The Draft Immigration Bill, which the government published yesterday (12 November 2009) is the culmination of a highly ambitious set of measures designed to alter completely the structure of immigration law which was put into place nearly forty years ago by the Immigration Act 1971.

The Bill was accompanied by a command paper (Cm 7730) setting out the framework of the Bill and explaining how it will further the Government's objectives in respect of immigration to the United Kingdom.

Prominent among those objectives are the protection of the UK's borders, the tightening of customs restrictions to attack "border tax fraud" and the reaching of "fast and fair decisions" by the UKBA.

Interestingly at the beginning of its long term of office the government issued a command paper (Cm 4018 on 27-7-1998) entitled Fairer, Faster and Firmer - a Modern Approach to Immigration and Asylum.  The priorities are therefore pretty much the same.  No doubt there is no significance in the re-ordering of those of fairness and speed.

The Bill is intended to achieve the long promised "simplification" of immigration law, whereby the now familiar concepts of leave to enter, leave to remain and entry clearance are to be replaced by the single term "Permission", which will be what an applicant gets or is refused whether he or she makes an application in a consular office overseas, at a port or after entering the UK.

Similarly "Expulsion" will replace the current procedures of deportation and administrative removal.  Temporary admission will be replaced by "Immigration Bail".

The eradication of discretion in decision making – initiated over the last two years by the government's implementation of its points based system - will be extended to the system of appeals against decisions taken by the UKBA:

"It will not be possible for an appeal to be allowed simply on grounds that the immigration judge thinks the Secretary of State should have exercised his discretion differently."

To do all this much of the legislation which has been brought in by successive governments since 1971 will be repealed and replaced.  Unsurprisingly therefore the Bill comprises twenty parts and 347 clauses.  The combined Bill and its detailed explanatory notes run to 143 pages.

As the command paper makes clear however this is not the whole story.  The command paper announces further forthcoming changes including the redrafting of all of the Immigration Rules when (and if) the Bill becomes law.

Gherson will report on the progress of this Bill as it has done on all developments in legislation affecting those who wish to enter or remain in the UK.