My Lords, again, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate, and I thank all noble Lords who signed this amendment. I understand that their concerns centre around the accessibility of the route for those who are too young to obtain BNO status in their own right and who no longer reside with their BNO parents, or those whose BNO parents do not wish to apply to the route. Although perhaps unintended, the clause would also enable unaccompanied children under the age of 18 to apply independently of their parents—which obviously risks creating safeguarding and other concerns.
The BNO route was designed bearing in mind the moral and historic obligations the UK has to those who elected to retain ties to the UK by obtaining BNO status and who wish to make the UK their home. The route already enables adult children born on or after 1 July 1997 to apply with their families where they are part of the BNO’s household—which I think answers the question of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—ensuring that family units are not split up. This is a generous provision—being over 18, there adult children fall outside the UK immigration system’s usual definition of a dependent child. Nevertheless, the provision recognises that, although they are too
young to have been eligible to obtain BNO status in their own right, they may still be able to form a household with their BNO parent.
I am going to make a brief digression into the numbers of people who have already applied, and so on. As of 30 September, over 88,000 people had applied—status holders and their family members—since 31 January, and 76,000 applications had been granted. The net-positive impact to the Treasury—in answer to the comment about the Chancellor and how he should be pleased about this—is estimated to be between £2.4 billion and £2.9 billion over five years. With that in mind, I would perhaps ask my noble friend Lord Patten why we did not grant BNO status to everybody back in 1997, which many of us in Hong Kong at the time thought would have been a very good idea. In answer to the subsequent question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that number of 300,000 is accurate—I do not know, though, how many would apply under this particular amendment, but obviously we will do some work on that and come back to him.
Those who are not eligible for the BNO route do have a number of other UK immigration routes available to them, and that includes student visas which are up 5% compared with 2019—of course, there may be a pandemic effect in that as well. The skilled worker route enables individuals to come to the UK in a wider range of professions and at a lower general salary threshold than in the past—although, again, the information I have suggests the vast majority are very well educated indeed, as my noble friend pointed out. The graduate route is open to sponsored international students who have successfully completed a degree at undergraduate level or above. We believe that those existing routes provide avenues for many Hong Kong nationals to come to the UK, and we expect some new routes that will be created next year to open up another pathway to young Hong Kong nationals.
However, we have heard the concerns raised by noble Lords around the appropriateness of some of these other routes and are very sympathetic to the circumstances of children born on or after 1 July 1997 with BNO parents. We are, therefore, looking at whether more can be done to support this cohort wishing to build a permanent life in the UK. I can assure your Lordships that we are considering the matter carefully. I hope it will cheer your Lordships up—particularly when it comes to matters of precise timing—to hear that we hope to update the House by Report stage. In light of these assurances, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
I was very struck by what the noble Lord said about the positive impact that people make, both in purely economic terms—those figures of £2.4 billion to £2.9 billion over five years to the Treasury are an amazing statement—and in human terms as well. I certainly know this from having volunteered as a student, a long time ago, to teach English to Hong Kong children who had come to United Kingdom and seeing what happened to them in the next generation: they produced a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher and an entrepreneur and, in the next generation, a goddaughter of mine. These people bring real gifts to our society. I know your Lordships’ House shares that view.
On the basis of everything we have heard, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate, but I am sure the Committee will agree that hearing the noble Lord, Lord Patten, was deeply inspiring. Many people from outside this House will have heard this debate, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, and hopefully many people who still have access to such things as the internet in Hong Kong will have seen on our parliamentary channel what the noble Lord had to say, because I think it will give them a great deal of inspiration. On the basis of what the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, said, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment—