstayer immediately the decision is made to refuse the variation, with an appeal against the removal taking place after the person has left the country. That appeal is triggered, as I understand it, by the removal decision.
When I consider many of the cases that I deal with concerning people who have had refusals of one sort or another, I am often astounded at the length of time between the Home Office making an adverse decision on a case and the removal directions being made. For some people, it is a matter of years since an adverse decision has been made on their case, yet still no removal directions have been issued. Until those have been issued, we shall have the peculiar position in which someone is here illegally but cannot trigger his own right of appeal because a removal direction has not been made. Therefore, even if he leaves the country voluntarily, he would not have that right of appeal because the removal direction has not been made.
I am in favour of much of what has been done to simplify the appeals system by having one-stop appeals, at which everything that is relevant to a case is taken into consideration. I never thought that it was sensible to have systems where people could make appeal after appeal on different grounds. It makes sense to put everything together, but it is the point at which it is put together that matters.
We have dealt with some abuses, particularly relating to students. Again, I was pleased with some of what we did in the last piece of legislation on immigration and asylum and, following on from that, to root out many of the bogus colleges, which were recruiting students and taking money on false premises. In some cases, they were used as a vehicle for people to get entry clearance into the country when they had no intention whatever of being a genuine student. A great deal has been done in that regard. Much of the abuse of student visas has been stopped. Now we receive representations not from little fly-by-night colleges, but from the UK universities—the major institutions—to which we should be listening.
My final point—this is a selfish point—relates to what I suspect will happen to me and other hon. Members who have significant amounts of immigration and asylum casework. It can be guaranteed that people who get a refusal of variation of leave and have no right of appeal will quickly find their way to our advice surgeries. Every time that a right of appeal has been removed, our experience has been that people who have lost that right do not go away quietly. Inevitably, people will find their way to us and ask us to make representations to Ministers. There will be an increase in work load for me and other hon. Members, and in the amount of correspondence that the Minister receives from us saying, ''Look, it really seems that a bad decision has been taken in this case and a mistake has been made.''