Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill |
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Mr. Leech: A valid point has been made in relation to certified copies of documents. It seems straightforward to make a certified copy of a document that is retained so that someone can use it for the purposes of identity without it being useable as a travel document. Andy Burnham: I understand the point, but how useful would that document be, given that it is a photocopy? Furthermore, it would not be especially difficult to forge. What practical use would it be for people’s everyday business? One must look at another scenario. It may not always be practical to issue the person with a copy of the document. Although I do not disagree with the general thrust of the argument, no one wants to burden people unfairly in going about their daily business. That is not our intention. It is not right to legislate for the two or three occasions on which a passport may go missing. We are ensuring that we give people who are doing an important job on behalf of us all the ability to go about their business in a simple way. I recognise, however, that we should put systems in place which ensure that, where documents are retained, they are safeguarded and proper account of them is kept. There have been instances in which that has not happened. I accept the point, but I am afraid that I do not concede to go so far as to require all documents to be photocopied. Column Number: 178 The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) asked in what circumstances a passport may be needed in an immigration appeal. The passport or travel document is often relevant to an immigration appeal—for example, in cases in which the nationality of the individual who is appealing is disputed or in which passport stamps are relevant evidence to the claim that is being made. The document is also potential proof of that individual’s identity. More broadly speaking, immigration service staff retain passports to ensure that, where an appellant loses his or her appeal, he or she can be removed. The hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the National Audit Office report on removals. He will know that the need to ensure that people are properly documented can be a frustrating factor in operating an effective removals system. I hope he accepts that the need for proper documentation is an important element of our system. It is important to stress that the ARC card that is issued to all asylum seekers is meant to fulfil the functions that have been mentioned—that is, the ability to go about one’s daily business and the ability to prove one’s identity. The ARC card is a biometric identity card. I do not know whether hon. Members have seen one, but they are a proof of identity that is not currently available to other citizens. The hon. Gentleman asked about out-of-country appeals. Depending on the outcome of an appeal, the documents would be held until grant of appeal or removal/departure. That is the case in law at present. The Bill does not substantially change the present system; it simply rationalises the process that is in place. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), I cannot believe that there could be many—if any—circumstances in which travel documents would be retained when a removal had been effected or in which a voluntary return had been made. It would always be right to enable the individual to receive his or her documents. The hon. Member for Woking asked when people would be given back their documents. That would happen at the point of removal, when the individual has boarded the aircraft to leave the UK. That would be the right time to release the documents. These are points of operation for the immigration service and not for primary legislation. The overall principle is that we should return people’s travel documents to them. As he rightly said, it is not a light thing to take someone’s documents away from them. We should return them when they are no longer of any reasonable use to the immigration service. The clause is important, particularly in respect of the foundations it lays for biometric passports and visas, which will enhance the documents and give their owners more confidence that their travel documents cannot be abused or used fraudulently by those who take those documents from them. It is an assurance for the Government and for the individual travelling member of the public. It will help us to tackle
Question put and agreed to. Clause 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 24 Attendance for fingerprinting Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con): On the face of it, the clause looks pretty straightforward, but I hope that the stand part debate will give me an opportunity to probe the Minister because its effect is to move the goalposts for a certain category of person. At present, under section 142 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, people who are required to be fingerprinted are allowed to have notice of at least seven days in which to attend and, further, that period cannot begin until at least seven days have passed since the date of the notice. However, the amendment will apply to a certain category—namely asylum seekers and their dependants—and reduce that timing to three days. I want to probe the Government’s intention in seeking to amend the clause on those lines and to raise a couple of the difficulties that might arise from it, chiefly to discover the thinking behind the proposed changes. The people for whom it is proposed that three days rather than seven will apply are those who have sought recognition as a refugee or asserted that their removal would breach their rights under article 3 of the European convention on human rights, and it includes their dependants. Why is the change proposed and why only in respect of that category of person? What evidence is there that it will make such a difference? Will it truly give the Government the advantage that has merited adding a clause? The logical question stemming from that is: why three days? Why not 24 hours or four days? Is there some magic about the time scale, because three days will cause problems? What will happen if a person can prove that the notice did not reach him or her until after the date on