UK Borders Bill

I am sure that we all have a difficulty with the point raised in Amendment No. 15, which relates to the paragraph that allows the BID to be combined with another document. That is also the subject of a later amendment in the Minister’s name. I have been curious all along to know what these other documents could possibly be, because no clue is given in the Explanatory Notes. Again, this is not the first time during the proceedings that I have been rather critical of the Explanatory Notes, which do not come up to the usual standard. However, the difficulties we have had with the notes will be covered in one of the letters the Minister has undertaken to write during the course of the Grand Committee. The only mention of the combination of the BID with another document in the Public Bill Committee was made in relation to the government amendment which added what is now Clause 5(4). The Minister explained that the BID would be designated as an identity card under the Identity Cards Act 2006 because under Section 16 of that Act, a person can be compelled to produce the BID as someone who is liable to compulsory registration. In passing, I have to point out that although compulsory registration is the expression used in the Identity Cards Act, no mention of registration is made in the text of this Bill. Indeed, I have already mentioned this to the Minister, but have elicited no response from him. If he wants to put the matter beyond doubt, it would be prudent to add to the end of Clause 5(4) words making it clear that an application for a BID under Clause 5(1)(a) is to be treated as compulsory registration under Section 16 of the Identity Cards Act. As usual, I do not expect the Minister to give an immediate answer to this suggestion any more than I do for the other suggestions I have made during the course of our proceedings this afternoon because I would prefer him to take it away and discuss it with his officials and then let me have a considered view in good time. However, that still leaves me to wonder with what other document the Secretary of State would want to combine the BID under this paragraph. If it is a document which is necessary to make the BID fit for purpose as an ID card, why not say so? How have the Government managed to overcome an objection raised in the other place by Mr Liam Byrne to an amendment similar to this one which he said, "““would prevent us from effectively designating a document as an ID card, because it would be impossible for us to roll the data over””.—[Official Report, Commons, UK Borders Bill Committee, 8/3/07; col. 240.]" I have studied carefully what honourable Members have said in Standing Committee in the other place and I can well understand the anxiety that was expressed over the breadth of paragraph (h), which requires, "““the holder of a biometric immigration document to notify the Secretary of State in specified circumstances””." The Minister said that the intention was to require notification of circumstances that could affect the holder’s permitted leave to remain. Government Amendment No. 16B details some of the cases, but I am sorry to note that at the end they give themselves a catch-all exemption by allowing other provisions to be added, which rather spoils the effect of the rest of the amendment. The example given by the Mr Liam Byrne, the Minister in the other place, was a curious one—it was of a Muslim minister of religion. Personally, I wish to encourage greater use by Muslim communities in this country of the training of imams over here, and I was glad to see that last month the Government invested an extra £1 million in this, and have designated Islamic studies as a strategic subject within our universities. The import of foreign imams, many of whom speak no English, encourages Muslim communities to keep themselves separate from the rest of the population, whereas British imams serve the wider interests of their communities because they have a good understanding of society as a whole. But if an imam has come here from Pakistan, as in Mr Byrne’s example, he will have been recorded as entering under the category of ““minister of religion””, and there will be no change in his status from then onwards. I recall a case some time ago where a Sikh who had entered the United Kingdom in some other capacity was then elected as a priest by his gurdwara, but was then refused leave to remain as a minister of religion because there is no provision in the rules for a person who has not previously worked as a minister of religion to change his status in that way. I refer noble Lords to Rule 174A of the Immigration Rules. Therefore, I have to say that it was not clear to me what the circumstances were that Mr Byrne had in mind; but accepting that it is occasionally possible for a person to change from one status to another under the Immigration Rules, and that the rules may be amended from time to time, I suggest that we might add to the words in Amendment No. 17 a further provision requiring the holder of a BID to notify the Secretary of State when there is any change in his status under the Immigration Rules. Even this is a bit of gold-plating, because the immigration status of a person can change only if the Secretary of State grants permission, so the Secretary of State would already be aware of that change. Thus, for instance, a person who entered the United Kingdom as a proposed civil partner, and is then given two years leave to remain in that capacity, will have had to convince the Secretary of State that each of the 10 conditions in Rule 295D have been satisfied; so the Secretary of State will be well aware of his change of status. The government amendments elucidate some of the conundrums in this clause though by no means all of them, and we are grateful to the noble Baroness—the former Minister responsible—for her letter explaining that these amendments are largely the result of the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that the Secretary of State’s powers should be aligned with their equivalents in the Identity Cards Act. The addition of the words at the end of paragraph (k) prevents the Secretary of State confiscating, for example, a person’s diary or address book. Amendment No. 16B helpfully spells out the cases in which the Secretary of State may cancel a BID, and partially satisfies our curiosity about the BID holder’s responsibility to notify the Secretary of State. I have a couple of questions on how paragraph (e) is supposed to operate. How will the hundreds of thousands of BID holders know that the Secretary of State has specified some additional circumstance requiring notification; what will be the penalties when a person to whom this circumstance applies fails to notify the Secretary of State, and will it be a defence to say that he was unaware of the new specification that had just been introduced? Finally, I have a question about Amendment 19A. Section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 is indeed the authority under which the rules are made. Is this deletion because the words are otiose?