Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

I will come back to that point in a moment. I just think that we should have been on an even keel with all the other countries in the EU. There should have been some consistency. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that if we and one other country had no derogations, we would be the major recipients of people coming from those 10 countries. However, I shall say more about that in a while. The Government have passed seven pieces of immigration legislation since they came to power. With that in mind, I want to express my disappointment that despite acknowledgment on both sides of the House and in another place that our immigration laws are already extremely complicated, the Home Secretary has produced yet another layer of proposals. Indeed, the former Immigration Minister, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne), said:""This complexity reduces the efficiency of decision-making processes, resulting in delay and the risk of mistakes."" The principle, therefore, of a consolidatory or simplification Bill as proposed in July 2008 by the draft immigration and citizenship Bill was, I believe, welcomed. The Loyal Address made no mention of such a codifying Bill and so here we are today, wading through yet more supplementary legislation—the eighth time we have done so in the past 12 years. I recognise that there are a variety of issues to discuss but, conscious of time, I shall limit myself to the proposals, or lack thereof, that cause me most concern. On immigration in general, we all need to recognise—particularly when we have EU and local authority elections coming up—that immigration should not be used as a tool by any political party just for party gain. I am clearly thinking about one particular party—the British National party—and about the UK Independence party to a lesser extent. I think that their views are not the best as far as a healthy economy is concerned, nor as far as people who wish to come and reside here legitimately are concerned. We should stress that. The debate about immigration must be sensible and grounded.