UK Borders Bill

I shall also raise the issue addressed by the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). Designation is fine when there is an appropriate designated person; if a parent or adult guardian enters the country with the child, there will be no difficulty in identifying who should be the designated person. However, I should be grateful for a small explanation from the Minister of how a designation would be made on the entering into the country of an unaccompanied child or a child unaccompanied by any obvious adult who may properly be said to have care and control over them. Would a person from the local authority be designated, or would there be children without a designated adult for that purpose? I should like to make a brief observation about the intervention made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). The Minister says that in his current role he does not travel abroad often; I fully understand that, as he has a lot to deal with here. Perhaps he has never visited some of the southern states of the US. The United States has always been notorious for their rather unhelpful immigration process. However, if the Minister visited Dallas Fort Worth airport, he would see a welcome innovation that we might consider. Volunteers—normally of retirement age; people who give their time freely—walk up and down the queues at immigration control to proffer support and help and ensure that the forms are filled in correctly and that people are queuing in the right places. Those volunteers give a genuinely warm welcome on behalf of the state of Texas. We might consider such an idea for some of our busier airports.