Immigration Service (Hansard, 24 June 2004)

§ Baroness Scotland of Asthal

To support the top-to-bottom review of the immigration system called for by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary set up managed migration taskforces.

The taskforces work across the whole of Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) and with other departments and stakeholders to identify and address any areas of abuse of managed migration routes, drawing on intelligence, the experience of front-line staff and management information from across the system. In this way, the department is building on what worked to reduce abuse of the asylum system in a comprehensive monitoring and reporting framework. This will allow resources to be properly directed to target potential abuse even before problems arise.

Based on the work to date, we have already announced a number of steps to tackle abuses of the marriage, students and employment routes. These include:

To date the student taskforce has visited 401 colleges about which we had suspicions and applications to those institutions clearly found to be bogus are now being refused. A registration scheme is being established for genuine colleges and will be operational by the turn of the year. Once this has been done, student visas will not he issued in respect of colleges not on the register.
To tackle the increasing problem of sham marriages being used to circumvent immigration controls, the Government are bringing forward legislation to establish powers to restrict the authorisation of marriages involving foreign nationals from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) to designated register offices and to introduce a pre-marriage eligibility requirement for such cases.
Based on the analysis and recommendations of the employment and business taskforce, the sectors-based scheme quota has been cut for the year beginning 1 June 2004. The scheme has been reduced from a total of 20,000 to 6,000 in food processing and 9,000 in hospitality. The Government have also announced that the WA 148 seasonal agricultural workers scheme quota will be reduced in 2005 by 35 per cent. These cuts reflect the proportion of the previous year's quotas taken up by workers from the accession countries, who are now entitled to come and work in the UK under the worker registration scheme. The taskforce is currently consulting on introducing country-specific quotas which will be dependent on countries having satisfactory returns agreements with the UK.

We are consulting with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the NGO quarterly meetings, which discuss developments in European and international asylum policy. This group is made up of representatives from bodies including UNHCR, the Refugee Council, the Scottish Refugee Council, Amnesty International, Oxfam and Refugee Action. Ministers also have regular meetings with the chief executive of the Refugee Council and UNHCR to discuss issues of concern relating to immigration and asylum.

Further, the marriage taskforce has formed a cross-governmental joint working group made up of officials from the offices of the registrars general for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Church of England, LACORS, and registrars from across the UK. The group is working on identifying strengths and weaknesses of current systems and will facilitate the introduction of the aforementioned designated centres.

The student taskforce has held key meetings with stakeholders in the education sector, including Lord Tomlinson's group of blue chip private colleges. Workshops have been organised with the sector to discuss how best to implement arrangements for notifying us of overseas students who fail to turn up for, or drop out of, a course, as well as for strengthening the fees requirement for applications.