My Lords, this amendment is a simple one. Its purpose is to ensure that Her Majesty’s Passport Office is fully aware of other passports that are held by an individual to whom a British passport has been or is to be issued.
There is nothing new about this amendment: I have raised this matter in this House several times. I had convinced the previous Government to support it but, on that occasion, policy officials in the Home Office intervened to oppose it. I have had long, helpful discussions with my noble friend Lord Taylor, for whom I have the greatest affection and respect, and I believed that I had convinced him of the merit of this amendment. I had expected that it would be in the Bill, though there was obviously no commitment to it. However, once again, Home Office officials intervened to prevent it. The gentleman in Whitehall does not necessarily know best, especially when he lives in the Home Office. It is where, rather as in the European Commission, the monopoly of initiating legislation is seen as a prerogative to be carefully guarded, regardless of the merits of outside views. In the Home Office, new thinking is successfully repelled by the three initials—NIH. I remind the House of Margaret Thatcher’s adage: “Officials advise, Ministers decide”. However, sometimes Ministers need parliamentary help in so doing, especially from your Lordships’ House.
I have had a couple of earlier battles. Eventually, I won them both. The first one took 10 years. It was to set up a national electronic register of firearms. Parliament passed my amendment on that in 1987. The Home Office decided to stonewall it for 10 years. Minister after Minister in successive Governments backed me. Eventually, the Home Office capitulated and the electronic firearms register is today in full and effective use. The second battle, during which I introduced a Private Member’s Bill in 2011, was to secure the removal of those protestors in Parliament Square who hogged the space by camping, preventing access for others. The Government eventually agreed the amendment and put it in their own legislation. That area is now again attractive and protestors can still protest.
My amendment on passports is extremely simple. It intrudes on no one’s rights and the cost would be negligible. I emphasise that I am well aware, as are your Lordships, that, as passports come under the royal prerogative, Her Majesty’s Government already have extensive rights in setting rules and practices in relation to them. However, there is a serious gap in their practice, of which the security forces warned me more than five years ago. Successive Governments have for years and years tried to introduce an electronic border system so as to be able to scrutinise and record every passenger who enters or leaves the UK. It is obvious that without such a system it is impossible to keep track of those who have been given leave to enter for a limited period, let alone get a handle on those who wish our country ill or whose presence is not conducive to our national security. Although entry scrutiny has greatly improved, it is still not complete, and exit scrutiny is hardly under starter’s orders. It still depends largely on the airlines, shipping lines and railway ticket offices. Only a few countries, such as the USA, have put in place full checks on those departing the UK, if they intend to enter the USA.
Those who wish our country ill, by which at present I obviously mean primarily those Islamist jihadists who have demonstrated their ruthless determination to use all the methods open to terrorists, may hold other passports in addition to their British passports.
They can travel in and out of the country with their British passports and it is very hard for the security services to track them when they use their other passports once they are abroad. That has been shown to be the case and has been referred to, and people are amazed that what I am trying to achieve by this amendment does not already exist. I have discussed it with senior serving police officers, who told me that they believed that it was already in force and were amazed that it was not. However, it is not.
To make the administration simpler, my amendment would apply initially only to new passports and the renewal of passports, which has to happen every 10 years. In due course, it would apply to all British passport holders. I emphasise that my amendment does not in any way prevent, threaten or reduce the right of British passport holders to hold as many other passports as they can acquire. Therefore, in a sense, it is very different from the amendments that we have just discussed. It is absolutely the opposite. It is a fully libertarian amendment. I believe that it would be a major contribution to ensuring that our borders are fully protected. It would mean that when a person presents a British passport at immigration control, the details of other passports held would show up on the scan. Indeed, once the British passport holder had recorded the fact that they had other passports, if those other passports were used, again, the scan would show the corresponding information about a British passport, so the measure is logical and straightforward.
The fact that this measure does not exist was emphasised in January 2009 in a reply given by the noble Lord, Lord West, the then Home Office Minister. The noble Lord told me last week that he was very sorry that he could not be here tonight to support my amendment. When asked how many British passport holders also held passports of other countries, the noble Lord had to reply that the “information is not available”. That was an astonishing situation. However, it is still the situation. It is high time that we encouraged the Home Office to close this gap in our defences. I beg to move.
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