Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to reassess their "hostile environment" policy.

The Compliant Environment is not a new concept. It is a renewed effort to develop an immigration system which supports compliance with our laws and Immigration Rules. Successive Governments have brought forward policies to protect the UK taxpayer from the misuse of public services and benefits and those policies are regularly reviewed.

In developing the Compliant Environment, we have ensured that those with lawful immigration status can demonstrate it easily. We take the quality of our decision making very seriously; we offer the right to redress and have also built in appropriate safeguards, taking careful account of the need to protect vulnerable persons and to mitigate the risk of taking decisions incorrectly. We will continue to keep those safeguards under review.