Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling this amendment to discuss further this important issue, which was brought up today at Question Time by the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy. I shall look forward to hearing the reply from the Minister. International and EU requirements place plenty of onus at the moment on us to supply passenger list information, and there are adequate international agreements on what information is required, so that each country can check any threat—obviously, a terrorist one in particular but also from serious criminals, and so on, who may be travelling from here to there. However, the reports that any more advanced travel plans will have to be lodged are worrying. I will briefly give three categories of people for whom that, at least, will be extremely difficult. There are the young and the retired, who can travel week after week; those in their gap years can change their plans at the last minute, while retired people have that same freedom—they are not tied by having to return to work in two weeks and may, on the spur of the moment, go where the weather is better. Why should they need to furnish anything in advance? If they are in the south of Spain and fancy taking the ferry to Morocco, why should they not be able to do that at will? There is also last-minute travel, particularly on business. One might have all sorts of reasons for having to travel at the last minute or change one’s plans; partly business or, sometimes, family disasters such as death, et cetera. This even comes down to someone as specific as a yachtsman, whose travel plans depend entirely on the direction of the wind. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that, when we leave this country, the Government do not have plans to start requiring us to furnish anything other than our first destination. That is the extent of what the Government should require, and then to get to know when we are coming back. They get substantial information at the moment, as I said, from passenger lists, which carriers are required to furnish; beyond that is really a step too far.