Clause 43 - Fees
Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill
6:45 pm
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
There is a question to respond to, although I understand the point that the Minister is making: should the Government make a profit or a net return from those fees? As I understand it, when the Home Office first introduced charging for applications, the then Home Office Minister wrote on 23 September 2003 to the Immigration Law Practitioners Association. The letter said:
“The fees are set under Treasury rules to recover the full administrative cost entailed in considering applications and no more. This is calculated by taking the overall costs of processing applications divided by the number of decisions we expect to make.”
I shall be grateful if the Minister will confirm that there is nothing in the clause that changes that.