Clause 2 - Entering United Kingdom without passport
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) to the Committee.
Amendment No. 4 relates to the production of identification documents. It would permit the applicant at the first interview to produce another document that has been in force even if it is not currently in force. The purpose is straightforward. Why is it necessary for someone to produce a document when first interviewed by an immigration officer? The obvious answer is to establish who that person is. That is the mischief of which the Government complain in the explanatory notes on clause 2. By destruction of documents or something similar, too many people do not give immigration officers or other officials a clue as to who they are and where they are from.
Can that be cured? Yes. Can it be cured by the production of an immigration document, which according to the explanatory notes is effectively a passport or ''equivalent document'', whatever that may mean? Yes, that is one possible cure. Is it possible or sensible to amend the clause to give the person presenting himself the opportunity to present, if not a passport or other equivalent document, some other satisfactory means of identification? It would be all to the good if that was possible.
As I mentioned earlier, a huge proportion of births across the world go unregistered, meaning that the person has no birth certificate and it is difficult for them to get a passport. Huge numbers of people would not have a passport or equivalent document, such as travel permission from their country, but such people may have a document that can satisfactorily identify them. Some countries may, for example, have a military call-up document. We all carry documents that can establish who we are to a reasonably satisfactory degree. There is a variety of such documents in the UK.
If, on first interview, an asylum applicant was unable to produce a passport or relevant travel document, because they had never had or been given one, would it be satisfactory if they said, ''This is me, here is another document that adequately establishes who I am, and I am doing my best to co-operate with the authorities''? My amendment would allow them to do that.
The same general point emerges from amendment No. 5, which would allow someone to use an immigration document that either is or has been in force, by which I mean an expired document. It is a question of slightly widening the range of documents that are satisfactory on first interview.