Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)

I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has introduced his amendment, which he describes as probing, in the way that he has. On paper at least, I was going to refer to it as an “untidying” amendment rather than a tidying amendment, given that, by removing the definition of a foreign law enforcement agency, it would do precisely what he seeks not to do. If we take the amendment at face value, police, without being defined, could pass on information to anybody they so choose. I am glad he does not seek to pursue the amendment.

I am a bit worried, too, by the notion that the hon. Gentleman thinks that people who are “just passing through”, to use his terms, should be allowed to “just pass through” regardless of their position in other jurisdictions or of crimes that they may or may not have committed. I am sure that he did not mean it like that, but that is the way in which he phrased his introductory remarks.

We could almost put a tape recorder here in place of Ministers to respond to any number of the Liberal Democrat amendments. I repeat that anything in the Bill, not least in clause 34 will be implemented—we can do a chorus—entirely in accordance with the UK’s obligations under the 1951 convention, not to mention the 1951 European convention on human rights. That is at the root of the Bill.

I do not blame the hon. Gentleman—he is only here for a temporary four-year term—but I am sure that he will learn that he cannot look at any piece of legislation in isolation. It sits within the terms of all other existing legislation, whether that be human rights legislation, conventions to which we are signatories, an assorted range of other treaties, the Data Protection Act or whatever else. This is not a little game in which one looks at the substance of a Bill on its own without understanding its legislative context.

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