Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I was just going to give way to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I will then give way to other Members, if that is all right.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 12,832 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
That is precisely the point I am making. The Irish Government need to step up to the plate and provide answers. Where they fail to do so, we will take issue with them assertively. The key difference that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds South made was ensuring that the Irish Government are introducing legislation that will require them to co-operate in this process and, in many cases, provide answers that are essential in relation to the kind of person that the hon. Member for Strangford refers to.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I am going to come on to some of the answers to precisely those questions in just a moment, but I have spoken to Helen McEntee myself repeatedly and made some of those points, as well as to Jim O’Callaghan in the Irish Government. It is very important that the Irish Government play their part; otherwise what is the point? The right hon. Gentleman makes very strong points. He has made them to me before, and I have made them to the Irish Government.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I will give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman, and then I ought to make progress.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I too have read the reports that the hon. and learned Gentleman refers to, which of course are very disturbing. There is an ongoing inquiry, and it is not my job to do the work of that inquiry, but it is absolutely the job of the Irish Government to provide all the information the inquiry needs to do its work effectively. The Irish Government have set out the framework for their own legislation, and we want to see that progress swiftly in parallel with ours. In previous debates, there was some question about whether we had to complete our legislation before the Irish Government were going to do their legislation. To give further assurance, we will require the Secretary of State to lay a written ministerial statement before the full commencement of the troubles Bill, outlining the progress made by the UK and Irish Governments. I have spoken directly to Minister McEntee, and she has now said repeatedly in public that the Irish Government will march in lockstep with us when it comes to legislation, with the aim of having both of our sets of legislation come into force on the same day. The Bill’s Committee stage will be next week, and colleagues will want to consider all these matters in depth, but I want to end by urging everyone not to underestimate the importance of us enabling families to get the answers they require. We have already heard in this Chamber from our own Members the pain, grief and anguish—and sometimes the sense of revenge and anger—that comes with the fissures that opened up many, many years ago. I cannot tell Members how many times I have heard those same calls, often from people who lost members of the armed forces serving under Operation Banner, and often from people who served in the RUC. When the Good Friday agreement came about, I suppose there was a moment when everybody thought, “We’ve done our work now. Peace has come.” The last couple of weeks have shown that peace can sometimes be a very thin veneer, and sometimes the people who bore the biggest brunt of that peace—who had to sort of suck it up—were the families who had lost loved ones. Those families have never managed to get answers. I do not think we can ever really build a strong future for Northern Ireland unless we fully understand the past, and understanding the past means making sure that we get answers for people.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I would just gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that all that is under his legislation.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
I did.
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Northern Ireland Troubles Bill (Carry-over Extension)
It is really important to explain why we do not generally consider Northern Ireland legislation in a Committee upstairs; it is so that a lot of Members can take part in these debates.
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Prisoner Early Release Scheme
Tagging could be a way to provide real reassurance to communities and victims, but only if tags are fitted promptly and offenders are monitored. In April of last year, the Justice Committee raised concerns in writing about the time being taken to fit tags, and the Institute for Government found that between January and April of this year, more than 5,000 people who should have been monitored were not tagged—that equates to 15% of all people with an electronic tagging order. It also found that almost 1,600 people wearing a tag were wearing one that did not send a signal, due to technical faults or the device not being charged. Can the Minister tell us whether anything has changed since April? Specifically, what percentage of GPS tags are now being fitted on time? What is the longest time an offender can wait before monitoring begins, and when will offenders be tagged on day one, as victims and the public should be able to expect?
