UK Borders Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I shall address that precise matter in my remarks on a later amendment. However, I shall first pick up some points made by the hon. Member for Ashford about biometric immigration documents. I have somewhat lost track of where he stands in the debates about Europe that often surface in his party, and I cannot remember whether he would be influenced by the fact that the European Commission is about to introduce requirements for biometric residence permits. I understand that from this week that requirement will apply to third-country national children aged six and over—something that may appeal to some in the Conservative party, although it may not cut much ice with others. Two important arguments support the issuing of biometric immigration documents to children. The first is that that will help us tackle trafficking. I shall pray in aid a contribution that I solicited from the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre, which"““views biometrics as having great potential as a tool for law enforcement to effect identity, recovery and rescue of child victims of trafficking. Having biometric details of children means that when you encounter a victim you can identify and rescue them from whatever form of exploitation they are suffering.””" We have sought to introduce biometrics in two ways. First, we have issued biometric visas abroad, a process that allows us to pin down the relationship between the child and a particular adult, and to capture the child’s biometrics at that time. We have successfully issued 5,500 biometric visas to children, and by the end of the year they will be issued at all our visa posts abroad. When a child applies for further leave in-country, we can check the child’s biometrics again, and determine that the family coming along with the child is the same as the one that was with the child when the application for the biometric visa was made. An alarm is triggered if there are discrepancies. I do not understand why we would want to turn that alarm system off, as I consider it an important step forward. The second argument for biometric checks is that in the long term, they will help us to tackle fraud. Their introduction will help us to govern and police access by third-country nationals to the benefits system. Capturing the biometrics of children allows us to stop the deplorable crime of child swapping, whereby a child is placed with a family to try to improve that family’s eligibility for benefits. The ability to pin down a child’s biometrics on our systems and place that child with a family will give us a way to tackle problems of that sort. I know that questions have been asked about unstable biometrics. The problems that arise have less to do with capturing the biometrics than with the matching software. The report about the costs of biometrics will be laid before the House shortly, as I am sure that the hon. Member for Ashford will be delighted to hear. In answer to his specific question about frequency of registration, I can tell him that it is currently envisaged that people will be asked to come back after about five years.