Clause 5
UK Borders Bill
9:15 am
Liam Byrne (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Birmingham, Hodge Hill, Labour)
We will have further thoughts on that for another day. Thank you, Mr. Illsley.
The reassurance that I can give the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley is threefold. First, the rationale for introducing biometric immigration documents and compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals is to help us to come down much harder on illegal working. It is too complicated to prove entitlement and entitlement to work today. We should phase those documents out and phase in a more secure system. Secondly, if we are to do that, we must equip employers with the ability effectively to take what would legally be defined as information, such as a fingerprint, and check that information against the card.
It is important to remember that “authorised person” has a very specific meaning in the Bill. It cannot include employers. So the effect of the amendment would be to stop employers taking fingerprints on a quickcheck reader and verifying them against the card. The amendment would unfortunately destroy employers’ ability to use these cards for any practical purpose. I accept that that may not be the intention of the amendment. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley talked about restrictions on our ability to sell this information on. There is no intention to sell this information on. The regulations that we will propose would make that quite clear. Unfortunately, the amendment would mean that employers would be denuded of the power to take biometric information and check it against the information stored on the chip on the card or, in due course, against the database, and it would therefore undermine the fundamental purpose of the scheme.