UK Parliament / Open data

Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2012

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for finally getting to that crucial bit at the end and saying—as did his right honourable friend in the Commons—that the Opposition welcome these orders. After all, they simply follow from what his Government started as part of a continuous process of gradual rollout. The noble Lord asked what further stages were necessary for dealing with this. He will be more than happy that I can give him an assurance that—as I understand it; I will write to him if I am wrong—no further primary legislation will be necessary, although there will be a need to return to Parliament with some secondary legislation in due course. For the overseas rollout of biometric permits, we are completing a very comprehensive analysis of our options to identify the most cost-effective solution that will have the least impact on our customers and will take account of our commitments under EU legislation. A number of factors are relevant, including the timing of the 2012 Olympic Games and the rollout of other new technology for the agency, and we will return to Parliament with this as soon as possible after the Games. For that reason, at this stage I cannot say anything more about what I think the noble Lord described as his third question—although there seemed to be more than three—on the cost of implementation overseas. If I have any further information, I will let the noble Lord know in due course. The noble Lord also asked how many permits in total we would issue each year. Based on 2010’s published figures, we could expect around 550,000 permits a year to be issued. However, a reduction in this figure to around 400,000 could be expected given the significant number of grants made on a discretionary basis in 2010, mainly under measures aimed at clearing a backlog of outstanding unresolved cases and because of the impact of policy changes to the points-based system. I hope that that assists the noble Lord. I turn to the more general issues that he raised about what is happening in the UKBA, particularly in relation to staffing. His points were echoed by what my noble kinsman Lord Avebury said about the problems that the UKBA faces. I confirm that the UKBA faced problems in the past. We appointed a new chief executive, Mr Rob Whiteman, in about September of last year, just before I came to the department. He has been quite open about the fact that the UKBA faces problems. He will address them and we will make sure that he has the ability to do so, but obviously it will take time. However, I would be more than happy to have a meeting with my noble kinsman, the noble Lord and Mr Whiteman if they would like to hear how he plans to set about filling posts that are vacant at the moment and tackling other such problems. As the noble Lord will be aware, whatever party has been in government has been carrying out this rollout since 2008. The purpose has been to do it bit by bit on an incremental basis so that the authorities can cope with it in due course. My noble kinsman also asked detailed questions about, for example, the IT contract. I will certainly consider writing to him with whatever details I have. There may be problems relating to commercial confidentiality; I do not know. If I do write to him, I will be happy to place copies in the Library. That applies also to some of his other detailed questions. For example, he asked on what date an application made today to the Croydon PEO would be dealt with. I cannot answer that off the cuff but hope to address it, along with the other cases he raised, such as that of passports being sent to the wrong address. Perhaps it will be more appropriate to address those issues by correspondence. I am grateful that both noble Lords do not object to the implementation of these rules. I think they both accept that we are pursuing the right policy, but have questions relating to its administration. I hope that we can address those matters, along with the other questions that were asked, in correspondence in due course. I commend the regulations to the Committee. Motion agreed.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

734 c162-3GC 

Session

2010-12

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords Grand Committee
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