Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2010

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their input to the debate. With two speakers and just under 50 detailed questions, there is no doubt that anything to do with immigration and its rules is rather complicated. Maybe they are overcomplex, but in my short period in the Home Office I have learnt that one needs to have every option covered, which inevitably makes them more complicated. Trying to cover everything with an easy, sweeping statement does not do at all when working in this area, I am afraid. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, asked a number of specific points about gates. She was correct that there are two types of gates. There are 10 IRIS airport locations and 10 e-passport gate locations. The IRIS locations are Heathrow terminals 1 to 5, Manchester terminals 1 and 2, Gatwick north and south terminals, and Birmingham. The 10 e-passport locations are Manchester terminals 1 and 2, Gatwick north, Birmingham terminals 1 and 2, Luton, Stansted, East Midlands, Bristol and Cardiff. Where may people enrol and how will we ensure that the conditions are met? We check their immigration history and watchlists and question persons to assess their intention. If we find that they are abusing conditions, authorisation to use the gates, and obtain leave by passing gates, will be terminated straight away. Which category of passengers can use IRIS? All passengers are eligible. Passengers need to be regular travellers with no negative immigration history. Their passports must be genuine and valid. They must not be on the watchlist. If they have visa needs, they have to be genuine and valid. How long does the authorisation last? It lasts two years in general, or is linked to the validity of the passport and visa if they have less than two years’ validity. An authorisation can be terminated if the UKBA wishes the person to seek entry at manual immigration control; for example, if we suspect that they may be abusing the immigration system. Therefore, it can be terminated at that stage. The noble Baroness raised a very valid point on data security. This has been an issue in the past. All the biometric and personal data collected or accessed by the UKBA in the operation of these gates are treated in confidence and are processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act. Under e-passport gates, the person’s live facial image is checked against the facial image which is securely stored in an encrypted format on the chip within the passport. Under IRIS, a person’s irises are photographed during enrolment. I am sure that a number of noble Lords have done that. These photographs are then converted into digital images. The photographs and digital images are stored in an encrypted format in a secure database which has very strictly controlled access. Under ASC Plus, fingerprints are stored on a secure UKBA database, with very strictly controlled access. BAA will not be able to access those databases. Generally, on the data storage side, we have learnt a lot of lessons. One always hesitates to say that that means we will not have problems—I am sure we will—because there is no doubt at all—I know this from my job as Cyber Security Minister—that as soon as you start collecting data in large amounts, it is always extremely difficult. Everybody needs to understand all the rules that need to be applied to the data. However, I think that we are much better at that now than we used to be. The noble Baroness asked about the fees covering the cost. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, also touched on that. Our modelling ensures that these fees will generate about £800 million for 2010-11, so we believe that they will cover the cost. The noble Baroness asked about any modelling we have done on evidence of people coming to the UK and volume demand. We have no evidence to suggest that there is any link between visa fees and volume demand. I am not aware that we have done any sensitivity studies in advance of this, but we look to see whether there has been any such link. If I am wrong on that, I will get back in writing, but that is as I understand it. I have a rather complex breakdown of the Migration Impacts Fund in relation to visa applications, leave applications, ILR applications, PBS applications and nationality applications, so rather than go into it I will write to the noble Baroness with the breakdown of exactly how this is done. In broad brush terms, Scotland receives just under £3 million, Wales about £1.8 million and Northern Ireland about £1 million. As regards the breakdown within England, the totality is something like £54 million. I shall give a full breakdown of that. I think that covers most of the points the noble Baroness raised. If there is anything that I have missed, I shall be very happy to come back in writing. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked a number of questions. As regards not getting notice of leave, the automated gates are used voluntarily. People can always use manual immigration to enter the country and obtain evidence of their leave. I was asked what would happen if a non-visa national was stopped by the police, given that he will not receive notice of leave. When he uses the gates, a record is generated. It indicates the individual’s date, time and location of entry into the United Kingdom. The UKBA has access to these records and can use them to establish whether an individual has used the gates at that time, so the other law enforcement agencies can inquire of the UKBA, and then that data will be available. As I understand it, that is how they will be able to establish that fact. I am not sure of the exact mechanics of that when the person is stopped and whether he has to come back to the police station. I imagine that will be the case. If not, I will get back to the noble Lord on that. On why we are going from IRIS to facial recognition, I understand that facial is faster and in some ways more secure. I understand that IRIS is pretty secure, too, so am not 100 per cent happy with that answer. I will get back to the noble Lord on that but I think it is to do with the speed at which it can be done. I have already noticed and a number of noble Lords will have registered that the IRIS system is brilliant when hardly anyone is registered for it because there are only two or three of you going through that chain. I came back from Cairo on Tuesday night and there were about 18 people ahead of me. Each person is rather slower than those handing their passport in. One needs to be able to achieve this a little more rapidly. On high fees, it costs the UK Border Agency more than £2 billion to run the immigration system. We collect more than a third of this through fees for application and the services we offer. We review the fees on a regular basis to make appropriate changes as necessary. These fee proposals support our commitment to take forward the priority issue of strengthening the border. It is right that those who benefit directly from our immigration system—migrants, employers and education institutions—should make appropriate contributions towards the cost of the system and share the burden with the taxpayer. The Parliamentary Ombudsman recently published a report on UK Border Agency service delivery. We agree with his assessment that long-term progress on service delivery requires the agency to have clear and consistent priorities, good forward planning and adequate resources. This is what the noble Lord touched on. Our fee proposals will help provide these resources and enable the agency to make the progress on service delivery that the Ombudsman as well as our customers and stakeholders rightly want to see. This relates to timeliness and the other issues that the noble Lord touched on. On knowing the cost of the system, ACS Plus is still being worked on within BAA. BAA has not been able to give us a figure for the full costs to the UKBA. That is not really satisfactory. We will get that sorted out as soon as we possibly can. The noble Lord is absolutely right in spotting that. It is something we are working on but we have not yet been given the figure for that work. On refunds, we charge for consideration of the application and so do not offer refunds—the consideration is a cost to us as well.