Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. Several words have been used, which I hope I can confound, such as "dragoon", "compulsion" and "burden". I am inclined to agree with "fog" because at the moment we know what we want to see but we are not quite sure what shape it will finally take. I shall deal also with the issue of volunteering. I start from the premise that we have described to people why we are doing what we are doing and then deal with the battery of questions about whether it is practical, how are we going to do it and whether we have thought it through. First, we are doing it because we want to integrate migrants fully into society. The advantage of what we are seeking to do is that it will bring contact between migrants and the wider community; it will show British citizens that those who seek to join them are earning their citizenships by participating in British life; and it will encourage those who want to become citizens by opening up to them new experiences and life-long rules. Active citizenship is a positive process: it is a way for migrants to earn citizenship more quickly and it will assist their integration into British society. Its purpose is to incentivise a positive attitude towards Britain. My noble friend Lord Morris feels it will do the opposite. I am pleased to note that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, concurs with that view. As he said in his contribution at Second Reading: ""A credit-based system for acquiring citizenship is in principle a good thing, because it makes clearer that becoming a citizen carries with it responsibilities, not just the ability to stand in a shorter queue at Heathrow. For those reasons, it seems right to be able to change the length of that journey through participating in the community in a stronger and more active way".—[Official Report, 11/2/09; col. 1146.]" I think there will be a large degree of support for the things I have said so far. However, the questions that came forward were very much in relation to where we go from here. Let me be absolutely clear: there is no mandatory requirement for any migrant to undertake active citizenship; migrants who are unwilling to undertake any form of active citizenship can simply choose not to do so. They are not prevented from qualifying for citizenship but it will take two years longer than for those who choose to undertake citizenship activities. We have been careful in developing the citizenship activities proposals in such a way that they do not discriminate against any person or group. It is essential that the activities that count are separate from those that migrants undertake as part of their day-to-day employment. Therefore we propose that participation in prescribed activities will count only when it is unpaid, which answers a number of noble Lords’ questions about what they see as potential problems. We clearly want as many migrants as possible to undertake active citizenship. However, we recognise that in certain circumstances—for example, in the case of the severely disabled—a migrant may simply be unable to undertake any of the citizenship activities. That is why the Bill allows regulations to be made which treat specific types of persons as having fulfilled the activity conditions even though they have not. Therefore Amendment 83A is not necessary. It is essential that the activities that count as active citizenship represent an extra effort to get involved in the community and are additional to those activities that migrants undertake as part of their day-to-day employment. Hence the prescribed activities will count only where they are unpaid. At the same time, we have made it clear that active citizenship must be designed so that migrants, even where they have significant commitments—for example, work or family-related activities, which were a concern mentioned in the debate—will be able to fulfil the requirements. That is why it is right that people should be able to demonstrate their willingness to participate at any point from the start of the journey—not from the start as a probationary citizen but from the start of the qualifying period; in other words, from the five years preceding it. We have permitted a wide range of activities to ensure that migrants can utilise their particular skills and interests—that is why Amendment 82 is not appropriate—and we have established a design group. This involves local authority and voluntary sector representatives advising us on the practical operation of active citizenship. This is because we want to avoid some of the words used in the debate to describe it, such as "bureaucratic" and "dragooning". We want to see a level of commitment that we should expect migrants to demonstrate and we will work with the design group to ensure that active citizenship proposals are implemented in a fair and non-discriminatory way. All the questions asked have been perfectly fair. In responding to some of them, it would be quite helpful to recognise that this is still work in progress. To reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, I should say that when the design group has completed its work and we have a formal picture of what it has designed for active participation, that will be subject to an affirmative resolution of the House. So it is not that the House will not have a clear sight of it and an ability to object. I placed a document in the Library last week which I hope the Committee will find helpful—I know that the spokesmen on the Opposition Front Benches have seen it—which outlines the emerging findings of the design group. Again, it covers and meets, at least partially, many of the questions noble Lords have been asking about the type of activities involved and the type of organisations that will be required to be both the referee and the monitor. The list is not yet exhaustive; it can be added to. Any suggestions that people have will be referred to the design group for its consideration, but it already covers volunteering at local museums, conservation work, local environment protection and