Lord Davies of Gower:

Moved by Lord Davies of Gower

146: Clause 43, page 38, line 30, at end insert—“(2A) After section 3(1) insert—“(1A) The Secretary of State must, where a person breaches any of the conditions of their leave to enter or remain under subsection (1)(c), make a deportation order against the person.”.”Member's explanatory statementThis Amendment would ensure that anyone who breached a condition of their leave to enter or remain would be deported from the United Kingdom.

My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendments 146 and 147, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel.

At the heart of these amendments is the principle of conditionality. Where an individual is granted conditional leave to enter or remain in this country, that permission is given on very clear terms. We need to be clear that these conditions are not arbitrary or frivolous. They are carefully set out to protect the fundamental interests of our economy, the integrity of our communities and the sustainability of our public funds. If those conditions are broken then the privilege of remaining in the United Kingdom should be forfeited. To do otherwise would render the entire conditionality regime meaningless. Rules that cannot be enforced are not rules at all; they are invitations to abuse and exploitation, and they undermine the trust of the British people in our immigration system.

The amendments before us are common sense. They would require that, where an individual breached the conditions of their leave, a deportation order must follow. That is a proportionate consequence, one that would reinforce the principle that with the right to stay comes the responsibility to comply. This is also about fairness to those who abide by the rules—fairness to the taxpayer who shoulders the cost of our public services, and fairness to our communities who deserve confidence that immigration is properly managed.

These are key aspects of government administration. Without robust enforcement, our borders cannot be effectively controlled and our Laws risk becoming toothless. Through these amendments, we are providing the Government with the tools they need to deliver on their own stated objective of a firm but fair immigration system. The amendments are practical, enforceable and just. They would ensure that our conditionality regime had meaning, that our rules had effect and that the British people could have confidence that their borders were being properly secured.

On the question that Clause 43 does not stand part of the Bill, we on these Benches must disagree with the noble Lords, Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I do not need to go into great detail on the point. Clause 43 pertains to conditions on limited leave to enter or remain, but we on these Benches are clear that, where this status is granted, it is vital that strict conditions are both met and enforced, and that anyone found to have broken those conditions should be deported. The Government have a duty to control and manage immigration in the interests of our country. We say that removing those conditions undermines the Government’s ability to do that, so I cannot support it.

The Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, raises an interesting point in reference to the Immigration Act 2016 on the process of being granted bail accommodation. I too would be grateful, alongside the noble Lord, to hear from the Minister what the Government’s assessment of this is, whether it is a problem that they have identified and what plans they have to mitigate it. I beg to move.

My Lords, I have tabled a notice to oppose Clause 43, which has been signed by a former immigration Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

I have listened with great attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, has just said, so I shall make it clear what the Amendment is about. We are not trying to stop the Government doing what they say they need to do, but we are objecting to a means of doing it that is arguably unnecessary and which is certainly exorbitant—indeed, dangerously so.

The provision that Clause 43 would amend is Section 3(1) of the Immigration Act 1971, under the title:

“General provisions for regulation and control”.

Section 3(1) is indeed general in its scope. It provides for conditions to be imposed on any person who is given limited leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom. That includes those who are here on a student visa, a business visa or a spousal visa. The conditions that can currently be imposed on the grant of such visas do not appear in the amendment. I remind noble Lords what they are: they include the power to issue visas for certain types of work only, and the power to require visa holders to maintain themselves and their dependants without recourse to public funds. They are fair conditions, and they are well understood by those who are subject to them. Those people include—and I declare an interest—one of my sons-in-law, who is on the five-year pathway to indefinite leave to remain. The happy couple have settled in Norwich, but I try not to hold that against them.

Clause 43, if we were to pass it into law, would allow the Secretary of State to impose on any of these visa holders such conditions as the Secretary of State thinks fit. No limit of any kind is placed on this power, and its potential severity is shown by the illustrative restrictions given in Clause 43(2): electronic tagging, a curfew to operate in a place specified by the Secretary of State for unlimited periods of day or night, and requirements on individuals not to enter a specified area—exclusion zones—and not to leave a specified area, so-called inclusion zones.

