Clause 2 - Individuals entered in Register
Identity Cards Bill
1:30 pm
Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)
I do not see how I could misread amendment No. 14, which says in all clarity—that is quite unusual for some of the amendments—“at end insert ‘or’.” That is relatively clear. If I have missed the point, we shall perhaps return to it subsequently.
Amendment No. 13 has substance; it would give an entitlement to an identity card to any foreign national who had leave to remain in the UK for more than one month. However, as I said when I made my point about reciprocity, European legislation prevents the UK from requiring European economic area nationals and their family members to register before they have been resident for three months.
In addition, I do not consider that such a short period would be helpful, either to the individual or for controlling immigration, even if it were legally possible. As I said earlier, some 91 million people arrive at UK ports yearly—that is the latest figure, from 2003. Of those, 64 million were British, 15 million were European economic area nationals and 12 million were foreign nationals subject to immigration control.
I dwelt this morning on the e-borders programme to be implemented for 2008 onwards. It will capture the 12 million foreign nationals who are subject to immigration control and visa restrictions. Clearly, in 2003, many of them will have been short-term visitors—tourists or business people—and they will be in future, and I do not see the point of providing under the Bill that a foreign national coming here for, say, a six-week holiday should be expected to register and obtain an ID card or, indeed, have an entitlement so to do.
The Bill allows us to prescribe a period after which foreign nationals would have an entitlement to register and be issued with an ID card. It is likely that that period may be three months, after which we will require them to obtain a card. However, we need to retain a power to prescribe the period so that, should it prove necessary to extend or reduce it, we have the liberty to do so. That is why the period of three months is not in the Bill.
There are good reasons for the three-month period. At present, the UK admits short-term visitors for up to six months, but internationally it is more common for people to be admitted for three months for a short visit. In the USA, for example, visitors are admitted for 90 days, while in Europe three months is the norm for a short visit. There is little point in requiring people visiting the UK for such a short period as 31 days to register and obtain an ID card, and to meet the costs of so doing. However, we clearly need to draw a line somewhere and it is more logical to expect that anyone here for more than three months is resident on a longer-term basis—as a student, for example—when the need to register and obtain an ID card would seem much more sensible. The three-month rule would capture the 840,000 Irish Republic nationals to whom the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) referred.