improvement projects, lunch clubs for the elderly—there is a whole series of examples of what might be suitable. We have also set out in that document a Q&A, which I recommend people should digest because it goes some way to answering the questions that have been posed today. It is not complete but, when it is, it will outline the work of those closely associated with the organisation of the volunteering to which we are looking forward. I take the point made by a number of noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, imagined that we would be walking round with bagfuls of money. I will have to disabuse him of that. We are working closely through the design group with the voluntary organisations that will be impacted on by active citizenship to ensure that we implement a system that does not place undue burdens on them. So far those organisations have been supportive of our proposals and have not raised major concerns about the cost schemes would incur. A plus for those organisations would be the work done by volunteers. Those who are closest to the problem, who we are listening to for advice and who will be the people designing a scheme to monitor this do not seem to have concerns to the degree that your Lordships have. The list set out in the document in the Library goes a long way to answering a number of other questions. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, asked if migrants can count activities they were doing before the commencement of citizenship provisions towards active citizenship requirements. The answer is yes. Other noble Lords who raised questions about particular aspects of that can be answered in the affirmative. Greater detail can be read in that document. We also had a number of questions relating to dragooning. Neither the volunteer seeking to enhance and speed through citizenship nor the organisations taking volunteers are being dragooned in any way. I suspect most Members of your Lordships’ House are volunteers in one form or another. Why should we expect our migrant community on entry to be less willing to be volunteers than we are ourselves? It is true that a lot of our fellow citizens choose not to be and rely on those who do volunteer but that is no reason for not moving forward. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, asked about checking active citizenship, including the role of the National Checking Service. Again, we want to avoid a heavy-handed approach. To ensure that the organisation where active citizenship was undertaken was bona fide, while not excluding small or community-based organisations as volunteering groups, we would accept registered charities at face value. For non-registered charities and other voluntary organisations we would require an additional reference from the local authority or the CSV. Alternatively, a larger organisation could act as an umbrella monitor for smaller organisations. Again, in the discussions emerging from the design group there has not been the degree of opposition or concern that has been elucidated in this debate. That is understandable because we are talking about people who are very familiar with the concept and management of volunteering. The National Checking Service, for those who are not aware, is a discretionary service available in 87 local authorities. It checks applications for British citizenship, completes corrected copies and certifies all passports before returning them to the applicant straightaway. It then forwards the relevant documents the to UKBA case workers. It is an organisation with a track record. We recognise that extra bureaucracy could form a burden for organisations so it could be mitigated by partnership agreements for 12 months allowing a larger organisation to enter into agreement with a smaller organisation to measure the degree of burden. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and other noble Lords asked how applicants will find out about volunteering opportunities. Many migrants already volunteer so will not need to be signposted. For those who chose to take up active citizenship we envisage volunteer centres being able to signpost migrants to organisations looking for volunteers. ESOL teachers who signpost students to volunteering organisations are likely to continue to do so. Internet websites are a rich source of voluntary organisations. UKBA already funds the Refugee Integration and Employment Service which actively promotes volunteering for refugees. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made a valid point in relation to localities and I am sure more work can and will be done by the design group. It is important to emphasise that volunteering is not mandatory and therefore we reject any accusation that it could be seen as blackmail. We believe, rather, that it will encourage the path to citizenship. I hope in answering those questions and drawing attention to the questions asked which have been covered so far in the Q&A, and that work is still emerging, we can reassure your Lordships that the matter is not ill thought out. It is not necessarily fully thought through but the people seeing it through on our behalf are the very people you have confidence in to run our charities and our volunteering services. We will come back to further debate on this undoubtedly at Report. Any information that becomes available between now and then will be made available to the Committee. I have not unfortunately got a response to give to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, on this occasion. That will have to wait until a slightly later date. The Government appreciate all the contributions made. They have been positive in the sense of wanting to see something we all want, which is the greater integration of our migrant communities. I hope the Government, as we go forward, can continue to confound those who think we have taken up something that we cannot do and to encourage, support and gain the confidence who feel we might not have done so. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords can withdraw the amendments.