Such conditions are not entirely without precedent in our law. They will be familiar to your Lordships from the terrorism prevention and investigation measures, or TPIMs, introduced in the TPIM Act 2011 and echoed in Part 2 of the National Security Act 2023, for those believed to be involved in foreign power threat activity. It might be thought extraordinary enough if this clause allowed individuals whose only crime is to have studied here or married a British citizen to be treated like terrorist suspects, but it is worse than that. Clause 43 would introduce a materially harsher regime than TPIMs in at least three respects.

First, there is the threshold for their use. TPIMs require a reasonable belief on the part of the Secretary of State that the subject is or has been involved in terrorism-related activity. Clause 43, by contrast, is universal in its application. There is no threshold. Even the most blameless of migrants, whose only crime is to have come here for a wholly legitimate purpose, may in law be subject to its full rigour.

Secondly, there is the scope. The measures that appear in Clause 43(2) are all familiar from Schedule 1 to the TPIM Act, but the range of possible TPIMs is at least finite. Not even in respect of those believed to be terrorists did Parliament trust the Government with the unlimited power to impose, in the words of Clause 43,

“such other conditions as the Secretary of State thinks fit”.

Thirdly, there are the safeguards. TPIMs can be imposed only after the Home Secretary has obtained both the permission of the High Court and the confirmation of the CPS that it is not feasible to prosecute the subject for any criminal offence. No such safeguard exists in Clause 43, which would allow the severest restrictions on personal liberty to be imposed by the Executive without the Intervention of a court on a potentially vast range of people, without any requirement for consultation, authorisation, automatic judicial review of the kind that exists for TPIMs, or oversight.

Clause 43 came late to this Bill. It was introduced in Committee in the Commons. No attempt was made to defend its breadth of application, but the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Angela Eagle, did explain the limited circumstances in which the Government proposed to use the new powers for which they were asking. It was intended for use, she said:

“Where a person does not qualify for asylum or protection under the refugee convention but cannot be removed from the UK because of our obligations under domestic and international law”.—[Official Report, Commons, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill Committee, 13/3/25; col. 265.]

It was intended to allow the same conditions to be placed on such persons as they might have been subjected to under immigration bail. She said:

“The powers will be used only in cases involving conduct such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, extremism or serious crime, or where the person poses a threat to national security or public safety”.—[Official Report, Commons, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill Committee, 13/3/25; col. 268.]

Speaking for myself, that objective is entirely understandable, indeed defensible, though I pause to say that the definition of extremism is worryingly uncertain. Given the Government’s limited ambitions for the use of this clause, can the Minister explain why the existing powers to issue TPIMs, serious crime prevention orders and measures under Part 2 of the National Security Act 2023 are considered insufficient? They contain better safeguards and seem to meet precisely the cases that the Minister has in mind. Indeed, serious crime prevention orders are to be extended further by Part 3 of this Bill. If I am right about that, there is no need for Clause 43, but I am sure the Minister will explain.

Even if these existing powers are not sufficient, any new power must surely be tailored to its intended target, rather than to the vast range of innocent visa holders covered by Clause 43 in its current form. That is what the Constitution Committee had in mind when we recommended that the power be narrowed and that safeguards on its use be included in the Bill. The Joint Committee on Human Rights reported in similar terms. For anyone who is interested in more detail, I can recommend the useful briefings from Amnesty and the Public Law Project.

No one doubts for a moment the good faith of the Minister or his colleagues, but to legislate for unlimited powers and trust to assurances from the Dispatch Box about the narrow scope of their intended use would not just be poor legislative practice but an abandonment of parliamentary scrutiny at the very time when that scrutiny is most needed. The courts have no regard to ministerial assurances, save when the terms of an Act are ambiguous. That, as noble Lords know, is a rare eventuality.

No one who looks at the opinion polls can be confident that all possible future Governments would apply Clause 43 with the restraint to which this Government have committed. To enact Clause 43 would be a gift-wrapped present to any future Government who wished to threaten or erode the rights of immigrants across the board, without thresholds or oversight. If this clause is needed at all, I hope the Minister will agree that it should at least be confined in the Bill to the circumstances where that need arises.

