Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

My Lords, I have read the report from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who could not be with us today. My interpretation was slightly different. We recognise that there is more to be done in terms of small ports and airports but there is a big question about the resource implications of collecting all information at all times in all cases. The Bill seeks to enable the police to have the power to make sure that we are able to get information when there is a reason to get it. The obvious examples that noble Lords will be aware of historically are when we have a concern about a piece of intelligence that suggests that there could be a problem with a flight between, for example, London and Washington, but we do not know which airline or what time of day may be affected. It may be that one would collect information for a specific length of time on a specific route. It may also be that we get information that we should worry about a threat to a particular airline, so we might collect information from the airline across Europe or across the United States destinations and so on. The specific purpose behind all of that is to enable us to target and get information appropriately that will help us to deal with potential threats of any kind or potential need to get information that would help us in a variety of ways, not least on terrorism. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, took me by surprise, because he has transformed an amendment on that subject to, if I may say, a different issue. I am not going to try to second guess the comments of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, who has made a number of statements about this issue. I listened carefully to the points that the noble Lord made. The purpose is to deal with the potential difficulties and threats that we face; it is not to collect information in a general sense for a different purpose. I volunteer to look back on the comments and either write to the noble Lord or arrange an appropriate meeting on it. I am sure that the officials will be happy to do that too. I should simply say that the matter he raised does not relate to this part of the Bill and it would be wrong of me to try to deal with it, because I would not do it well. I would rather do that separately and appropriately.