UK Borders Bill

The penalties provided in subsection (2) are already pretty drastic. I dread to think of what the Government might have in mind to add to them. I treat this as a very important subject. When you are talking about hundreds of thousands of people in possession of BIDs—in the end that could run into millions—the accidental failure to comply with requirement regulations is a point that needs to be seriously considered. The Secretary of State appears to be given these powers to impose penalties without any form of appeal system. I may be wrong on that; I have not seen one in the Bill, and the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. A new requirement is imposed and half a million people are supposed to comply with it. Suppose only a handful, say a few dozen, are not aware of the announcements which the Minister has assured us will be widely disseminated through television and other means, and, as far as possible, through direct communication with the holders of BIDs. As the noble Lord will be aware, the postal system is not 100 per cent reliable, and people change addresses. There are bound to be people who do not receive direct communication and therefore will fail to comply with some requirement of the regulations through inadvertence and through no fault of their own. Would it be a defence to a charge of failure to comply that the person was not aware of the notification or did not receive it? I was not sure exactly what the Minister replied to that. The amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, to remove the words ““in particular”” is absolutely necessary because we have no idea what further regulations might be contemplated under this clause. The list that we have here is bad enough and I foresee all kinds of errors arising from, as I say, nothing to do with mala fides or wishing to evade the regulations but simply through omission. I take this extremely seriously and I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment.