My Lords, in putting down this amendment, I am not particularly concerned with what the power should be for stopping people, nor am I concerned with the way powers are used and the various matters that have been discussed about the retention of information. All I am concerned with is to make it more efficient than it appears to be under the Bill as drafted.
Paragraph 3(b) of Schedule 3 states that a person questioned under paragraph 1 or 2 must,
“give the examining officer on request either a valid passport which includes a photograph or another document which establishes P’s identity”.
It is an incredibly amateur way of doing things. Nowadays we have much better methods of establishing people’s identity. DNA is probably one of the best. It is now wholly unintrusive—you no longer have to take a blood sample or anything like that. You can simply take a swab. All I am suggesting is that the Bill should give those officers who feel it necessary to try to establish or record an identity the means of doing so
in a much more certain way. This is a very limited proposal. I am merely suggesting that a tool should be included in this schedule.