Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Civil Penalty Code of Practice) Order 2008

Once again, I am most grateful to the Minister for his clear statement on the background to the order. However, he will know that, contrary to statements made by the Prime Minister and, I am sorry to say, in Labour Party leaflets distributed in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, Her Majesty’s Opposition support, in principle, the issuing of biometric information documents to foreign nationals. We take the view that these documents can sensibly be used as one weapon in helping to secure our borders. Judging from their recent statements, the Liberal Democrats appear not to want to collect biometric data from anyone at all, and I shall be interested to hear the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on this matter. While the Government want, in due course, to collect these data from everyone, we in the Official Opposition take what is in our view the sensible middle ground: that the data should be collected when it contributes to the integrity and security of our border and the nation. We note that the Government have selected students and spouses to be the first foreign nationals to be required to produce ID cards, because it is among these categories that much of the abuse of immigration controls appears to take place. We welcome the news that the pilot scheme has met with a great measure of success. The Explanatory Memorandum says that the rollout of the card to all foreign nationals is being undertaken on an incremental basis. I think the Minister said that it will start at the end of this year. Can he confirm that none of these requirements will apply within the European economic area? Turning to the second statutory instrument, clearly even the limited application of ID cards requires some enforcement regime, and the code of practice is an appropriate form. We welcome that and are pleased to see that the Secretary of State has considerable statutory powers to consider immigration sanctions, which in serious cases will simply mean removal. However, I applaud the move to a civil penalties route before that, as that is obviously a humane and fair way to deal with offenders. Therefore, we support the limited application of biometric identification. Differences may well arise in the future regarding the lengths to which the Government intend to go with these procedures. However, for the time being at least, we support the order.