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Courts and Tribunals Bill
When I first put on my barrister’s robes and horse hair wig nearly 20 years ago, victims and defendants were not commonly waiting years for trial, victims of rape and serious sexual assault were not having their cases adjourned at the last minute multiple times, and it was not common to see significant numbers of defendants in the magistrates courts facing custodial sentences without lawyers and representing themselves. Years of austerity, court closures, pandemic pressures, court sitting day limits and increasingly complex evidence have driven the Crown court backlog to 80,000 cases. Removing the limits on court sitting days has not been enough. The backlog is still going up and our criminal justice system remains in crisis. I welcome the fact that this Bill is now back before the House, as further action is needed. I thank the Government for responding last week to the Justice Committee’s June report on the Bill. I welcome Government amendment 3, which directly answers the concerns raised by the Committee and Members across this House regarding the proposed Crown court bench division, where a judge, without a jury, would have decided cases. The Committee raised a number of other concerns. I will focus on three: the impact of magistrates courts delays, how the question of whether cases stay with the magistrates court or go to the Crown court will be determined, and the impact of the number of people representing themselves in our criminal courts, which is already too high. In order for the backlog in the Crown court to come down in this Parliament, as the Government intend, the reforms are to be brought forward sooner. I want to see rapid action, but we cannot ignore the storm that is gathering in our magistrates courts. Clause 6 doubles magistrates’ sentencing powers to up to 24 months’ custody, shifting significant caseloads out of the Crown court, but the backlogs in our magistrates courts are already climbing month on month. Even without these reforms, the workload in magistrates courts over the last three years has increased by 65%. The Committee made it clear that without “significant additional support”, our local courts will not be able to cope. It is positive that the Government are confident that they are on track to meet their target of 21,000 magistrates, taking numbers back to where they were in 2014, and I welcome additional recruitment of trainee legal advisers and district judges. But will that be enough? Will it happen fast enough? Do we even have enough physical courts to cope with demand, when 165 magistrates courts were closed between 2010 and 2020.
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Courts and Tribunals Bill
While there are some lawyers on the Benches of this House, there are also many coming through the ranks; we need to ensure that they are going into the criminal justice system, and I am concerned that we are not seeing enough taking that path. Accelerating reforms means accelerating the strain on our magistrates court, so will the Minister bring forward target dates to match the accelerated timeline? Precisely what capacity will be added to the magistrates court before this wave of work arrives? Removing the right to elect in either-way offences drives an even bigger wave of work into the magistrates court. I understand the Government’s concern that more and more defendants are electing a jury trial; many are exploiting the Crown court delays and betting that victims and witnesses will tire and pull out. I have spoken to lawyers and judges who share our frustration. However, if the right to elect is removed, the allocation guidelines that the magistrates apply in deciding whether defendants should face a magistrates court or a jury trial should be reviewed.
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Courts and Tribunals Bill
I am very conscious of the time available for this very important legislation, so I am turning the page to conclude. To return to where I started, I welcome the Government’s commitment to bringing down the backlog. However, if we sweep the queue away from the steps of the Crown court only to lengthen the line around the block at the local magistrates court, we will not serve that aim, and we will continue to fail victims of crime and defendants alike.
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Wildfires: UK-Welsh Government Co-operation
I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Of course, I am not from Wales, but my constituency suffered from terrible wildfires over the summer, with 19 homes completely destroyed and 22 more severely damaged. Some people are still displaced because of that. I was pleased to be invited to the wildfire summit by the Prime Minister. My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) is absolutely right that affected MPs should be able to attend the summit to take forward their constituents’ experiences and to ensure that we are not still talking about this issue in six months’ time.
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Youth Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Support
The recent demise of Papyrus was sad. It did amazing work not just in running the HopeLine but in pioneering suicide safety planning for young people and supporting parents. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government urgently need to replace those services somewhere in the mental health ecosystem?