I am very pleased to support the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and my name is on this Amendment. I would just like to say to my noble friend Lord Davies that I was indeed the Immigration Minister, and I came forward with the term “being firm but fair” in relation to all immigration matters. I think that has stood the test of time. I have always believed in very strict conditions being attached not only to the Immigration Rules and their application but to our approach to those who seek asylum in this country.

My name is on this amendment because this is something of an example of a Government using a sledgehammer where it has been quite unnecessary to do so. This Clause is so general and so wide in its effects that it seems to me to go against all propriety and balance. I will be very brief because I do not want to fall into the trap of repeating what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has said, but I want to tease the Minister out a little on those points.

We know that terrorism prevention and investigation measures, TPIMs, are already very effective, and as are serious crime prevention orders. They all have within them the necessary ingredients to be able to deal with virtually all the circumstances that we are debating in relation to this Bill. Therefore, I again suggest to the Minister that it is unnecessary for us to have these extra powers being sought by the Government. It is true that the Minister in the House of Commons gave a clear indication that the use would be only limited. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has given us the list of things where there might be interest here. However, in the circumstances, these intentions of the Minister do not necessarily make good law and I am sure he shares my concern that, if you allow extensions in this way, you are allowing future Governments to abuse the system and the situation unnecessarily.

Also, these new measures, unlike TPIMs or the SCPOs, do not seem to require any judicial approval. There is no such requirement, so far as I can see. As a fairly junior lawyer, but a lawyer nevertheless, I find that reprehensible and dangerous. I would like the Minister’s comments on that.

There does not appear to be any duty to notify an individual prior to introducing these restrictions. That seems, on a very basic level, to be a departure from my understanding of constitutional rights in this country. I never like it when provisions are made to grant almost unlimited and undefined powers to a Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has underlined the point. The Home Secretary may impose

“such other conditions as the Secretary of State thinks fit”.

This Committee should be very concerned about that. We have had previous debates in which we have been concerned that powers of that kind—rather nebulous and very subjective powers—should not be considered acceptable. Could the Minister give us an example of conditions other than those that have been elaborated which the Secretary of State might think fit in any situation? The list is already fairly long and pretty exhaustive, so I wait to hear from the Minister on that.

Finally, it seems to be unwise and illogical to differentiate in circumstances of anti-terrorist actions between a UK citizen and those with limited immigration status. The risks are, of course, the same. Such powers as do exist to order the indefinite detention of non-citizens should surely apply to UK citizens as well.

My Lords, I am not sure that the Amendment in my name ought to be in this group, but it has to be somewhere, and it probably does not deserve to be on its own. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for moving away from the topic. The only link I have is that my amendment would add something to the Clause that we are discussing, but that is out of convenience as much as anything else.

There seems to have been some confusion between the Home Office and those who have been advising me about this amendment. I do not think I am in a position to speak to it until my noble friend and I have had an opportunity to meet and discuss it. It is not a long amendment, but it is quite an important one. It relates to what the guidance says on immigration bail and what it should say going forward. I do not want to say much more about it now. We have lots of business to complete today and I imagine the Committee has heard too much from me anyway, so I am going to leave it there.

I do not have any intention of moving the amendment, but I invite my noble friend to meet me shortly. It would be a short meeting just to discuss whether there has been some misunderstanding between the department and those who have asked me to table this amendment.

My Lords, the Committee does not need me to repeat what has been said about Clause 43 by the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Kirkhope. I agree more than I can say with what they have said. Tagging, curfew, and requiring someone to be or prohibiting someone from being in a particular place at particular times, et cetera—the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has explained what “et cetera” could mean in this situation—are all huge interferences with life in practical, emotional and psychological terms. It basically means that you cannot live a normal life. For instance, how would an international student pursue a course with these restrictions?

As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, mentioned, the Constitution Committee made a recommendation regarding this clause in its report on the Bill. We have had a response today from the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, saying that the person affected can make representations to the Home Office and apply for a judicial review, which the Home Office says in its letter would “provide appropriate scrutiny”. That may be the topic for a whole other, long debate. Noble Lords will understand that I do not feel—I say this personally, because the committee has not had an opportunity to discuss this yet—that that is an appropriate or particularly helpful response.

