UK Borders Bill

moved Amendment No. 14: 14: Clause 5, page 3, line 25, leave out paragraph (a) The noble Lord said: The debate on the previous amendment reinforces the importance of drawing the Government’s attention to what the Joint Committee on Human Rights said on the issue in its report in May. I intend to do just that. My comments will apply to Amendment No. 23 as well, so when we come to it I will not have to put all the arguments again. The Joint Committee paid a great deal of attention to this. It was very concerned about the Bill in general, but in particular about this part of it. Our conclusion, which relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said a moment ago, was: "““In the absence of more detail on the face of the Bill or any draft regulations prescribing important details of the proposed scheme it was impossible to assess the compatibility of the proposed biometric registration scheme with the right to respect for private life in Article 8 ECHR””." The Joint Committee noted, for example, that the following important details of the proposed scheme are nowhere specified: "““the type of biometric information which will be required; the purposes for which such information may be used, which will apparently include use for purposes which do not relate to immigration, such as access to state benefits””—" we have just discussed that at some length— "““[and] the extent to which the requirements apply to children under the age of 16””." In a previous report, the Joint Committee expressed similar concerns about the Identity Cards Bill. It repeatedly expressed concern about the potentially discriminatory impact of introducing compulsory registration for non-nationals before nationals. This was in part due to the likelihood that compulsory registration for foreign nationals may lead to British citizens from visible minority ethnicities being subject to more frequent demands to produce an ID card or allow checks against the register. The introduction of the biometric immigration document gives rise to exactly the same concerns about de facto racial profiling. Even though the Bill does not make it a requirement that such a document be carried, the fact that such a document exists for non-nationals and can be requested to prove entitlement to services makes it highly likely that members of black and minority ethnic communities in the UK will be disproportionately required to prove their immigration status. The scheme’s phased implementation could well give rise to a further risk of de facto racial profiling. In the Roma rights case, the House of Lords found the Home Office’s policy of targeting Roma for pre-entry clearance at Prague airport to be inherently racially discriminatory and therefore unlawful. To be lawful, it is vital that race or ethnicity play no part in the profiles used by the Government to decide the order in which they phase implementation of the biometric immigration document. That was the very firm conclusion of the all-party Joint Committee on Human Rights, drawn from both Houses, including distinguished legal experience as well as lay experience. Everything we have just heard in the discussion on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, brings home to me the relevance of the Joint Committee’s recommendations in this context. My amendments seek to give effect to our conclusion. If the Minister wants to meet our conclusion but has some real argument that there are other ways in which this could be done, I will be the first to listen to what he has to say and to take it seriously. At this stage, however, it is very important not to leave this simply as a pronouncement from a committee meeting upstairs, but to turn it into action that can be demonstrated in the Bill. I beg to move.