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UK Coach Industry
Good morning, Mr Turner. It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, as always. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing the debate. I wish to concentrate on the industrial and procurement elements in respect of buses and coaches. I refer right hon. and hon. Members to my membership of Unite the union. At the end of March, Alexander Dennis announced that there would be 115 job losses and an end to Scottish bus manufacturing in Falkirk. In my constituency, the Larbert site has been converted to chassis manufacturing. The week before Alexander Dennis made that announcement, the Scottish Government declared the results of the £45 million Scottish zero emission bus challenge fund, or ScotZEB 3. In total, 334 zero emission vehicles were to be built. Alexander Dennis was awarded 123 buses, which is just 36% of the total, whereas just under half of all orders—for 166 buses—were awarded to a Chinese company Yutong. Make no mistake: the SNP Scottish Government were fully aware that ScotZEB was essential for the sustainability of the Alexander Dennis sites in Scotland. The SNP also knew that Alexander Dennis workers needed the Scottish Government to back them, but the SNP backed China instead. Of course, as with all industrial issues, there is a ripple or knock-on effect. For every job in bus manufacturing, there is a multiplier of three to four jobs in the wider supply chain and support services. The 115 job losses on the site really translates into hundreds more job losses—maybe even as high as four figures—in the supply chain across the Forth valley and the rest of Scotland. What is happening at Alexander Dennis is another example in a catalogue of industrial closures impacting Scotland. I say respectfully to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) that he is welcome to challenge me and intervene on anything that I am about to say. The truth is that the SNP solution was a furlough scheme, introduced with the aim of providing a stopgap solution, so that NFI—the Canadian-based owners of Alexander Dennis—could come up with a rescue plan, but no rescue plan was forthcoming. The SNP strategy was, “Let’s give NFI a pot of money and hope that the problem will go away.” Instead of doing anything meaningful that would actually save the jobs, all the SNP had to offer was a stalling tactic: delay the news of the inevitable SNP Scottish Government’s failure to help and save Scottish bus manufacturing until after the Holyrood election. The SNP put its own party’s success at the ballot box well ahead of workers and industry in Scotland.
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UK Coach Industry
I say to the hon. Member from the Scottish National party that constituents are constituents. When constituents from Alloa and Grangemouth, in the corresponding Scottish Parliament area, come to me because they have had dreadful service from an SNP MSP, does he expect me to turn my back on them? No, I will do something different: I will give them the service that they elected me to provide. Instead of subsidising Chinese competition, the Scottish Government should simply back Scottish workers. A possible solution, as Scottish Labour suggested, was for the Scottish Government to move to direct state procurement, allowing contracting authorities to use the Procurement Act 2023 to legally disregard bids from non-treaty state suppliers such as China and instead embed domestic social value for Scottish workers, Scottish communities and Scottish business. The Scottish Government should get rid of the failed ScotZEB model and put in place a state-backed purchasing and leasing scheme. I find it laughable that the SNP wants more powers to go to Holyrood. How about using the powers that it actually has for public good and saving Scottish bus manufacturing? Of course, that would not fit in with the “Westminster bad” narrative, which is oh so easy. After 20 years of SNP government, the party still refuses to take responsibility, and the Alexander Dennis workers and the wider Scottish working class are paying the cost for it.
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Topical Questions
Thank you, Mr Speaker. £15,000 in 1991 is certainly not £15,000 now, so will the Secretary of State meet with me to discuss amending the outdated schedule 4 to the Coal Mining Subsidence Act 1991 to raise the £15,000 statutory cap on the home loss payment so that my Coalsnaughton constituents can receive fair compensation as they face the demolition of their homes?
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Pensions Triple Lock
The Secretary of State says that a range of options has been put forward, but what about taxing the wealth of multimillionaires and billionaires? Funding social care should come from taxing them instead of reducing pensioner security. There are 2 million pensioners in the UK living in poverty, and that is even with the triple lock. Why will the Government not tax the wealthiest to pay for social care instead?
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Energy Costs for Businesses
The Government recognise that energy costs remain a challenge for businesses across the country. Our British industrial competitiveness scheme, which is now open, will support over 10,000 businesses, cutting electricity costs by up to £40 per MWh. There is also the British industry supercharger’s enhanced support for our most electricity-intensive firms. We know that is not enough, and we are working across both my Departments to explore further options.
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Energy Costs for Businesses
As ever, my hon. Friend is a champion for business and industry in Southport. The short answer is yes, I will write to Ofgem on this matter, and I will share the response with my hon. Friend. In the meantime, I reassure him that Ofgem’s cost allocation and recovery review is considering how costs should be recovered from consumers, and the arrangements for recovering network costs.
