My Lords, I will not say much about this amendment, but the title of Clause 69 is astonishing:
“Removals from the UK: visa penalties for uncooperative countries”.
Although we are rushing through clauses such as this, we will have to come back to it on Report. There are significant questions to be answered. Significant powers are given to the Government in the Bill.
How is pressure to be applied on the Governments of unco-operative countries with a view to improving their co-operation on removals from the UK? Where has this come from? What assessment have the Government made of it? Who else does it? What effect has it had? These are the sorts of things that, in Committee, you should go into real detail and find out about.
I have one specific question, which was also raised in the Commons. There is concern that the measure could shut down safe and legal routes to the UK by impacting on the granting of family reunion visas from certain countries as part of a resettlement scheme. This type of visa is overwhelmingly granted to women and children. When I read Hansard, I was grateful that the Minister in the Commons put on record and assured honourable Members that
“given talk of penalties and exemption, family reunion will be an exemption to the penalties”—[Official Report, Commons, Nationality and Borders Bill Committee, 2/11/21; col. 567.]
included in Clause 69. Given the importance of family reunion, as has been outlined in our discussions, will the Minister repeat this commitment—that Clause 69 will not, in any way, impact on the visas given for family reunion, even those from designated unco-operative countries?