I want to make some progress on the measures that are in the Bill, even though a lot of the measures that we need to tackle illegal immigration are not in it. Let us consider the Bill before us. Some measures are sensible and we will support them. Some are confused and we await illumination on how the Government plan to make them work. Some areas raise genuine concerns, and in other areas the Government are not going far enough, particularly on the labour market and on illegal immigration.
I am glad that the Bill includes stronger action against sham marriages. Indeed, we called for those measures. Like the Government, we listened to the concerns of registrars about cases where they feared abuse, but had too little time to ensure that investigations took place. We also called for stronger enforcement powers for UK Border Force officials. The problem is that the UK Border Agency does not use the powers it has in practice at the moment and enforcement has been getting worse.
The Home Secretary talked about biometrics. We agree that there are some loopholes that should be closed for taking fingerprints, but she needs to explain why her Home Office Ministers endorsed stopping the
fingerprinting of stowaways at Calais. This is not about a loophole in the law; it is about a loophole in practice that we raised with Ministers two-and-a-half years ago and which they refused to do anything about.