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Energy Costs for Businesses
The hon. Gentleman makes one of the many good arguments for acting at pace to get cleaner energy, which is good for business and household consumers, and saves a considerable amount of money for the public sector. That is exactly why we are investing in, for example, rooftop solar across the public sector. We will certainly work with the Scottish Government on that.
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Energy Costs for Businesses
As has happened so often, we find ourselves rising to the Dispatch Box to answer Opposition Front Benchers’ questions about why we have not been quick enough to fix the mess that they left us. By all means criticise the speed and the scale of our ambition—we are certainly ambitious to go quicker—but the shadow Minister’s proposal is to regress to the policy of reliance on fossil fuels that got us into this mess, and does not bear any scrutiny.
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Topical Questions
I am the one who can organise something in a brewery, apparently! We hear lots of representations from hon. Members in support of small businesses, and we recognise the challenges that they face with their energy costs. Eligible small businesses are already benefiting from the VAT cut. On top of that, we will bring forward measures to deal with the third-party intermediaries who are often ripping off small businesses. As I said earlier, we are keen to go further, and I am working across both of my Departments towards that end.
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Rosebank Oil and Gas Field
In Canada, Prime Minister Carney has taken a more pragmatic approach to the energy transition than his predecessor, notably by designating the west coast oil pipeline as a project of national interest. In this country, the Prime Minister says that drilling in the North sea is something that he is pragmatic about. Does the Minister agree with continued drilling in the North sea, and does he see us taking a similar approach to Canada, and securing agreement to emission reductions in return for that drilling?
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
It is important to consider this—and this is why we must reject the Opposition’s approach—in the same way that we consider the police. We must ensure that the public interest covers a wide range of things; if we said it only concerned crime, we would end up in a situation where our police were not protecting individuals or running an effective constabulary in their area and were, in effect, letting down the rest of the country. Does the Minister agree?
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
One of the main arguments that the Opposition spokesperson put forward was that the system would be too slow under the Bill. However, one key thing that was not mentioned was clause 9(4), which gives the Secretary of State the ability to expedite individual cases. Is it not the case that the Bill as drafted protects the individual’s legal right while also making sure that, when there are grotesque crimes against this country, we can expedite to give people the certainty they need that the system is fair and swift?
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns about independence from the Government and other bodies, but many bodies across Government are involved in complex cases, such as in criminal law. For example, the Criminal Cases Review Commission is appointed by the MOJ to look into miscarriages of justice. Are we honestly saying that the IIAA would not have those same safeguards, in this case from the Home Secretary rather than the Lord Chancellor? Within the Bill, we are introducing a process that maintains independence while keeping accountability to Parliament, which will be vital in securing our constituents’ trust in a fair and transparent process for our immigration system.
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Fourth sitting)
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Fourth sitting)
Does the Minister agree that the problem with amendment 90 is that if we expedite everything, we expedite nothing? Having the clause as drafted—making this a precise move taken by the Secretary of State—ensures that those cases that our constituents know need to be expedited, will be. The broadbrush approach proposed by the Opposition would fail that completely.
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Wildfires: UK-Welsh Government Co-operation
In my north-east Wales constituency, we saw the absolute best of community spirit in Halkyn and Windmill, where the community came out to do a post-wildfire litter pick to clear up the area. As the Minister has recognised, their efforts, along with those of firefighters and military personnel, were crucial. My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) has put forward many ways to improve wildfire responses; does the Minister agree that the response this time also showed the importance of cross-border collaboration in tackling wildfires?
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Household Energy Bills Support
With approximately 15% of Derby South households estimated to be living in fuel poverty, too many families will be dreading higher energy bills as the nights draw in. What reassurances can the Secretary of State offer my constituents that as much help as possible is on its way?
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Youth Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Support
Earlier this month, Linking Hope hosted an upstream suicide prevention training event in Derby South. It does fantastic work with voluntary groups, charities and members of the public. Does my hon. Friend agree that the stronger those links are, the better we are all equipped to help young people in this area?
