Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Pilot) Regulations 2008

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. I hope that our technology check-through and processes will ensure that that sort of error will not be made in our system. I see no reason why we should have such an error. The fact that we have biometrics tied to a name is extremely valuable in a whole raft of areas to ensure that we have the right people—people who are entitled to be here, who are not making other claims or claiming benefits to which they are not entitled. I am sure that that is extremely valuable. The noble Lord’s point is absolutely valid and I am sure that all noble Lords would agree that we must have a system that does not make such errors. The rollout strategy was published on 6 March and launched by the Home Secretary. It includes all the details in order of rollout. I will not go through all the details, but it starts with students in November 2008 and goes up to 2014 when about 90 per cent of people will be covered by the information. The noble Baroness asked what will happen if people avoid the process and delay an application. We will be monitoring that to check for displacement. One of the points of the pilot is to see what impact that will have and how we might account for it in the future. That is a very good point. In the course of this, we hope that we will resolve how the problem affects us. The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, asked about the problem of excluding students who come to this country. I can assure him that the Government see that as a very important issue. The numbers of people coming here are of great value to the global economy, as they are for our country. This is not to try to squeeze that and stop it; it is to ensure that we have only those people who are eligible to attend—those people whom we really want here—that people are not making multiple claims for benefits and that people are not trying to get other people in. The process would clarify those things; it is absolutely not to try to reduce the number of people who come here to our very good training and education institutions to do their various courses. We certainly are not trying to do that. I am not aware of the number of personal interviews for passports. The noble Lord mentioned the figure of 73,000. Perhaps I may come back to him in writing on that as I am not clear on the exact figure. I would argue that the reason none has been refused is that, if you are a dodgy applicant, you would be wary of going along to an interview because you would be put through a process of being interviewed. It would be a stupid thing to do because you would be bowled out and you would be in a difficult position. That has been the impact. I would say that the process cuts out what I would call the dodgy applicants. I have already touched on the offices and technology. This is the start of building up an office network. The applicants have to attend in person. Special arrangements can, if necessary, be made on a case-by-case basis to get people somewhere that might be more suitable to them. I do not have to hand the number of offices that there will be. Again, perhaps I can come back on that, but various centres around the UK will have all this technology. We are trying it at Croydon because the technology is currently there, we have people who are experts in it and we will be able to check this through on the pilot study. That will then transfer to the other places in November when we start issuing the documentation.