The comments—the assurances, perhaps I should call them—made by the then Minister for Border Security and Asylum have been referred to. I would be surprised if this detail had yet been discussed within the Home Office, but one never knows, so perhaps it would not be out of place to ask the Minister whether the change of various Ministers within the department means that these assurances remain in place. Is this still what the Government think? Would they be able to give some sort of undertaking to this effect? However, I do not think that would completely answer our objections to Clause 43.

My Lords, in an earlier debate on the Bill, my noble friend Lord Cameron of Lochiel reminded me that it is the purpose of the Opposition to oppose. That is why I find it impossible to understand why the Opposition are not opposing this Clause. I thought that Conservatives were wholly against Governments being given powers without very clear parliamentary restrictions.

I understand the argument that, if people are allowed into this country with conditions and they break them, all kinds of things, perfectly rightly, can be carried out; I am not disagreeing with that. But I would have thought that it would not take much, looking around the world at the moment, to see how dangerous it is to have a law which can be used by Governments of any kind to do almost anything that they want to. We can look at the United States and see a President who appears to be trying to do things which the law does not allow him to do. Think what would happen if the law did allow him to make the kinds of decisions this clause suggests. I also say to my noble friends that, if this clause applied without any restrictions to citizens of this country, the very first people to object to that would be the Opposition.

Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be serious in accepting that the argument is not about immigration; it is about what powers the Government should be given, unfettered by parliamentary decision-making and the courts. It seems to me that the powers given to Governments under this clause are unacceptable. I am sure that they would not be misused by the Minister or any of his colleagues, but that is not to say that we do not have in this country politicians whom I would not trust with these powers—some of them, indeed, have been in power, and I would not have trusted them with these powers.

Having been a Minister for some 16 years, I always found it valuable that my decision-making should be kept within particular parameters laid down by Parliament. One was constantly being asked by civil servants and people outside to do this, that or the other, and one was able to say, “That is not within my power”. I do not think this is a suitable clause for a British Parliament to pass. We should rely on the law we have already or, if there is any gap in it, reduce that gap in a clause which is very specifically restricted so that we do not tempt any future politicians to behave improperly.

I agree with everything that the noble Lord said, although I slightly dissent from his description of his discussions with his civil servants. I used to be a civil servant and I thought that the main job of civil servants was to stop Ministers doing things they should not do or did not have the powers to do. Otherwise, however, I entirely agree.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, made a powerful case. To me, this is a very strange Clause. We have to listen to what our Constitution Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights said. I followed what the Minister said in the Commons, which was that the power conferred on Ministers would be used only in cases involving conduct such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, extremism—I share the doubts of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson—or serious crime, or when a person poses a threat to national security or public safety and, presumably, cannot be deported. If the clause said all that, limiting and ring-fencing the powers of the Minister, I could understand the rationale for it and might even support it. However, with no ring-fencing, it is—as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, said—a sledgehammer. The absence of any judicial oversight provision is wrong. It is dangerous to give Ministers the power to add such other conditions as they think fit. This is just too broad and, if it is to be there at all, it needs to be limited. If the Government’s intentions are as Angela Eagle said in the other place, let that be spelled out in the Bill.

I am grateful as ever for the discussion around Clause 43 and for the amendments tabled by His Majesty’s loyal Opposition. I will start by setting out the Government’s view on the purpose of Clause 43. There will be an opportunity, as has been discussed, to follow the course of action suggested by the noble Lords, Lord Anderson of Ipswich and Lord Kirkhope, to delete the clause. There is also the possibility on Report to look at strengthening the clause by some amendments that could be brought forward on judicial oversight. However, I want to put on record where the Government believe they are at the moment.

Noble Lords will know Clause 43 will end the disparity in the powers available to protect the public from migrants who pose a threat but currently cannot be removed or deported because of our obligations under domestic or international law. It will also make absolutely clear the conditions that may be imposed when a person is subject to immigration bail. Where a person is liable to be detained—for example, they are in the UK without the required permission or are subject to deportation proceedings—they may be placed on immigration bail. Those on immigration bail can be subject to measures such as electronic monitoring and curfews, which are imposed in accordance with our ECHR obligations.

