Damian
Green: I take the Minister’s point. Of course, he
is right: any opportunity such as this will be an opportunity for
fraud. We have seen such things happen a lot in the past. However, in
these circumstances, I am not sure that I accept his point that one can
read across from sponsors, who gain a direct benefit from sponsoring an
immigrant, to referees. Although he might deter fraudulent referees
with these draconian penalties, they will also deter genuine potential
referees, particularly in relation to small charities or rural
areas—as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington
mentioned—where there are lots of small charities. There is an
unpleasant combination of extra bureaucracy and extra risk that will
put off small charities. Members on the Government Benches are looking
shocked by
that. The
most important conversation I have had about the voluntary sector was
with the Connexions service in Kent, which said that many small
charities find it difficult to fill in its forms and as a result do not
get enough money, and that it had therefore set up an officer to teach
them how to fill in forms. As a prime example of how not to do
anything, that is ideal. In five years’ time, I do not want
Government bodies setting up and paying new officers so that they can
train small charities in how they can become effective referees for
people trying to earn citizenship. That is what I fear will
happen.
Mr.
Woolas: I give way to the hon. Member for Carshalton and
Wallington on the same
point.
Tom
Brake: Voluntary organisations might want some reassurance
that the legal terminology of intentionally, recklessly and so on that
is used will ensure that they will not be put in a position where
perhaps the quality of the active participation—the volunteering
activity—is being challenged. I can think of examples—I
am sure other Members can, too—when work experience students
have come to us and, a couple of months later, we have received a
request to fill in a form saying that they did the job properly and
always turned up. Sometimes it is difficult to recall who they were and
whether they did, in fact, play an important role. Is that sort of
thing ever likely to be
challenged?
Mr.
Woolas: The hon. Gentlemen are raising a perpetual point
of public policy that all local and national authorities
face—the balance between ensuring due probity in the voluntary
sector and not stifling it with burdensome bureaucracy. Getting that
balance right is the challenge; that is what the Office of the Third
Sector and the covenant address themselves to. In my constituency one
of my welfare groups complained that it was overcome with burdensome
forms; we released the burdens upon them and the organiser ran off with
the money. We have to get the balance
right. To
be fair to the design group, which we all want to be, the point about
the penalties refers to section 46 of the British Nationality Act 1981.
This is not a new principle being applied; it is an old one in new
circumstances. I take the point that is being made; this is why it is
right to scrutinise these things in
detail. Moving
on to the duty on local authorities, the hon. Member for Ashford was
speaking against a potential new burden being placed on them. Around 80
local authorities have signed up to the nationality checking service.
There is an opportunity for local authorities: I would not over-egg it,
but this is a potential source of income. We envisage that some local
authorities will develop an expertise and may act on behalf of areas in
their proximity. We do not want to make it compulsory; we think that
would backfire. The local authorities are keen members of the design
group and there is no duty on
them.
Damian
Green: I want to check that the Minister said he did not
want to make it compulsory. That contradicts what is in the
document.
Damian
Green: I will read it
out: “the
Government's initial thinking is that we should aspire to go further
than this and make its use
compulsory.” Does
he want it to be compulsory or
not?
Mr.
Woolas: The hon. Gentleman is picking up on point 3 of the
document, I think. It should be compulsory for the applicant to
register through the nationality checking service, but not for the
local authority to provide that service. That is the question we are
looking at. I have raised further doubt in the hon. Gentleman’s
mind; he should read the paragraph at the
bottom.
Damian
Green: Will the Minister give
way?
Mr.
Woolas: Let me move quickly on. The proposals on local
authorities are being discussed. The views of the Committee are
important to that consideration, of
course. Hon.
Members asked a number of other questions. The document lays out our
thinking on those. We are creating this structure so that active
citizenship can become real and meaningful in the United Kingdom. We
have laid out some of our ideas in the document. I think that trade
union activity is a legitimate part of active citizenship. Of course,
the trade unions are dependent on voluntary activity—full-time
officials are paid for their work, but voluntary activity from the shop
floor is essential. I was interested in the debate about whether party
political activity should be considered a legitimate part of active
citizenship; a dividing line opened up on that issue. My view, which
will not count in the long run, is that we should encourage political
parties. We should encourage the idea that politics is part of
citizenship. Excluding it from the regulations would send the wrong
message; it would imply that participating in a political party does
not contribute to civic society. I would argue that my party helps
immensely and the hon. Gentleman’s does damage, but I suppose he
would argue the
opposite.
Mr.
Blunt: Is there not a possibility of some degree of
exploitation? Immigration provides a substantial amount of any
Member’s case load. People will come to us on their route to
citizenship to seek our assistance when things have gone wrong in the
handling of their case by the Home Office. As with applications to get
children into faith schools, people will try to create circumstances to
advance their case for citizenship. One obvious way to do that is for
them to get their Member of Parliament to assist with their immigration
case and, at the same time, provide voluntary assistance to that Member
of Parliament’s political party. I am afraid that the
opportunity for exploitation is all too
obvious.
Mr.
Woolas: Were such a Member of Parliament to knowingly and
intentionally, or recklessly, to sign a certificate, they would be
imprisoned
under—
Mr.
Blunt: That is not the point at all. How are Members of
Parliament meant to differentiate between those coming before them
seeking help, and those enthusiastically endorsing their political
party and all that they stand for and wanting to rush out and deliver
leaflets? That could be “Focus”, if that happens to be in
the constituency of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington,
“In Touch”, if it happens to be in Reigate, or whatever
passes for Labour propaganda
today.
