Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord for going into more detail about that. The purpose of the whole system is to become as objective and transparent as possible. Transparency is critical, as I think all noble Lords would agree. It means, for those coming in—if I revert to our discussions about students—the role of the institutions and—especially as we have Universities UK represented here—the role of the universities in making the determining factor about whether a person has the right qualification and so on to be at the university. Employers will also play a big role in that. It enables them to be far more objective about deciding whether a student has the means to support himself, and so on. That is the system we are moving towards. We are not inviting people to exercise greater subjectivity in any way. That will be a critical aspect in setting out the regulations appropriately and developing this—and, of course, consulting stakeholders, as we have sought to do throughout in developing the points-based system. So, I hope that I can reassure the noble Lord completely on this. I accept that the noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Dholakia, were not suggesting that the Government were seeking to bring back the primary purpose rule, rather I was intimating that perhaps by accident the noble Lord thought we had. We have been very careful, and certainly I have looked at this to make sure that we were not for all the reasons I have indicated and many more. We are very clear that when people come into the country they should be asked what they are coming for. We would look to do that as objectively as possible. I am sorry if on Monday I did not go into the question of human rights effectively and the noble Lord’s concern about clogging up the courts. We have made it clear throughout our discussions that there is no intention in any circumstances to take away people’s ability to use the Human Rights Act appropriately to make their claim. The Government are clear about that theme, which, I think, has been accepted by the Committee. We have sought to be as clear and transparent as possible about the people whom we say will have full rights of appeal—family members in these amendments—who are entering the UK, and that other visitors may apply as appropriate. Of course there is the opportunity for someone to claim under Article 8 that they wish to make a claim on the right to family life and so on. That right was never going to be withdrawn in any case. The noble Lord may think that that would increase the number of challenges. I hope that that would not happen, as we are being genuinely open that we want visitors to come and visit—the question is, ““Are they visitors or family visitors?”” But it is always possible that people could use the Human Rights Act, and appropriately so. We do not believe that we are taking a risk. The noble Lord may differ in his analysis of that. In any event, we are agreed that people should have that right and the Government must face the consequences if that does not happen as we believe it will. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, sets out in her amendment the categories of dependant. She is absolutely right that for those who are settled, provided they meet any other requirements, these categories would apply. I take fully the noble Baroness’s additional point about covering new categories, not least civil partners but she will know our view that it is much better done through secondary legislation, simply because, as with civil partners, it is much simpler in parliamentary procedural terms to be able to add new categories, which we would want to do. I can categorically assure the noble Baroness that those are included. As noble Lords know, we have just closed the consultation on the points-based system per se, but it has not yet been decided which of the five tiers would include the right to bring dependants in. Those decisions will be made in due course. If they are made during the passage of the Bill through your Lordships’ House, I will write to all noble Lords who have taken part in our deliberations indicating those decisions. I hope that I have responded to all the key points and that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.