A drafting error in March deleted an entire section of Britain’s Immigration Rules. The Home Office restored it the day before the deletion took effect, using a power that needs no vote and no notice to Parliament. A House of Lords committee has now spent two reports asking why that power exists, and the answers it received raise as many questions as they settle.
On 5 March 2026, the Home Secretary laid before Parliament Statement of Changes HC 1691, a routine package of amendments to the Immigration Rules. Buried in the 48-page document, between a list of music festivals and an update to the Electronic Travel Authorisation country list, was a one-line instruction: “APP TWOV1. Delete Appendix Visitor: Transit Without Visa Scheme.” It was scheduled to take effect on 26 March 2026. By the Home Office’s own account, nobody intended it.
The Home Office did not fix the error by laying a corrected statement before Parliament. Instead, on 25 March 2026, one day before the deletion took effect, it published version 9.0 of its internal Transit guidance for Entry Clearance and Border Force officers. The guidance copies the deleted appendix word for word into an “Annex A” and declares that it “operates as a published concession outside the Immigration Rules.” The deletion went ahead. Seven months later, the scheme still sits outside the Rules, in a staff guidance document, under a power that Parliament has no formal way to overturn.
That is the finding at the heart of two reports from the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee: its 12th Report (HL Paper 58), published on 17 September 2026, and its 13th Report (HL Paper 68), published on 22 October 2026. The second report records a Home Office commitment to tell Parliament about future concessions of this kind. It also records the committee’s view that Parliament’s position remains “unsatisfactory.”
What the coverage has missed
The story has been reported mainly in specialist immigration-law outlets: Free Movement and the Electronic Immigration Network (22 September and 26 October). Those reports focus, reasonably, on what it means for practitioners. Three points deserve wider attention.
First, the Home Office could not tell the committee how often it uses this power. Asked how many times it had relied on section 3(1)(b) of the Immigration Act 1971 in recent years, the department replied, according to EIN’s account of the 12th Report, that “due to the nature of their usage, we do not keep records of every concession.”
Second, the minister’s reply in October did not defend the legal basis of the transit fix in full. Asked directly why the Home Office was “fully satisfied” that the transit concession did not amount to a rule change that should have been laid before Parliament, Lord Collins of Highbury, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, wrote: “While a final decision has not been taken, we acknowledge there may be good reasons why these provisions should go back into the Rules.”
Third, the committee concluded that the department’s earlier account of the governing Supreme Court case was incomplete. In its words: “We regret that the Home Office’s initial response did not refer to this part of the judgment, thus providing an incomplete view of the legitimacy of its approach in the TWOV example” (13th Report, para. 52).
Background: rules, statements and concessions
Britain’s Immigration Rules are not an Act of Parliament, but they are not mere guidance either. Section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 requires the Home Secretary to “lay before Parliament statements of the rules, or of any changes in the rules.” Either House may disapprove a statement “by a resolution of that House passed within the period of forty days beginning with the date of laying.” This is the negative procedure: changes take effect unless Parliament objects, but Parliament has a window to object.
Section 3(1)(b) of the same Act allows a person who is not a British citizen to be given leave to enter or remain. In R (Munir) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] UKSC 32, decided on 18 July 2012, the Supreme Court held that the 1971 Act itself, not the royal prerogative, is the source of the Home Secretary’s power to grant leave outside the Rules. Lord Dyson, giving the judgment of the court, said the language of section 3(1)(b) and (c) “could not be wider” (para. 44).
Most concessions outside the Rules are individual: a caseworker grants leave to someone who narrowly misses a requirement. The committee’s concern is with what it calls “generalised” concessions, which change how the Rules apply to whole categories of people. Lord Collins’s letter names two examples: the concessions used for the Ukraine schemes, and the transit fix.
What the Transit Without Visa scheme does
The Transit Without Visa scheme (TWOV) allows some travellers who would ordinarily need a UK visa to pass through the country “landside” (leaving the airport, for example to change airports) without one. The replicated text in Annex A of the guidance sets the conditions. The traveller must arrive and depart by air, be “genuinely in transit to another country,” leave “before 23:59 hours on the day after the day when they arrived,” and hold a confirmed onward booking. They must also hold a qualifying document, such as a valid visa for Australia, Canada, New Zealand or the United States, a US permanent resident card, or an Irish biometric visa.
The scheme matters to airlines, to UK airports and to the travellers who use them. It also matters to border control. The Explanatory Memorandum to HC 1691 itself explains why the same statement tightened transit rules for nationals of Nicaragua and St Lucia: without a transit visa requirement, they “will be able to travel to the UK purporting to have booked onward travel and instead claim asylum, thus circumventing the visit visa requirement.” Transit routes are a recognised pressure point. The rules that govern them are not a technicality.
RSN searched the text of that Explanatory Memorandum. It contains no reference to the deletion of the Transit Without Visa appendix, which fits the Home Office’s own account that the deletion was never intended.
Deep dive: how the error was handled
The timeline
- 5 March 2026: HC 1691 is laid before Parliament. Paragraph APP TWOV1 deletes the transit appendix, effective 26 March.