Mr.
Woolas: I take the point. Such activity, whether it be for
a political party or one of the other bodies that have been referred
to—or others referred to in the future—would have to be
recognised as part of the scheme and be certified by the accrediting
body. It would not be a simple matter of self-certification. This is
the challenge that active citizenship puts before us. The hon. Member
for Ashford made a point about faith organisations. Defining a genuine
faith organisation is a challenge that the Charity Commission, local
authorities and others face all the time. Again, the proper
superstructure would have to be in place to ensure that things were
working.
Mr.
Woolas: I will give way once more, but I am conscious that
we are talking about the design group’s work, not the
clause.
Damian
Green: I am interested in the important point that the
Minister just made about a superstructure for checking. That sounds
like another licensing authority to decide what is an appropriate body
to provide the imprimatur of proper active citizenship. We all agree
that the opportunities for exploitation, fraud and unpleasant things
happening are considerable. The Minister is right that if we go down
this route, there will need to be a checking body. What will that body
be? Will it be the local authority, national Government or another new
regulatory body? Has any thinking evolved around that
yet?
Mr.
Woolas: Yes, indeed it has. The document from the design
group mentions the national checking service that I was talking about,
for which 80 local authorities have volunteered. Clearly one needs
local input. There
cannot be a national top-heavy superstructure. It has to be based on
local knowledge, and that is how we envisage the
scheme. I
sense impatience in the Committee. I have spoken at length to try to
answer questions, but have not talked about clause 42 and the
amendments. I hope that I have covered the points that have been raised
and justified the desirability of the clause. I resist the amendments
and support the
clause.
Damian
Green: I can assure the Minister that there was no
impatience on this side of the Committee. Conservative Members think
that this is a hugely important part of the Bill—in some ways it
is the most radical. One reason why there were so many interventions
and questions was because the process is clearly imperfect. We are at a
relatively advanced stage of the Bill’s proceedings. The Bill
has already gone through another place. It is in Committee here, yet we
are still groping for details of how the system will operate. The
document from the design group that we have been discussing
is full of caveats. I do not blame the group at all; it is
trying to get to grips with an entirely new system. It is perfectly
clear to anyone who reads the document that it is not very far down
that
road. 3
pm I
do not intend to press the amendment to a Division, but I hope that the
debate has sent up a warning flare to the Minister that an awful lot of
additional work needs to be done on the clause before it is put into
effect. It is possible that the unintended consequences of what is not
an ignoble idea could cause severe damage. He sat down thinking that he
had talked for too long, but I disagree with him on
that—[Interruption.] I do not want him to
take that as a precedent.
The
Minister’s speech was so long and there were so many
interventions precisely because the more one thinks about the details,
the more problems—and, frankly, ambiguities—emerge. He
responded to my point about the checking arrangements for bodies with
the nationality checking service, but I understand that that service is
to check whether individuals are doing the appropriate thing. I am
talking about the bodies with which the individuals will volunteer. The
Minister is quite right to say that some of those will be big,
established charities while others will be small charities that we
would all recognise as such. At the margin, however, there will be some
bodies that are not recognised as charities or as volunteering bodies.
Beyond the margin, there will be organisations set up specifically for
getting people involved, but that are basically scams whereby they can
fulfil their requirements and get citizenship two years early or, even
worse, organisations that are actively of unpleasant intent and see a
new source of potentially vulnerable, and perhaps slightly ignorant,
recruits to exploit.
The
regulatory regime for bodies is therefore hugely important, but I
detect no sign, from either what the Minister said or the document,
that that regulatory regime will be in place, or that how it will
operate has been thought through. Although this might be a good idea
that could go forward, it is also potentially a hugely dangerous idea,
and I hope that Ministers will take that on board in the remaining
stages of the Bill’s passage.
Tom
Brake: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the one question
that the Minister must be able to answer is how someone anywhere in the
country will be able to check whether a voluntary organisation is a
legitimate organisation that can provide a genuine active citizenship
opportunity? If that cannot be answered, I am not sure where the scheme
is
going.
Damian
Green: The hon. Gentleman touches on an important point.
There are clearly bodies that could do that, such as the charity
commissioners, which register charities. However, the activity is so
important, and almost open-ended as new people arrive, that whoever
does it will find themselves having to devote considerable resources to
it. It will therefore be costly in terms of money, time and staffing.
That point is not remotely
trivial. The
more we think about it, the more we agree we need proper regulation,
but then the more difficult, expensive and time-consuming that
regulation will become. Ministers should have thought through what that
might entail, not least in terms of possible public expenditure. I
detect very little sign that that work has been done, which, frankly,
is slightly
worrying. I
hope that on Report, and perhaps when the Bill goes back to another
place, Ministers will have something much more concrete with which to
reassure us. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Woolas: I am not quivering. I rise briefly to answer the
points that have been made. I give reassurance by referring to clause
42(5), which states that regulations, whether alone or with other
provision, “may
not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by a
resolution of each House of
Parliament.” I
take the point made by the hon. Member for Ashford that the regulations
and what I have described as the superstructure are evolving. I am
aware of his caution. There has been a lot of work, but I accept that
these are the emerging thoughts of the design group. The issue is
extremely important, which is one of the reasons why the proposed
commencement date is what it is.
Question
put and agreed to.
Clause 42
accordingly ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
43Children
born in UK etc. to members of the armed
forces Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Woolas: I am sorry, I quivered, Sir
Nicholas.
The
Chairman: No, you
rose.
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