A person who does not qualify for asylum or protection under the refugee convention, but who cannot be removed from the UK because of our obligations under domestic and international law, may fall to be granted permission to stay. Irrespective of the threat posed by the person, our legislation currently prevents us from imposing the same conditions that they may have been subject to while on immigration bail. The Government believe that this is perverse. I hope that I can give the noble Lords, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Deben, the assurance that the decisions to impose these conditions will only be taken on a case-by-case basis in order to appropriately address the specific risks that a person is assessed to pose.

A disproportionate use of these powers will be unlawful if exercised in a way that is incompatible with convention rights. I refer noble Lords to what was said by the then Minister Angela Eagle in the House of Commons during Committee on this Bill. As the policy Minister responsible for this area in the Commons at the time, she said that the powers will be applied only in a very low number of cases

“involving conduct such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, extremism or serious crime, or where the person poses a threat to national security or public safety”.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has rightly asked why we do not use TPIMS. TPIMs are issues taken in a closed court in a specific way under judicial review and we have taken the view that, in this case, the powers could be applied in those small number of cases. Decisions to impose those conditions would be taken on a case-by-case basis, as I have said, subject to an ECHR proportionality analysis, which is oversight of sorts, if that is a comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Deben. We intend to publish guidance, which will set out how decision-makers will undertake the ECHR proportionality analysis. Curfew inclusion and exclusion zones will be imposed only in cases where electronic monitoring is not sufficient to mitigate the threat posed by the person.

I come back to the central argument: the powers are necessary to protect the public from migrants who pose a threat to the public but cannot be removed due to our obligations under domestic or international law. In such cases, we will continue to frequently assess each person’s circumstances to ensure that they are removed at the earliest opportunity. I recognise from the quizzical looks that this may not satisfy Members of this Committee who are raising these issues. That is understandable and I am stating where the Government are.

If Members are not happy, there is an opportunity either now or, I suggest, on Report to determine this by a Division and the other place can respond with Home Office assessment, or they can put amendments down that meet the concerns that they have. It is the Government’s position, however, to use this to respond to very low numbers of cases where there are specific identified serious threats. It is important that we have the power to ensure that we can deal with this for the safety of the British public. If we did not have the power and if those individuals exercised the threats that they pose, Ministers would be in a severely compromised position to argue to the British public why we did not use the powers to take strong action against these individuals.

I am grateful to the Minister. He has really said just one thing, which is not in dispute across the House: he and his colleagues would use these powers on a case-by-case basis and in a very responsible way. However, with great respect, he has not answered either of the two points that were made to him in the debate. The first was the question of why serious crime prevention orders, TPIMS or prevention and investigation measures under the National Security Act 2023 would not be sufficient to deal with all the categories of people that Angela Eagle referred to. That is the question of whether Clause 43 is necessary at all.

Secondly—assuming he makes that case—how can he justify a power that is designed for such a narrow purpose being drafted in such an impossibly broad fashion? Although the Minister says, quite rightly, that we can put this to a Division on Report, I remind him that the TPIM Act, with all the safeguards that it contains, is 59 pages long. Drafting thresholds, proper provisions for scope, and safeguards is not a simple matter—not for a humble and unlettered Back-Bencher or Cross-Bencher such as myself.

I remember a similar case with the deprivation of citizenship, in which, under the last Government, a clause was put forward that allowed anyone who was subject to deprivation to be deprived of their citizenship without notice. It was seen that this was far broader than it needed be and the Government met with me and others and assisted with the drafting. We ended up with something much more tailored to the policy that the Government were seeking to advance, which nobody has questioned in this debate. Will the Minister meet with us in a constructive spirit and with a view to finding a clause that meets the Government’s policy but is not open to the sort of abuse to which the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and others have referred?

I hope the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, knows from our 13 months or so of engagement with him that I am always open to meet with noble Lord and to have input into the legislative process to make sure that the Government’s objectives are workable and practicable. I will happily meet with him to reflect on those points. I have Members from the Official Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the Cross Benches pressing me on this issue; it is important that I listen to those reflections with the policy Minister who has argued that case in the House of Commons.