- 25 March 2026: Transit guidance version 9.0 is “Published for Home Office staff,” reproducing the deleted appendix as Annex A and describing it as a published concession.
- 26 March 2026: The deletion takes effect. The scheme continues to operate, but outside the Rules.
- 17 September 2026: The Lords committee’s 12th Report is published. Its chair, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, writes the same day to Home Office minister Lord Hanson of Flint with five questions.
- 12 October 2026: Lord Collins of Highbury replies on behalf of the Home Office.
- 22 October 2026: The 13th Report is published, with both letters in Appendix 1.
The 21 days between laying and commencement are worth noting. According to Free Movement, the deletion resulted from “an administrative error during the drafting process,” and the Home Office noticed it shortly before the 26 March commencement date but “didn’t have enough time to correct it with a further change to the rules.” RSN has not seen the Home Office’s own words on when the error was discovered; that detail appears in the 12th Report, which RSN could not retrieve in full.
Parliament was not told. EIN’s summary of the 12th Report says the committee’s report notes that Parliament “was not notified of its use in March.”
What the Home Office told the committee
The Home Office described the error, in EIN’s account of the 12th Report, as arising in a process “where content is added, removed and edited as requirements evolve, often at pace.” It told the committee it had introduced clearance procedures, error tracking, post-publication reviews and a clearer summary document, and that it is moving to four scheduled sets of rule changes each year instead of more frequent ad hoc statements.
The committee welcomed those measures but was blunt about what the error showed. As quoted by EIN: “We understand that administrative and drafting errors can occur, although sufficient checks should be in place to prevent them from ever reaching finalised legislation. However, the unintended deletion of a complete, and significant, section of the rules goes beyond a mere administrative error and suggests more serious issues around quality control.”
“By decree”
The committee’s sharper concern is constitutional. In its 12th Report, as quoted by EIN, it said: “It is not clear why a power for the Secretary of State to counteract the effects of legislative errors, effectively by decree, exists in this area, while it does not (presumably for sound constitutional reasons) across the statute book more widely. While this power is undoubtedly convenient for governments, the House and the Home Office may wish to consider whether it remains appropriate as currently defined.” Lord Watson’s letter of 17 September put the same question to the department directly.
Lord Collins replied: “We do think it is appropriate for this power to remain.” He argued that both the Ukraine schemes and the transit fix were cases “in which its use was clearly justified,” and that in the transit case the concession “enabled the seamless continuation of landside transit following its erroneous deletion from the Rules.”
On how Parliament could overturn such a concession, he conceded the central point: “There is no specific statutory mechanism by which Parliament can annul or overturn a published concession in the same way it may seek to annul changes to the Immigration Rules under the negative resolution procedure.” He listed committee reports, parliamentary questions, debates and correspondence, through which “Parliament may press the Government to amend, withdraw, or place a concession into the Immigration Rules.”
The committee’s reply in the 13th Report (para. 53): “It is unsatisfactory that Parliament can do no more than ‘press’ for changes. In practice, in the absence of a formal mechanism, Parliament’s ability to challenge government decisions is limited.”
The Munir question
The Home Office had cited Munir as confirming the Home Secretary’s “wide discretion.” The committee pointed out that the same judgment sets limits. Lord Dyson drew a line between policies that say a rule “will always be relaxed in specified circumstances” and those that say it “may be relaxed if certain conditions are satisfied” (para. 45). The first kind, he said, may be “itself a rule ‘as to the practice to be followed’ within the meaning of section 3(2) which should be laid before Parliament.” His conclusion (para. 46): “The less the flexibility inherent in the concessionary policy, the more likely it is to be a statement ‘as to the practice to be followed’ within the meaning of section 3(2) and therefore an immigration rule.”
RSN analysis: Annex A does not read like a flexible, case-by-case policy. It is a verbatim copy of a former rule. It opens: “To be granted permission to enter as a Transit Visitor under the Transit Without Visa Scheme a visa national must meet all the requirements at TWOV 2. and one of the requirements at TWOV 3.” That is the language of a rule with fixed criteria, not a statement that leave “may” be granted depending on all the circumstances.
RSN analysis, continued: On the test in Munir, there is at least a serious argument that the transit concession is a rule in substance and should have been laid before Parliament. The Home Office has not conceded this, and no court has ruled on it. But the minister’s acknowledgement that “there may be good reasons why these provisions should go back into the Rules” suggests the department sees the difficulty.
The commitments
The Home Office has made three commitments, recorded in Lord Collins’s letter and the 13th Report. It will notify Parliament whenever it introduces “a new formal, generalised concession,” and publish it on GOV.UK. Lord Collins offered to write to the committee directly about any new concession, and the committee accepted. And he has “asked my officials to review all generalised concessions currently operated and to provide me with an assessment as to whether they should be placed into the Rules.” The committee asked for an update “when that work is concluded, or by the end of March 2027, whichever is sooner” (para. 51).
According to the GOV.UK collection of Statements of Changes, two have been laid since HC 1691: HC 259 on 9 July 2026 and HC 584 on 3 September 2026. RSN searched both. Neither restores the Transit Without Visa appendix to the Rules.
