Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I am afraid that that does not stop it from happening. As I say, we have found that there are cases of this, which is why we have discussed it with the Irish. The noble Lord looks puzzled by that, so I will get back to him in writing on that point. He would be amazed how people get around the little systems in place. We are clear that there is abuse of the system. I will come to costs in a little more detail later. I am not sure how accurate those costs are, as the figure I had quoted was about £7 million for tourism costs. The noble Baroness and a number of others raised that. The key thing is that we are doing these things because a lot of rules are being broken and a lot of dangerous people are involved in it, which causes a lot of harm to innocent people and puts us at risk. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, mentioned that in the 1970s and 1980s, when some terrible things were going on in relation to Northern Ireland and the Troubles, there were an awful lot of other provisions in place at that stage. I was involved in some of those, and they helped us a little more. A lot of those things have been dismantled, for various reasons. Amendment 108BA would remove the islands—that is, the Crown dependencies—from Clause 46. That would mean that a person coming from the islands would, unlike now, require leave to enter. This would treat the Crown dependencies differently from the Republic of Ireland; they would be treated less favourably. I think the intention is to ask why the islands are subject to Clause 46, and that is the point I will address. We accept that there is not the same need for heightened supervision of routes from the Crown dependencies to the UK as there is on routes from the Republic of Ireland. We have no intention to introduce routine controls on routes from the Crown dependencies, but we want to continue to treat the CTA as a single entity and to maintain a secure platform for the range of intelligence-led activities which will be necessary at different times and in different places within it. We do not think we can readily differentiate provision for the Crown dependencies without prejudicing those aims—in other words, without prejudicing the status of the CTA. Clause 46 leaves intact the broad framework for the CTA contained in the Immigration Act 1971, including the general provision that those arriving on local journeys do not require leave to enter. The Crown dependencies were consulted at length. Part of the problem is that, after all the consultations, they were a little surprised when they saw the legislation as it stood. We will have to talk to them a little more about exactly why we have done this, because we believe it is important to keep the CTA as it stands. Amendments 108A to 108D would provide that persons both arriving and departing from another part of the common travel area are not subject to control. Amendment 108CB would widen the forms of acceptable documentation for travel on air and sea routes between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. A passport or national identity document provides the most secure way of establishing nationality and identity, and it ensures that carriers may discharge their legal responsibility to transmit valid passenger data. The requirement to carry a passport or national identity card is consistent with practice on all other international routes, and we think that accepting less secure forms of documentation will threaten our border security. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, gave a very good argument as to why identity was so important—it was also a very good argument for why we should have identity cards, so I thank him very much for that. Amendment 108CA would allow those who have been issued visas in the Republic of Ireland to enter the UK without leave. We do not think that this is the correct approach. Instead, we will continue to work closely with the Government of the Republic of Ireland, and the Crown dependencies, to secure the external CTA border and explore the merits of a common visa with the Republic of Ireland. All of these amendments would undermine the clause and prevent the UK Border Agency from carrying out effective border controls on air and sea routes between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, preventing important improvements in our ability to flexibly combat illegal immigration, trafficking, terrorism and other wider crime. I will now deal with the Question whether the clause should stand part. The UK already has some of the toughest borders in the world. The e-Borders programme has tracked 80 million passenger movements, leading to 34,000 alerts and almost 3,000 arrests, and we have brought forward the timetable for the full roll-out of e-Borders, including to the CTA. The UK will continue to work closely with the Irish—as we have done—to tackle the major issues that face us today, from trafficking and terrorism to illegal immigration and drug smuggling. As I say, these are real worries because there is a chink there that is being exploited by the bad guys. As I have said before, we want to continue to treat the common travel area as a single entity, and Clause 46 leaves intact the broad framework for the common travel area that has existed since its inception in the 1920s. We have made clear the value that we attach to the political, economic and social benefits which the CTA brings. We are committed to maintaining the CTA and preserving those benefits. But we have reviewed, and we will keep under review, the practical operation of the CTA, to ensure that we maximise protections within it and that our arrangements remain fit for purpose. We committed to review the arrangements of the CTA in the 2007 "Securing the UK Border" strategy and the Security in a Global Hub report from the Cabinet Office, and this stemmed from my reviews in 2007.