which that person was required to attend? Sadly, we are all familiar with our postal system, which has deteriorated under the Labour Government. In the old days I could guarantee that the first post would arrive first thing in the morning and the second post in the afternoon, but now I cannot guarantee that it will arrive at any time during the day. If the notice was delayed in the post, for example, what would the situation be? Three days is a very short time. 11.15 amThese are not people that we have tagged or tied down in chains. What would happen if they were temporarily absent from their accommodation for a couple of nights, and therefore did not comply with this new and arduous time limit? Column Number: 180 Moreover, if these people are required to travel, which might be the case, what if they do not have the wherewithal to travel to that destination? As I understand it, the consequences of failure to comply with the provisions are that, under section 142(3) of the 1999 Act, they can be arrested without a warrant. I hope that the Minister will respond to those pertinent questions. The fundamental question is why there is a difference. Why pick out this category? I hope that the Minister, in his response, will give a rational and suitable explanation. I shall now move away from the three days’ timing and the notice delivery and what may cause a person to fail to comply, to the requirement that a person attend at a specified time of day or a specified hour. The proposal to shorten notice periods and give fixed times will run the risk of more missed appointments and perhaps more wasted time. We are all familiar with our GPs complaining when people do not turn up. If people are forced into a straitjacket, it will increase the risk that they will not be able to comply with the conditions that have been placed on them. While I am on the subject of fingerprinting and this clause, will the Minister examine the wording that has been used in the drafting of the legislation? In proposed new subsection (2) the wording is
and in (2A) it is
Could attendance not be by arrangement and by mutual agreement? Why must there be that dominant relationship in which an order is barked out to someone to attend? Why could attendance not be by mutual arrangement and agreement, rather than being a requirement, as currently drafted? I am also sad to see that there is a lacuna in respect of fingerprinting. I hope that the Minister will give me an assurance that appropriate personnel will be used to take the fingerprints. For example, a friend of mine, who is a devout Muslim, would not even shake my hand because I am a lady. That is understandable: it is his culture. Will the Minister reassure me that if there was an issue of culture, particularly in relation to this vulnerable group of people, there would be no repercussions and no insistence that the fingerprinting was carried out by someone inappropriate? Receiving the Minister’s reassurance on that matter during our discussion of the Bill would stand us in good stead. I do not think that I look like a person who will be troublesome to any jurisdiction in which I travel. However, this summer, without any notice or warning whatever, when I was merely travelling through the United States of America, I had to be fingerprinted for the first time in my life. The Minister is looking at me with wide-eyed youth on his side. I do not know whether he has ever been fingerprinted. I had never been fingerprinted before in my life, but I did not require three or seven days’ notice. It was just done as a matter of course. Naturally, as a law-abiding citizen and wanting to facilitate my very swift passage through the United States of America, I raised no objections. But interestingly, my husband, who is a
However, I want to know whether down the line the Minister is planning to fingerprint everybody and if not, why not. Are we not going to a halfway house here without facing the reality? Home Office officials have helpfully produced a number of impact assessments to go with the Bill. I should like to refer to the partial regulatory impact assessment on data capture and sharing powers for the border agencies. I know that the Minister will be familiar with everything in that document. His hon. Friends may laugh, but the Minister is in command of his brief and he will be familiar with everything in it. According to that document, one of the purposes and intended effects of all these new provisions is to maintain
The phrase
suggests to me that down the line we will have fingerprinting in line with what is happening in the US. I would particularly like the Minister to comment on that and on the last page of that impact assessment. Paragraph 19, entitled “Competition assessment”, states:
Once again, that looks as if this is only a halfway house and more is coming down the road, certainly to bring us in line with other EU member states. I should like the Minister to share his thinking on this. My final point relates to costs. I have tried to familiarise myself with the impact assessments as best I can. The document on data capture and sharing powers deals with various areas of the financial impact, such as the potential obsolescence of landing cards and other manual processes which will provide a cost saving. Another part of the document allows for the redeployment of otiose Home Office staff who would be redeployed into this area too. Could the Minister give us some idea what the costs are for this area and what the cost savings might be in other areas by moving to a more reliable and secure system? Once again, is this a halfway house before we move fully down the road to full fingerprinting and biometric details of everyone coming in and out of our country? Mr. Leech: I will not go over the points made by the hon. Lady, but I should like to touch on a couple of issues specifically in relation to the period of notice that people will be given for fingerprint tests. I believe
