Amendment No. 73 deals with registration cards, which are to be issued to all asylum seekers. We understand that that work has already commenced. We expressed concerns about this in Committee; Liberal Democrat Members have concerns about registration cards in the wider sense, and we sought assurances that they would be restricted to specific purposes to do with asylum and immigration.

The amendment would prevent the Home Secretary from being able to extend the use of registration cards, even into areas of immigration, through secondary legislation. We remain concerned, as we were in Committee, about the possible extension of registration cards without proper parliamentary scrutiny.

We understood from the Minister's comments in Committee that the initial intention was to limit the card to asylum seekers. Indeed, clause 121(1)(b) is specific about the card being

"issued . . . in connection with a claim for asylum".

We suggested in Committee that if the Government's intention was simply to extend the cards for immigration purposes, it would be better to spell that out in the Bill. The Government have not made any consequential changes and we are left, therefore, with a clause that clearly deals with registration cards for asylum seekers.

We understood the reason for that and the logic behind it—moving from the voucher system towards a system under which benefits could be claimed. Our understanding is that the cards are really entitlement cards and will be of advantage to the individuals who hold them. That is our general approach to the use of registration or identity cards—they are something that can benefit the individual, which justifies their introduction. On the face of it, however, the clause is saying, "Let us have registration cards for asylum seekers", but subsection (7) will leave the way open to the Secretary of State to

"by order . . . amend the definition of 'registration card'".

The Bill is called the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill and it deals with different categories of people. Asylum seekers are a small and well defined category. In Committee, it was certainly suggested that the amendment envisaged in subsection (7) might mean the inclusion of a broader category of immigration applicant. All people who have immigration business would be a much wider category than asylum seekers—all those with nationality business are a wider category again. Our concern remains that we do not want a provision for asylum seekers to be extended to those broader categories without further parliamentary scrutiny.

The Bill without the amendment, which would remove the order-making powers, leaves far too much discretion to the Secretary of State to extend the requirement for individuals to carry registration cards. We want further assurances from the Government. In particular, we seek an assurance that they intend further to define the registration card in a manner that will parallel the present definition, rather than leaving us with the definition in the Bill—that the card is for purposes connected with asylum, but with a get-out clause that would allow the Secretary of State to rewrite the provision and say that it is for purposes x, y and z without further defining what those are, other than that they must be generally within the immigration field. We hope that the Government do not intend to leave the legislation like that and we seek further information from the Minister as to what their intentions are.