Clause 2 - Entering United Kingdom without passport

Part of Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:30 am on 8 January 2004.

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Photo of Edward Garnier Edward Garnier Conservative, Harborough 10:30, 8 January 2004

It may be that I am making a third and very different point. However, am I right in thinking that there are United States immigration officials based in, for example, Heathrow and Gatwick, and that before people board flights to places such as New York those officials go through an immigration exercise in the United Kingdom? The advantage of that is of course that if they are dissatisfied about someone's travel status that person does not leave the United Kingdom. The problem is contained here, as far as the United States authorities are concerned, and there is no need to deal with those issues at the arrival airport, whether that be John F. Kennedy or Dulles. That point is perhaps similar to the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster, but surely there are plenty of practical approaches to the issue.

As to the absence of evidence, the Minister may have misunderstood what my hon. Friend the Member for Woking was saying. There must be plenty of occasions when the prosecution has to rely on circumstantial evidence to build an inferential case, albeit that there is no direct evidence of a crime being committed by a particular individual. There seems to be a perfectly respectable way through the problem that the Minister appears to be having trouble with.