Clause 2 - Entering United Kingdom without passport
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
3:30 pm
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I, too, will be brief because there is every benefit in hearing the Minister reply before we possibly have to suspend the sitting for a Division at 4 o'clock.
I do not intend to cover the clause in this debate, because we have covered practically all the arguments at exhaustive length already. However, I want to address the narrow issue of how, rather than deterring people from destroying their documents en route, we can make it useless for them to do so, because of a back-up form of identification coming into play.
New clause 5, which Opposition Members tabled to trigger the debate, has one merit and one merit only. It relates to schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971, which would be a suitable vehicle for the sort of proposals that we are considering, given that it already imposes duties on carriers. Setting aside those who arrive by other forms of transport, which I accept make the situation much more difficult, airlines are the crux of what we are talking about. Large numbers of people use that means of entry to the country, and it is the most regulated mode of carriage. There are already duties to inspect passports on embarkation and to keep records of the manifest for various reasons. That seems to be the most appropriate point at which to make a back-up record of those who travel on a flight, so that destroying travel documents becomes pointless.
I accept that photocopying is a cumbersome process. It is relatively low-tech, so it has the advantage that it can be done relatively easily in airports throughout the world—unlike the loyalty card approach espoused by the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central—but it poses problems in that it involves large piles of paper, is relatively slow and may not produce the desired result.
I do not see that as the only route that the Government might explore; there are real arguments on the other side. Indeed, at one stage, the hon. Member for Woking seemed to argue against his own new clause, in the teeth of spirited opposition from Government Members, who appeared to be rather better disposed towards the it than he did. Nevertheless, even taking all those matters into account, it is clearly desirable, if possible, to find a way to achieve that back-up.
I am not wedded to the particular suggestion that we have made; there may be other ways to achieve the objective. There is a requirement currently for people to fill in landing cards if they do not hold an EU passport. I wonder whether there is scope for having those landing cards filled in not in the middle of the flight, after the fish course, but at the point of embarkation and then held in the possession of the carrier for the duration of the flight. That might be a way of dealing with the logistics of achieving some record of people entering the country.
Something could be done about the geography of airports, particularly the major airports of entry to the country. I am often amazed that we almost invite the sort of abuse that the Minister described, by giving people an opportunity to mix between flights before passport control, and by having many places where they can hide airside. That seems unnecessary and could be addressed, with a little thought about where passport controls are situated, and how passengers are channelled from a flight to the point at which their passports are first inspected.
Turning to the publicity that the Minister talked about, if the landing card is provided earlier, that will provide an opportunity to spell out in the language of the person who is entering the plane what their legal requirements are. They would then, at an early stage, be in no doubt what they were required to do. All those suggestions must be worked through—there is no easy answer and I do not propose that there is.
I hear what the hon. Member for Woking said about the Olympic Airlines scheme. I do not know much about it and would like to know more. My last experience of Olympic Airlines was that the pilot emerged from the cockpit to engage in fisticuffs with the passenger in seat 2D. I am sure that that is not typical of Olympic Airlines but it rather put me off the flight.