Business of the House

A rather frustrating week in that my amendments on the Education Bill and Localism Bill weren't reached. The problem is that the Government are trying to cram an awful lot of legislation into Bills, and that means a huge number of amendments.

On Tuesday I spoke on two Immigration Orders, dealing with the special arrangements for processing admission to the UK of athletes competing in the Olympic Games and what are misleadingly called Games Family Members, meaning trainers, umpires etc and not relatives of the competitors. See www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110712-gc0001.htm#11071263000102

Wednesday I joined in Sally Hamwee's topical question about the situation following the demise of the Immigration Advisory Service, which went into administration last Friday, leaving its 10,000 clients without legal representation. Lindsay Northover, who was answering for the Ministry of Justice in Tom McNally's absence in Australia, disagreed with my suggestion that other practitioners might not be able to deal with all those clients left in the lurch, but its inevitable that there will be long delays and they will get an inferior service. It has taken over a year so far, for the case files of Refugee and Migrant Justice to be picked up, and they had only a fraction of the number of IAS's clients. See www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110713-0001.htm#11071356000440