My Lords, I am grateful to the Chief Whip for suggesting that I might step into the gap for a moment or two and I shall be very brief indeed. What we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, gives us great concern about the extension to all immigration officers of the power to use so-called “reasonable force” to bring about whatever the order before them is. I suspect that the noble Lord knows better than almost anybody else in this House how all these things operate. Unless we consider closely the illiberal power that we are effectively giving to every last immigration officer, this House should seriously ask how far it can possibly go along with it.
The second thing that I want to say is that, if noble Lords wanted proof of the huge contribution that immigrants have made to this country over the years, they only need to look around this House during this debate. I should declare my own involvement as, along with my noble friend Lord Dholakia, I am a patron of the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group. One of the most amazing occurrences is the group’s ability to recruit hundreds of volunteers from the neighbourhood of Gatwick, who come to be with, befriend, speak to and advise those who are locked up in that detention centre. That shows that, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, given the right leadership, the people in this country are capable of responding in the most warm and generous way.
I will conclude by asking three direct questions of the Minister, who is thorough in paying attention to the views and opinions in this House, which are always taken seriously, as they should be. The first relates to the interesting and detailed suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. How far have those been taken into account in reconsidering what the first tier should be able to bring to its attention in making the kind of decision that might actually be unquestionable, good, accurate and able to last? In all my life in politics—since I was myself a Minister of State at the Home Office—this has been the holy grail. Can we not find an answer in the first tier, to avoid the endless agony of paying legal costs and all the rest of it for a second, third, fourth and fifth tier? My first question therefore is: how far will the solid suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, be part of the changing and reform of that first tier?
The second question relates to the health surcharge. Here, my noble friend Lady Manzoor made extremely important points, but I want to add another. The BMA, the British Medical Association, which represents all doctors in this country, and the National Aids Trust, NAT, which looks in particular at HIV, have both spoken as clearly as they could about the great danger of any kind of fee at this level. For example, people visiting A&E or going beyond the GP whom they first see who advises treatment would be brought into the area of having to pay. How much will that discourage people who are already desperate for money from going to their GP, let alone going to A&E?
Yet we have in this country two major threats in infectious diseases. One is HIV, which is relatively easily transferred, and the other, which we have not so far mentioned, is drug-related tuberculosis, which is gaining ground every month that passes. This is partly because people are coming from parts of the world where there is extensive drug-related tuberculosis. This must be caught early, to ensure that it is not passed on. My noble friend Lord Patel—who, along with several others who came to this country in the last generation or two, has made such a contribution to the health service—knows very well the dangers that we are talking about.
The third question relates to something that we have not talked about at all, strangely enough: a distinctive flaw in the flow of immigrants to this country. To put it bluntly—and I do not mind being blunt in this brilliant debate—it is relatively easy at the
moment for somebody who is truly wealthy to get into this country without too many problems with immigration. At the present time there are whole blocks of flats, very possibly including a block of flats that may emerge from Battersea power station, being auctioned in Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere for people who want a second home in London. That is not helpful to anybody. Above all, if the people who are part of that are people who have a lot of wealth in tax havens, it will not do immigration as such any good. However, if you are a poverty-stricken asylum seeker who has been fighting for democracy in your country, living with great risks, you will find it terribly difficult to get into this country, however hard you try.
I conclude with this. It was the late Aneurin Bevan, that great Labour statesman, who once said that you do not need to look into the crystal if you can read the book. Look around this Chamber, read the book, ask yourself what immigrants have brought to this country and be thankful for it, and let us make sure that we are not part of what one might call the narrowing of the British imagination by closing the door to the huge gifts and innovations and treasures that our flow of immigrants over the years have brought to this country.
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