UK Borders Bill

My noble friend is right; it is for the Minister to answer, but I think we are talking about the categories that have been determined under the census. I often get in as much confusion as the noble Lord, but that is a secondary point to our debate. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, was able to highlight the concern of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. He rightly mentioned the impact and the racial categorisations that are likely to emerge from this clause. Let me spell it out. The Joint Committee says that, "““to be lawful it will be vital that race plays no part in the process used by the government to decide the order in which it phases implementation of the biometric immigration document””." This will require very careful scrutiny when the time comes to implement the scheme, and it draws our attention to that. It is necessary because the Government have often failed to consult the very body that they set up to look at issues of this nature, such as racial profiling and the discriminatory impact on particular groups of people in the community; I refer to the Commission for Racial Equality. Let me bring this point out. When we talked recently about the position of overseas doctors who are no longer qualified to stay in this country and who are to be sent back home, I raised with the Department of Health whether it had consulted the Commission for Racial Equality on the impact of its decision on people coming to take jobs in this country. There had been no such consultation whatever. The commission informed me that that was basically unacceptable, because it should have been consulted. There is another issue. The Home Office is well aware that it increased the period of qualification in this country for registration from four to five years. I got in touch with the Commission for Racial Equality, and it had no knowledge of that. The commission has a duty to promote equality, and it has established the need for every public body, including government departments, to work out the racial impact of its policies. Has the Commission for Racial Equality been consulted on this? Has its opinion been obtained? If not, why not? Would it not be wise for Ministers to say that if that has not taken place, they will consult the commission, and come back on it? I have no doubt that the Commission for Racial Equality will support, more or less, everything that the Joint Committee has said.