Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Damian Green (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Ashford, Conservative)
It is, as ever, life-enhancing to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas. I know that you would not wish to accuse me of crawling to the Chair at this early stage of the proceedings. I reiterate our objection in principle to the routine, indeed universal, use of programming. It is particularly inappropriate with this Bill, as will be illustrated. The usual channels have operated well and we have all accepted a suitable programme for progress over the sittings allocated. Given that it is considerably smaller than the draft Bill that the Government put forward a few months ago, it should not and need not be particularly difficult. Many of the more contentious elements and, regrettably, many of the better elements have been taken out. During our proceedings we will attempt to re-insert parts of the draft Bill, which is what some of our amendments try to do. Given that those were originally Government proposals, we look forward to the support of Government Members.
A raft of Government amendments have been tabled already, and I wait with eager anticipation for further amendments to give effect to some of the measures that the former Home Secretary told us about on Second Reading, including a points-based system for citizenship and a cap on the number of people allowed to apply for it.