Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 36 and the amendments consequential upon it in this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, has raised some important questions. In Committee, we discussed what a bureaucratic nature this system has, and I read carefully what the Minister said about the design team and its work. Nevertheless, a fundamental question remains: why can the person not provide, at least initially, proof of what they have been doing as an active citizen? That seems the right way round, so my Amendment 36 suggests it. That is the right approach. The amendment takes into account what they can do, where they are living and what sort of activities are available there, what their community sees as its own priority, no doubt, and so on. It is a far more normal way to further the aim that we all have that everybody should be happily slotted in to being an active citizen. I was also struck by the concerns of Volunteering England, which are worth listing. Some refer to the applicant, among them the concern that it might be hard to find opportunities. Certainly, I can see that applying to some rural areas. For example, where I live in north Devon, if you were living on the fringes of Exmoor for some reason—if you had, perhaps, come here to be something as remote as a beekeeper—it might be hard to find any other volunteering activities out there. Volunteering England is also concerned about whether applicants would understand the criteria. A very serious problem, which it lists next, is the risk of devaluing volunteering. That is something that we should all bear in mind: volunteering is supposed to be just that and, if it becomes compulsory, it is hard to still call it volunteering. The fact that Volunteering England has this concern is something that the Minister should take seriously. The process should not become a tick-box exercise. Volunteering England is concerned, too, about the treatment of volunteers, as some organisations might be a bit ruthless. If they know that the applicant has to be a volunteer, they might exploit them. Then there is the question of volunteer expenses. Volunteering England also lists a lot of concerns about host organisations. That is equally serious; at the moment most host organisations, especially the smaller ones, are already under tremendous pressure. What are they supposed to do if three or four people turn up wishing to volunteer, making large demands on the time of the people running the organisations? On the other hand, it would be mean to turn them down, because that would jeopardise the possibility of even becoming a citizen. Volunteering England mentions supporting applicants with additional needs; that will, again, be hard for smaller organisations. If most people are addressing big organisations, by its very nature that will become a problem for the big organisations. There are also lots of legal issues to be addressed. Then there is the question of referees, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, talked about. Would they have direct knowledge of the activities? The Government fall back on the fact that local authorities could do a lot of the accrediting. The Minister will know that local authorities at the moment, for one reason or other to do with the economic crisis, are under tremendous pressure. There is simply not the capacity in their staff to take on a whole other tranche of work doing vast amounts of accreditation. I still have deep concerns about the bureaucratic nature of this design, whether or not a design group has been designing it. It would seem a much better starting point to come from where the applicant is and then, if the UKBA staff assessing the situation have serious concerns, they could start the checks. In an awful lot of cases, the letter and back-up materials would be sufficient in themselves.