Registration of Immigration Advice Practitioners (Hansard, 24 January 1996)

§ Mr. Nirj Joseph Deva (Brentford and Isleworth)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a system of registration for approved immigration advice practitioners; and for connected purposes. I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce the Bill to the House. My Bill seeks to establish a system of registration to improve the standards of immigration advice practitioners. It is designed to help their clients—sometimes the most hapless victims and most vulnerable people in our society, and drawn largely from the ethnic minorities. Those clients are occasionally, and more and more frequently, at the mercy of unqualified and incompetent immigration advisers.

Those so-called advisers, or cowboys as I prefer to call them, operate by exploiting the ignorance of applicants and to reap large fees for poor-quality—and sometimes deliberately false—advice. In so doing, they extend and complicate the immigration application procedures, prolong the duress on the applicants, make them pay large fees at regular intervals and clog up the entire system of processing applications, to the detriment of genuine applicants.

Those people build up a large case load of work, which the taxpayer pays for, and embark on appeals, tribunals, judicial reviews and so on, funded by legal aid. In parallel, they charge their clients exorbitant fees at every stage.

If we are serious about stopping bogus applications, we must address the source of the problem: bogus advice given by bogus advisers who exploit applicants for reward.

It is not in the interests of bogus advisers to settle applications swiftly and satisfactorily. It is in their interests to prolong the process—until it fails, at which point their hapless clients are either prevented from entering the country or are removed from the country, erasing at a stroke any future action against them for negligence or complaint.

The scale of the problem is difficult to quantify, but from a small survey in the London area I have enough evidence to claim that between 70 and 80 per cent. of immigration advisers are of doubtful provenance. That of course excludes qualified solicitors, citizens advice bureaux and other reputable advisory services, and Members of Parliament.

My Bill is designed to license the cowboys who set up shop, advertise, charge fees and then move on, leaving chaos and despair in their wake.

At this point, I should like to quote the authority of Mr. Justice Stephen Sedley, chief immigration liaison officer in the High Court. On 31 March 1995, in ex parte motion Miranda he said, obiter dicta: I want to say that this court sees a sorry trail of applicants whose rights have been forfeited or lost or garbled or injured by putting themselves into the hands of unqualified advisers in the immigration field. 372 Other countries have faced this problem and set out to resolve it. Three years ago, Australia passed a statute—the Migration (Amendment) (No. 3) Act 1992, which confined the right to give advice to lawyers or to registered agents. In order to secure registration, proof has to be given of competence and some financial security. The Australian migration agents registration scheme has an independent board appointed by the Immigration Minister, which has the power to register aliens, to investigate complaints received about an agent and to impose disciplinary sanctions on an agent.

Voluntary workers are required to register, but are exempt from paying registration fees. Criminal penalties exist for unregistered practice. So far, 1,800 agents are registered under the Australian scheme; 307 have been refused registration; 270 have been deregistered; and 741 complaints have been received.

As some of my colleagues know, I am strongly committed to deregulation, but I also recognise, just as the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 recognises, the principle of necessary protection, as defined in the 1994 Act and in Standing Order No. 124(A). I do not believe that self-regulation will work. The cowboys will not register. They will operate by word of mouth and client ignorance. Under self-regulation, the relevant bodies will not have the power to monitor and police themselves. Cowboys are mobile and can set up shop at any time under assumed names. They then charge their clients arbitrary fees.

My Bill is designed to set up a council of licensed immigration advisers, whose duty will be to maintain and ensure standards of conduct and professional competence among those who practise as immigration advisers. The council will issue licences and will maintain a register, under the direction of the Secretary of State. It will also have powers to investigate and to make rules. It will be an offence to pass oneself off as an immigration adviser without a licence. It will be an offence liable to summary conviction and/or imprisonment for someone to practise as an immigration adviser in return for payment or material reward without holding a licence.

My Bill will protect the most vulnerable. It will make the application process more efficient. It will save the applicants who are now exploited a considerable amount of money. Most important, it will save the public money, by reducing the cost to the taxpayer of the legal aid that is being used because of the poor quality of advice that is given by unqualified or incompetent immigration advisers.