Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall speak specifically to Clause 46. It is tucked away in the back of the Bill and at first glance it appears to be quite innocuous, but it abolishes the common travel area. We heard a strong speech from the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, who speaks on Northern Ireland affairs for the Liberal Democrats, as I do for the Conservatives. That arrangement has survived the Great Depression, the Second World War and the Northern Ireland Troubles. We are now being told that not only is it vital to abolish the common travel area for the security of the United Kingdom, but that it is apparently one of the most pressing border issues that the Government face and therefore merits inclusion in the Bill, rather than wait for the long awaited simplification and consolidation which the Government promise is on its way. Listening to speeches tonight, an awful lot of things are left out of the Bill that should be in it, and it is pretty poor in total. I take issue with those claims. I believe that there are wider ramifications which the Government have either decided to ignore or are trying to bury. The common travel area applies not just to the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, but also to the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Given that the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey are dependent territories of the United Kingdom, which holds ultimate responsibility for their relations with third countries and for their defence, I find it astonishing that the Minister claims that the security of the United Kingdom’s borders will be enhanced by putting up an internal barrier. It seems to me that those Crown dependencies are being smashed by the same sledgehammer being used to crack the nut of the UK-Ireland border. It is on the matter of the British-Irish border where I take particular exception to Clause 46. When the Minister was explaining the clause to your Lordships' House, I fear that I could not quite follow his logic. The first point was that there would be no imposition of border checks on the land border between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. That should be obvious: there is no practical way to police the Northern Ireland border in toto. Even throughout the worst of the Troubles, smuggling continued through the tracks and through the nights. Rather, checks on people crossing the land border will be on an ad hoc basis, targeting people who are not British or Irish citizens. That does not seem to me very British. Unless the Government expect people to carry their passports either in their motor car glove boxes or, in the case of farmers, in their pockets or tractor tool boxes, when driving across the Border, how exactly will checks be targeted effectively? It appears that the land border will continue to be a weak spot in the United Kingdom border. Yet the Minister has held up this proposal as a great boon to UK border security. How can that be, if the checks on air and sea travel between the UK and the Republic of Ireland can be circumvented by the land border? I fear that the answer is that, as a result of this legislation, it will become necessary to impose immigration controls on those travelling between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The Minister will recall that in a debate in November my noble friend Lord Trimble and I drew attention to his apparent trouble in distinguishing between the United Kingdom and Great Britain. I fear that he is making the same mistake again. This measure is not designed to enhance the United Kingdom’s security; it is designed for Great Britain. We on these Benches do not find that artificial distinction acceptable. I need not go on at length to point out why, having at long last settled the constitutional position of Northern Ireland securely with the consent of the majority of her population as part of the United Kingdom, it might be unwise for the Government to be seen to be unravelling that settlement with a measure that will bring no real benefits. I have looked at the Government’s own impact assessment of Clause 46. The costs are estimated at almost £70 million, of which the tourist industry alone may expect to see a loss of more than £43 million. I have seen material from ports associations and carriers’ organisations in which they say that they will be subject to increased regulations, red tape and costs, perhaps to the tune of multimillions. The Government’s own impact assessment cannot quantify any benefit at all, except perhaps catching some of the 0.0064 per cent of arrivals into the United Kingdom who do not have proper documentation—or perhaps not; what they are trying to achieve is all very unclear. The only sensible way forward is to drop these proposals and adopt the Opposition’s proposals to put in place an upgraded electronic border around the whole of the British Isles in close collaboration with the Republic of Ireland, which in fact should be called Ireland and not the Republic of Ireland. I suggest that in the worst economic downturn in 100 years—in the words of a senior government Member, Mr Balls, no less—the Government might find other more pressing matters to deal with than disrupting 90 years of free travel around the British Isles and alienating an integral part of the United Kingdom, several Crown dependencies and a close and important neighbour, while costing millions in the process. I hope that the Minister will take on board the concerns that Clause 46 has raised. I assure him that we will look very closely at it in later stages of the Bill. Clause 46 will do considerable damage to the tourist industry in Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Much more than that, however, the Government, perhaps with the exception of the Northern Ireland Office, do not have a clue about the scale of major transportation in and out of Ireland, with heavy goods vehicles carrying imports and exports that keep the economies of those two countries going. This will cause another major hiccup. In the border territories recently, because of the weakness of the euro, there have been queues several miles long from the Republic, as its citizens come up to shop in Newry and South Armagh. I invite noble Lords to imagine customs’ posts, searches and all the paraphernalia of immigration that will destroy those local economies. On top of the extra taxes going into ports, the clause will cause extra problems for port authorities, shippers, tourism and the economy, and it is quite wrong that it is in the Bill.