Clause 27 - Passenger and crew information: police powers

Part of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 12:30 pm on 25 October 2005.

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Photo of Tony McNulty Tony McNulty Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office 12:30, 25 October 2005

Broadly, the powers under schedule 7 of the 2000 Act are restricted to the counter-terrorism context and to an officer’s role as the examining officer. They also allow only specified information to be requested. Through clause 27 we seek to broaden those powers, not just in terms of moving beyond counter-terrorism to include serious crime and general policing powers and requests, but also in terms of experience. It might be the case that the information required concerns a specific flight, which would already be covered under the terrorism legislation. However, if we are to move to a proactive intelligence-led approach, we should take into account that the information required might in some cases—rare cases, I would think—relate to the carrier rather than to a specific flight. More generally, the difficulties and problems in terms of serious crime—immigration-related or otherwise—or terrorism might be specific to a route rather than a specific flight on a route. We think that if the clause were limited in the way intended by the amendment, that would not only undermine all that we seek to do in relation to e-borders and the border management programme and gathering information in general, but work against what the entire Committee sees as right in terms of gathering the information.