UK Borders Bill

The answer is simple: they are escorted into a room and an immigration officer will take any step that he or she judges to be necessary to verify their identity. The options do not stop simply at asking someone to remove their veil; if necessary, we will fingerprint them. That is precisely how we discovered more than 200 failed asylum seekers trying to leave the country. We did so through tougher exit controls. The right hon. Gentleman would be right if he were to point out that that kind of operation would become much more difficult if the Conservative party were to follow through on its commitment to shut down the British identity infrastructure. It will be interesting to discover whether the Conservative party supports the Bill this evening. Key measures in it are those to introduce compulsory biometric identity cards for foreign nationals. We know from a letter sent by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) to the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O’Donnell, in February that the Government are now ““formally on notice””—I believe that that was the phrase used—of the Conservative party position to shut down the national identity infrastructure and that it is now to carry any associated risk or contingent liability. Let me tell Members about one of those associated risks and contingent liabilities: that this country will be left defenceless in the fight against illegal immigration, whether that defence is at our border controls or at our border posts abroad when we issue biometric visas to those applying to come to this country for the first time.