Let us look at what has been said today in the cold light of day and reflect upon it. I will certainly arrange a meeting to hear his concerns further and look at the issues. The Government believe that Clause 43 is of sound policy and that it would be used in the limited circumstances that I have described. They believe that those circumstances can be defined and, even though new sub-paragraph (x) in Clause 43(2)(b) says

“other conditions as the Secretary of State thinks fit”,

I understand his concern on that matter. But I believe, again, that a responsible Secretary of State would be held to account, would have to explain and bring forward information on that, and would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, particularly in the House of Commons where votes from the governing party can take place, but also in this noble House.

So I say to the noble Lord: let us meet, but the Government have put forward a clause that they believe is appropriate. There are noble Lords in this Committee who believe it is not, so let us have that discussion in the cold light of day to reflect on those points.

When the Minister goes back to the policy Minister, will he reassure her that nobody in this debate has questioned the policy that the Government are seeking to pursue? All we are questioning is the method they have chosen.

That point has been made, and I will discuss that with my colleagues in government. Clause 43 as drafted is before the Committee today, but there are opportunities to discuss it further if the noble Lord is not happy with any assurances that we can give outside the Committee to table amendments that can be debated and voted upon in due course. I will leave it at that.

Amendment 148 in the name of my noble friend Lord Bach seeks to clarify the eligibility criteria for bail accommodation under Schedule 10 to the Immigration Act 2016. Under this provision, the Secretary of State has the power to provide accommodation to someone in exceptional circumstances only when they have been granted immigration bail and are subject to a residence condition that requires them to live at an address specified in that condition. The Home Office recognises that, where the Secretary of State is required to provide a person with accommodation to enable them to meet their bail conditions, a specified address cannot always be known at the time of the bail grant. Accordingly, it has been a long-standing policy position that bail can be granted with a residence condition to an address that is known at the time of the grant of immigration bail, or an address that is yet to be specified. In 2024, this was also set out explicitly in the relevant guidance. The policy is clear, and operational teams are already operating the legislation in this way, to ensure that someone can apply to the Home Office for bail accommodation without having been granted bail to a specific address. Therefore, the amendment—with its good intention—would make no material difference to the current operation of the legislation and is not necessary. I am happy to hear further from the noble Lord, but I invite him not to move his amendment.

On the amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Cameron of Lochiel, Amendment 146 would require the Secretary of State to make a deportation order against persons who breach the conditions attached to their leave in the UK. Such breaches of conditions may already be addressed by cancelling that leave and removing the person from the UK without the need to seek a deportation order. Mandating deportation in such cases is not therefore necessary. It will provide no guarantee that a person’s removal from the UK could be enforced if they were to make a human rights or protection claim against their removal.

Finally, Amendment 147 would replace existing criminal sanctions for offences under Section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971 with a penalty of deportation. Overstayers and illegal entrants are already liable to removal from the UK. Where a person is convicted of an offence and sentenced to a period of imprisonment, consideration will be given to their deportation. With respect to the noble Lord, the amendment risks encouraging offending behaviour and would not result in an increase in removals from the UK.

This has been a serious debate that has raised a number of points. But I hope, given what I have said, that the noble Lord will not press his objection to Clause 43. I will meet noble Lords to discuss their objections further to understand their concerns better. I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments so that we can examine the clause together.

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who spoke on this group for their contributions to this debate. This has been a group that clearly reflects several different views, and I welcome that we have been able to have a debate on these issues.

We on these Benches remain firm in our resolve that conditional leave to enter or remain should be just that—conditional on criteria that seek to safeguard our communities, our public services and our economy. These conditions do not undermine our capacity to be compassionate, our capacity to help those who are in need, or our record of supporting those who need our help. They ensure that we have a system that is controlled and protects our country, and over which the Government can exercise their dutiful authority. These are fundamental duties and we have sought to support the Government in meeting their own objectives. I therefore hope the Minister will seriously consider these amendments as a way of empowering him and his colleagues to take action that is needed to ensure that our conditions are not optional. However, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment 146 withdrawn.

Amendment 147 not moved.

Clause 43 agreed.

Amendment 148 not moved.

Clause 44 agreed.

Amendment 149 not moved.

Clause 45: Extension of prohibition on employment to other working arrangements