Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

The position on timing is that there will be a paper before the summer with draft regulations, which will go before Parliament by the end of this year, and this stuff will be put on the website. I see no reason why the response to the European court should not be seen as well. I will probably get into trouble for saying that, but I see no reason at all why it cannot be made available, so I shall ensure that that is done. The issue is not as straightforward as one might think. The judgment was complex in some ways, and I do not think really that it would do much good for me to go into some of the detail of it now, although I have a huge page of speaking notes with all the complexities of it. We are looking at this matter, and there will be consultation. We are going back to the court about this. Clearly, we will have to recognise the judgment of the court, which we do, and implement its findings. It indicated that our blanket policy of retaining fingerprints and DNA of people who had been arrested but not convicted, or of those against whom there was no further action, was in breach of Article 8. However, then there are a lot of complexities. Clearly, we will absolutely take notice of that and not do that, but the complexities mean that we have to go into this in some detail.