Clause 100 - Local authority
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 304, in page 50, line 15, after 'section', insert 'through a named officer'.
Now that I am an old hand at this amendment-moving business, I want to speak to another probing amendment.
We need a prompt, efficient system that is far more effective than that which has operated in recent years at keeping track of and removing immigration offenders. The clause will allow the Secretary of State more easily to track down various applicants but it also constructs a system of surveillance and information exchange which would not look out of place in the old German Democratic Republic. We need to be mindful of three important factors so that the tracking system will not be open to abuse: it must be sensitive; it must be applied consistently and, perhaps most importantly, it must ensure absolute secrecy and confidentiality.
If the system is to encapsulate those three factors, it is vital that the information is provided to and through a named officer who is also suitably senior and qualified. Not only should the officer be specifically designated to reveal the information, but the method by which he or she gives out the information is extremely relevant and should be tightly controlled. Only last year, someone purporting to be the Leader of the Opposition managed, on the strength of a feeble impersonation, to get through the Downing street switchboard to the Prime Minister in his bedroom.