UK Parliament / Open data

Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

My Lords, this is my first intervention and probably my last on this Bill but, when I saw this amendment and recalled the reports that I had seen, I thought that perhaps this was an opportunity to say something. If the reports that I have seen are to be believed, this is a frightening situation. According to these reports—and I hope that the Minister will be able to deny them—all British citizens and everybody else, if they leave this country, whether by sea, rail or air, will have to give advance notice of where they are going and give an itinerary as well. The report that I saw went even further than that; it seemed to suggest that, eventually, the provision would apply to internal journeys, too, so that if you went from London to Swansea by train you would have to give a note of where you were going and what you were going to do there. That is such a restriction of the freedom of people in this country that I simply cannot believe that there are people in the Government or the Civil Service, or even the police or security services, who would even dream up such a proposal. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us and say that we shall be able, as previously, to go about our business without interference from government snoopers.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
709 c691 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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