I believe that people who are sent letters containing deadlines and days and times for fingerprinting will often receive them after that time. As a result, the system will be slowed down rather than speeded up. Many appointments will be missed and will have to be reissued, causing an administrative nightmare, whereas if we kept the existing regulations, whereby people are given seven days’ notice, we could pretty much guarantee that people would receive the notification in time and would be able to attend at some time—not at a specific time in the day, but at some point during a particular day. What clause 24 proposes—we tabled an amendment suggesting that the clause be deleted—will revert to the status quo and the powers in place under the 1999 Act. Three days’ notice is completely unworkable and I ask the Minister to think again. Andy Burnham: I shall seek to address all the points raised by the hon. Gentleman and by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham, but let me begin by introducing clause 24. Asylum claimants and their dependants are issued with an application registration card—the ARC card, which we talked about previously—when they make an asylum claim. At the moment, fingerprints are taken from the claimant and their dependants and stored on the card for identification purposes; it is a biometric identity card. However, in certain circumstances it is not possible to take fingerprints from or issue claimants with an ARC card at the point at which the application is made, for a variety of reasons. They may be asked to go to an asylum screening unit. As the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham said, section 142 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 provides the Secretary of State with the power to issue a written notice that requires the principal claimant and any dependants to return to a specified place to provide fingerprints. At present, that must be at least seven days after the date of the notice. The notice must also provide the claimants with a minimum period of seven days within which they should attend. It may specify the time of day or hours during which they should attend. Clause 24 makes two amendments to section 142 to bring it in line with our processing procedures, which have become more streamlined and more efficient since the 1999 Act was passed. First, the clause reduces the period between the date given in the notice as its date of issue and the date when an asylum seeker and any dependants can be required to attend for fingerprinting from seven days to three, as has been said. Secondly, the clause enables the Secretary of
The Secretary of State will continue to have the power to specify the time of day or hours—to answer the hon. Lady’s point—during which an asylum claimant and their dependants should attend for fingerprinting, as under the existing legislation. Mrs. Gillan: Why can that not be by agreement and arrangement, rather than by an order? 11.30 amAndy Burnham: I was coming on to address some of the hon. Lady’s points. She rightly wanted to bring out the logic and the reasons behind the change, and began by asking why we are making the change, what the evidence is, and why the requirement of three days. Under article 6 of the EU directive on reception conditions, which came into force in February this year, we are obliged within three days of a claim being lodged to provide every claimant with a document issued in their name, certifying their status as an asylum seeker. In our case, there are two principal documents that can be used to confirm that: the ARC card, which I have mentioned, and a document referred to as a standard acknowledgment letter. Hon. Members may have seen those at their advice surgeries. Either can be used to satisfy that document. The standard acknowledgment is obviously a far less secure document than the ARC card. I am not making the point that we have an EU directive and that is why we have to do it within three days, but the clear expectation is that we issue a document within that time frame, not just for the convenience of the administrative staff, but because the directive recognises that it is important for asylum seekers to have a reliable document as quickly as possible so that they gain access to the support to which they are entitled. An ARC card is important so that individuals can receive benefits via the post office or other locations. The directive is driven not only by administrative convenience but by a wish to ensure that people are documented as quickly as possible. Mr. Leech: On a point of clarification, documents are to be provided within three days and there have been suggestions that people should be fingerprinted within three days. Realistically, with letters being processed and sent out, it is still going to take more than three days, so it is a false argument for the Government to suggest that they have to reduce the time from seven to three days on the basis that people must be provided with the document within three days. Andy Burnham: There are a couple of points to make. It is obviously in all our interests that multiple documents are not swirling round the system. It is much better to issue somebody with a more secure document as quickly as possible, rather than issuing standard acknowledgment letters, as well as other documents. We would rather issue one high-quality
As for postal delays and the administrative chaos that could ensue, most notices are handed to individuals in person when they attend the initial interview that all asylum seekers go through. Notices are frequently not put into the post; they are frequently handed to the individual in person. That is why the change can safely be made without causing chaos. Mr. Leech: I want to push the Minister on this. Is he suggesting that there will be no circumstances in which documents are sent through the post? Andy Burnham: I do not think that I was suggesting that. I hasten to point out that it is also in claimants’ interests to be documented to a high standard as quickly as possible. They can then claim the support to which they are entitled. That is in everybody’s interests, including those of the immigration and nationality directorate and the asylum seeker. That is the starting point. Mrs. Gillan: Is not there a logic gap? The Minister says that, within three days, we can fingerprint the individuals, their children and their dependants. Then we can issue the ARC card, which will give them access to support from the National Asylum Support Service. In throwing out some of the theories, what would happen if an individual and his or her dependants do not have the money to attend for fingerprinting? That