I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who explained that these two amendments relate to the powers to seize invalid passports. As she has said, they are probing in nature. Such powers may be necessary where a passport has been withdrawn in the public interest; for example, to disrupt a person’s travel overseas due to the serious issue that they may be engaged in terrorism.
Amendment 56YG relates to the ability of a constable to authorise a person to carry out a search on their behalf. The purpose of this provision is to allow a constable to make use of support if required when carrying out a search at places other than a port. Such support would be exercised under the authority of a constable, and I reassure my noble friend that, in view of the type of case to which this paragraph applies, it would in practice be likely to be carried out in the presence of a constable. The authorised person—such as a police community support officer—would not be empowered under the provision to use reasonable force or to require a person to hand over the passport for inspection purposes.
Amendment 56YH, which I think my noble friend labelled the “avoiding unnecessary aggro” amendment, relates to expired travel documents. I agree with my noble friend that there is often little harm in returning an expired document to the passport holder. Indeed, there is provision in paragraph 4 of Schedule 7 for that very purpose. The provision recognises that the passport holder may wish to retain the expired passport because, for example, it may include extant visas for travel to other countries. It may even provide memories of places that they have travelled to previously; as well as a visual record, for good or bad, of how we may have looked some 10, or even 20, years ago.
However, on a more serious point, the British passport does of course remain the property of the Crown at all times. There is no entitlement to a passport and no statutory right to have access to it. If a person intends to make use of an expired passport for a purpose for which it is no longer valid—in other words, for a
fraudulent purpose—it is right that a constable should be able to remove the document. This would prevent it being used elsewhere for fraudulent purposes, where the level of checks may not be so robust.
It is also entirely inappropriate that a constable should hand back an expired passport to a person where he or she reasonably believes that it is intended to be used for a fraudulent purpose. It would send out the wrong message to the passport holder and would simply allow—if not, indeed, encourage—them to continue to make use of the document for wrong and potentially unlawful reasons. I hope, in light of the explanation I have given, that my noble friend will withdraw her amendment.