The case for the Home Office
The department’s position has real weight, and it should be stated fairly.
- Nothing about transit policy changed. The guidance states that “there has been no change to the UK’s transit policy” and that Annex A “replicates” the deleted appendix. The content Parliament had previously accepted under the negative procedure continued unchanged.
- The alternative was disruption. Without the concession, visa nationals relying on the scheme would have lost it overnight on 26 March, with knock-on effects for airlines and passengers. Ministers chose continuity over procedural purity, and that choice was defensible in the short term.
- The power is lawful. Munir confirms that section 3(1)(b) authorises leave outside the Rules, and that its wording “could not be wider.” The question is where its limits lie, not whether it exists.
- Ministers remain accountable. Parliament can ask questions, hold debates and call ministers before committees, and the Lords committee has done exactly that.
- The department has moved. It has tightened quality assurance, committed to notifying Parliament, and opened a review of all generalised concessions.
Those points rebut any suggestion of bad faith. They do not answer the committee’s structural concern. The Home Office’s reasoning would justify any future generalised change that ministers judge urgent, with Parliament’s only remedy being to “press.” In practice, a fix made under time pressure has now lasted more than seven months.
What is established, disputed and not established
Established
- HC 1691, laid on 5 March 2026, contained a paragraph deleting Appendix Visitor: Transit Without Visa Scheme, effective 26 March 2026.
- On 25 March 2026, the Home Office published staff guidance replicating the appendix as a “published concession outside the Immigration Rules.”
- Parliament was not notified at the time, according to EIN’s account of the 12th Report.
- The Home Office accepts there is “no specific statutory mechanism” for Parliament to annul or overturn a published concession.
- The Home Office told the committee it does “not keep records of every concession,” according to EIN’s account of the 12th Report.
- The Home Office has committed to notify Parliament of future generalised concessions and to review existing ones; the committee wants an update by the end of March 2027 at the latest.
- As of the two later Statements of Changes (HC 259 and HC 584), the transit appendix has not been restored to the Rules.
Disputed
- Whether the transit concession is lawful as a concession or is in substance a rule that should have been laid under section 3(2). The Home Office says its use was “clearly justified”; the committee says the department gave “an incomplete view” of Munir.
- Whether a power to change the effect of the Rules by concession remains appropriate. The minister says it should remain; the committee has questioned whether it remains appropriate as currently defined.
Not established
- How many generalised concessions are in force today. The Home Office has said it does not keep records of every concession, and its review has not reported.
- Exactly when the error was discovered and why it was not corrected through Parliament. RSN could not retrieve the full text of the 12th Report to check the Home Office’s account.
- Whether any traveller was refused transit or otherwise affected during the change. RSN has seen no evidence of this either way.
- Whether the Home Office will return the transit provisions to the Rules. The minister said “a final decision has not been taken.”
What accountability would look like
- A corrective Statement of Changes. The transit scheme should go back into the Immigration Rules, laid before Parliament under section 3(2), so that the 40-day disapproval window applies to it like any other rule.
- A published register of generalised concessions. If the department cannot say how many concessions it operates, its review should produce a public list, with the legal basis and start date of each.
- Reasons on the record. Where the Home Office decides a generalised concession should stay outside the Rules, it should publish its reasons, as the committee asked (para. 51).
- A written notification rule. The promise to notify Parliament should be set out in published guidance or a written ministerial statement, so it binds future ministers and not only the current one.
- A firm deadline. The committee’s March 2027 date should be met, and the result should be published, not only sent by letter.
- Parliamentary follow-up. The Home Affairs Committee, which Lord Collins himself named as a route for scrutiny, could take evidence on the review once it reports.
The episode began with one deleted line in a 48-page document. The larger question is whether a department that sets the terms of entry to the country should be able to rewrite how those terms apply without a vote, without notice and without a count of how often it does so. Parliament has asked. It has not yet received a full answer.
Related reading on RSN: What the EXR judgment showed about Home Office records; Britain’s right-to-work substitution loophole; the Hoxha tribunal ruling on fake documents in EU Settlement Scheme appeals. From the archive: House Will File Supreme Court Brief in Executive Amnesty Case (2016), on an American dispute over immigration policy made outside the legislature; and Former British Intelligence Director: Migration Crisis Set to “Reshape Europe” (2016).
Sources: HC 1691 Statement of Changes (5 March 2026); HC 1691 Explanatory Memorandum; Home Office Transit guidance v9.0 (25 March 2026); Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 12th Report, HL Paper 58; 13th Report, HL Paper 68; R (Munir) v SSHD [2012] UKSC 32; Immigration Act 1971, section 3; EIN, 22 September 2026; EIN, 26 October 2026; Free Movement, 22 September 2026.
Image: Benches in the Chamber of the House of Lords, by UK Parliament, licensed under CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
How this article was made: Right Side News researched and drafted this article with the help of AI tools. Sources are linked so readers can check them. Spot an error? Tell us in the comments and we will correct it.