would be rather ironic, would it not? The Minister wants to get the card to people as quickly as possible so that they will be entitled to the financial support that they deserve, yet they may not have the wherewithal to attend. Andy Burnham: I am not saying that the notice would be received in person in every case. There may be circumstances in which it will arrive by post. We must be clear that for the claim to start to work properly, people must go through that process. It is in their direct interests that they are enabled and encouraged to do that as speedily as possible. Many points that have been made are operational ones for the immigration and nationality directorate. They are not necessarily the concern of the Bill or other primary legislation. However, I accept the reasonable points that have been made. It is not the intention to place undue pressure on individuals to attend at a time of the system’s convenience or to make it extremely difficult for them to do so. We intend to move to a clearer system, where people are given an appointed time within a reasonable time frame, where we do not have to issue them with a temporary standard acknowledgment letter and where we can proceed straight to the ARC card. Those measures will speed up the process and make it more efficient. I encourage hon. Members to attend an asylum screening unit, if they have not already done so, where they will see the nature of the operation. It is efficient and streamlined, but staff are trained to deal with the
We all have an interest in the system working. It would be in the interests of both the immigration and nationality directorate and the asylum seeker to give a specified time for claimants to attend. Mrs. Gillan: I am going to tempt the Minister again down this path. If we are trying to reduce bureaucracy, to give people the immediacy of support and to identify people sensitively, why will he not go down the route of fingerprinting everybody, with the exception of the under-fives because their fingerprints are not be fully formed and, therefore, cannot be registered? Surely that is the simplest, most accurate and most exact route. The measure is another halfway house. I think that the fingerprinting of everybody is coming anyway and that this step is part of a process of erosion. Andy Burnham: The hon. Lady is right that the provision does not extend to those under the age of five. It does affect all asylum claimants, however. We must be clear about that. It does not affect a particular group. The requirement applies to all asylum applicants and their dependants. I agree that that does not include those under five year, although it does affect everybody else. The majority of claimants will be issued with an ARC card at the first point they present in person or at their initial interview. We want to issue them with that document at the earliest possible time, and that is in their interests, too. Clause 24 deals only with a minority of cases that have to be given an appointed time to return. I take the points about how the system needs to be implemented. It needs to work for both the individual and the staff who are administering it. We believe that it will achieve on both counts, but I hear the issues that have been raised. The hon. Lady asked who would take the fingerprints and raised potential cultural issues. The immigration and nationality directorate is highly aware of those issues and care would always be taken when registering a person’s fingerprints. She broadened out the discussion and mentioned her experience on her summer holiday travelling round the US— Mrs. Gillan: It was work. Andy Burnham: The hon. Lady was not pleased about being fingerprinted—the first time in her life that it had happened. It made me wonder how many other Tory MPs have been fingerprinted. I am sure that you, Sir Nicholas, are not one of them, but there are allegations swirling around. However, we will not go there. The hon. Lady asked whether we are looking forward to a world in which everyone is fingerprinted. The point about the biometric passport, which many countries are moving towards, and the e-borders
Mrs. Gillan: I think the Minister is saying that basically we are going to fingerprint everyone on the way in and the way out. I should like some clarification. I asked the American immigration officer who took my fingerprints how long they would keep them on their database. He appeared not to understand the question because my fingerprints are in the USA database in perpetuity. What I thought impressive about the information-sharing aspect of the system was that the immigration official also had the details of my visa, which had expired some time ago. That gives rise to a question. I think that under the 1999 Act there is a period of time by which fingerprints have to be destroyed. Does the Minister plan on keeping all fingerprints of anyone who falls under those categories in perpetuity in order to secure our borders? Andy Burnham: I made some light-hearted remarks a few moments ago, but there is a connotation attached to fingerprinting: some people may find it uncomfortable or intrusive. That will change, because people who have travelled to the US, as the hon. Lady has, in the past few years—certainly since 2001—will have found that it is being carried out routinely. I have not been there since that time, but I believe that at certain ports the exit controls are becoming automated so that the US immigration authorities simply match the fingerprint to the record that they held on arrival and automate that part of the process. People are going to become more familiar with the process in the next few years. We have made it clear that regardless of what happens with identity cards and whether the House finally approves that legislation, we are moving towards a biometric passport, which ultimately will contain a chip of people’s records. 11.45 amHon. Members may ask why we are committed to that system. It is precisely because the linkage between a unique personal identifier, be it a fingerprint or iris pattern, means that each person can register for only one document. That is the core strength of the biometric system. The photo and the signature are no longer a guarantee of identity and veracity. |
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