UK Borders Bill

We will definitely return to these matters on Report. The case of Mr Muktar Ibrahim will be one that we will look at in relation to the border agency which both the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and we think would be a better solution than the one in the Bill. To return to the amendment moved by the Minister, we were grateful to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, for her letter of 22 June which explained, as the Minister did again this afternoon, that these amendments are intended to make it clear that Clause 8 applies to the use, retention and destruction of biometric information obtained through regulations made under Clause 5(1) and not to the non-biometric information, which, as the Minister has already explained, is already covered by the Data Protection and Human Rights Acts. In her letter, the noble and learned Baroness added that, subject to those Acts, the Government would share the BID information, including biometrics, with others, including government departments. The provisions regarding destruction of the biometric information required by Clause 8(3) include provision for the destruction of copies. I hope that the Minister is paying attention to this because I will ask him a question which is of some importance. As I said, there is provision for the destruction of copies unless under Clause 8(4) the information is retained in accordance with and for the purposes of another enactment. What enactment do the Government have in mind? There would not be any enactment which would already refer to the biometrics. Therefore, I am assuming that the Government have in mind some future hypothetical use to which the biometrics might be put by a person other than the Secretary of State. I would be grateful if the Minister could elucidate that question. Under what enactment might copies be retained since they could not have been referred to in any existing enactment? What sort of purposes do the Government have in mind which would require copies of the biometric information being retained, when the originals in the ownership of the Secretary of State would have to be destroyed under Clause 8(3) regulations? That is an important point because there is no purpose in destroying the parent biometric information if multitudes of copies can be retained by other persons to whom the Secretary of State has transferred them.