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank all Members for the constructive debate we have had on the amendments to clause 1 of this Bill, particularly the hon. Members for Brighton Pavilion and for Stockton West, and the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire, who tabled amendment 87. I would like to say up front that it is very clear that consent for our asylum system in the public domain is fraying. The important part of this Bill is to seek to restore control, restore fairness and rebuild the public’s confidence. We have made huge progress on initial decision making; we have cut the backlog in initial decisions by 72% from the 2023 peak. However, as we have done so, the appeals backlog has grown substantially, now with waiting times of more than two years. Some appeals are absolutely genuine, and they of course must be heard fairly. However, it is clear that some claimants are lodging appeals to frustrate their legitimate removal from this country. As of June 2026, the open caseload in the first-tier tribunal immigration and asylum chamber was about 156,000. The average time taken to clear appeals across all categories is currently at 65 weeks: 72 weeks for asylum protection, 74 weeks for human rights and 48 weeks for European economic area free movement. The Government have substantially increased both capacity and productivity in the FTT IAC, but demand has risen considerably faster. Receipts increased from around 58,000 in 2023-24 to almost 118,000 in 2025-26, while the outstanding caseload rose from around 50,000 to more than 150,000. We have done our best to try to support the workforce within that existing system. We increased the judicial workforce by 21% to 311 judges, including 61 new fee-paid judges and 25 salaried judges who began sitting between January and March this year, and we are continuing further recruitment. The structural constraint is just how quickly judicial capacity can scale. Judicial recruitment draws on a relatively limited pool of experienced lawyers, and it currently takes around 12 to 18 months from launching an exercise to a judge being able to sit, so that is not feasible. The IIAA therefore broadens the recruitment pool, providing greater flexibility and allowing us to increase capacity while maintaining robust safeguards around training, legal support, quality assurance and professional standards.
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and all of us, as Members of Parliament, will have had our own cases that challenged some of the standards. However, what we have seen is that, while the number has increased, the decision making quality has not gone up or down. I would also say that, at the moment, the delays in the current system mean that decision making becomes poorer, because evidence is produced later in the system and some of it is not sustainable, and more and more different routes are being attempted to string out appeals. The longer the process goes on, the more complex and difficult the decision making becomes. This is about having swift and fair decision making, but we will always keep the quality of decision making in this process under review in the Department. To create the swift and fair appeals system that we need, we are scrapping the judge-led asylum and immigration tribunal, which just cannot keep pace with demand, and we are replacing it with a new independent appeals authority to deliver swift and fair decision making. This authority will be staffed by independent adjudicators, who will be ordinary citizens trained like magistrates. To reduce abuse of the system, claimants will be allowed just a single route for appeal, which must be lodged as early as possible. That will remove the scope for bringing multiple appeals, as some claimants do, that are often vexatious and at the very last minute before removal. Late claims will be heard under an expedited process, ensuring that they cannot be used to frustrate a removal. There will be a right for a further appeal to a judge-led tribunal only on a point of law. The new authority will be independent of Government, with a chair and chief executive officer who are accountable to the Home Secretary and Parliament for delivering an effective and efficient system. All appointments will be based on merit and subject to fair and open appointments principles. All Ministers, including the Home Secretary, will be under a statutory duty to uphold the IIAA’s independence and not to influence its decisions.
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are really keen to ensure that public confidence is at the heart of this process; it cannot be allowed to operate in a vacuum. The public rightly expect us to have an immigration system that has regard to the public interest, and that is what these amendments and the Bill seek to reinforce. Clause 1 establishes the Independent Immigration Appeals Authority as a body corporate: a public body that is independent of Government. It is the first step in the Bill to overhaul the immigration and asylum appeals system, which has seen unacceptable caseloads and waiting times for determinations to be reached. Amendments 64, 48, 49 and 87 concern subsection (5), which sets out the objectives the authority must meet when exercising its functions, namely “(a) the aim to be accessible, fair and independent, (b) the aim to handle its cases quickly and efficiently, and”— crucially, as the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion mentioned—to “(c) have regard to the public interest”.
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not think many members of the public understand how our appeals process works. They see, particularly in the public domain, many cases that have been strung out with tentative evidence and means to do so, and that has led to a huge crisis of confidence. The Home Secretary set out very clearly that she is keen to restore order and control in our immigration service. That is crucial to the public confidence that we need in this country and for us to have a system that protects people from genuine war and persecution. It is vital that we maintain public confidence. Having regard to public interest is a key part of the system; the public would expect nothing less. Today, asylum and protection appeals take 72 weeks to be determined on average. As we set out in the “Restoring Order and Control” announcement, that extended period can lead to people bouncing around the systems for years—that is neither fair on them nor, given its cost, acceptable to the public—and, in turn, accruing new, additional reasons for delay. The objectives make it clear not only that justice will be done, but that to have an effective immigration and asylum system, the end-to-end decision making and the enforcement regime must be aligned. Importantly, the decision making is still independent, but it cannot operate in a vacuum. The body must be a key part of the country’s immigration and asylum system; as I say, the public would expect nothing less. New clause 12 seeks to require the Secretary of State to provide a report on the authority’s operations prior to commencement under clause 52(1). In our view, producing such a report prior to commencement is both unnecessary and, given the requirement on the IIAA to operate independently, inappropriate. Decisions on recruitment and training, which will ultimately inform capacity, timeframes and productivity, are for the authority alone; the Home Office should not pre-empt them in a parliamentary report. The Bill contains plenty of parliamentary reporting and accounting measures, which I am sure we will come to—
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
I hope the hon. Gentleman has seen the revised impact assessment, which now has a green flag. Let me set out some of the reporting avenues that are already in the Bill. At the end of each financial year, the authority must produce an annual report on the exercise of its functions and any other information as directed by the Secretary of State. The chief inspector of UK Border Agency will also produce a report once a year, and at other times if requested by the Secretary of State. The chief executive of the authority has a statutory duty to respond to that report and to send that response to the Secretary of State, who must lay it before Parliament alongside the report. The chief executive may also lay written representations on matters they consider to be of importance through the Secretary of State. There is a wide range of provisions in the Bill to ensure proper accountability to Parliament. Let me pick up the questions asked by the hon. Member for Stockton West about the costs of the IIAA. Detailed plans are currently being developed, and full costs and affordability will be developed through the business case; I undertake to keep Parliament completely updated throughout the process. As I say, we will be developing that, and I will make sure that Parliament is able to scrutinise it in the fullness of time, but in terms of operational capacity and productivity, we should not be pre-empting this. A report prior to commencement is not appropriate; it is for the IIAA, once established, to undertake its reporting duties. Amendment 87 seeks to narrow the scope of the public interest considerations to those that concern just effective immigration control and the “prompt removal” of those with no right to remain in the United Kingdom. While I have some sympathy with the objectives of the amendment, I am afraid that it cannot be accepted because it is far too narrow in its definition. The authority is an independent body—we have established that very clearly in the Bill—and one crucial part of the immigration and asylum system, not just an extended branch of immigration enforcement. The public interest spans the entire spectrum, and could include things that are not included in the amendment, such as public safety, operational impact and value for money. We do not want to lose those other factors by limiting the definition to effective immigration control and removal. It is important that we keep the scope broad.
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and makes a really good comparison with the police. The police are to some extent accountable to the Home Secretary, but she does not get involved in operational decision making. Our approach to the IIAA is similar: it is vital that we ensure that we have the wider public interest at the heart of it, because it will be a key part of the country’s nationality, immigration and asylum process.
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Immigration and Asylum Bill (Third sitting)
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but we live in a democracy. The Home Secretary of the day will be the Home Secretary of the day, and it is for them to define, legislate and direct the broader immigration system. To me, that is a key feature. It is really important that we have the flexibility to respond to the challenges and changes that our system faces, and that we ensure that we maintain public confidence in this process. At the moment, we have an abstract body that operates in a vacuum, purely with lawyers, and does not become part of the broader immigration process. It is important that public interest is part of this.