My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions that have been made in the debate. I am deeply conscious that there are a large number of orders and regulations before your Lordships this afternoon. The detail of the questioning is very welcome and important—we are talking about very serious issues—and I guess that it will not be possible for me to answer every particular question today. However, I will certainly undertake to write, and copy it to all noble Lords who have been involved in this debate so far.
I will make one general point about the authority to carry scheme and how it operates—this covers the point that was raised about identity and the possibility of mistakes and, in many ways, touches on the point made by my noble friend Lord Marlesford. This is information that the airlines are currently required to send to the National Border Targeting Centre based in Manchester. The information comes in a particular format: it has the passport as one identifier and the date of birth as another identifier, along with the name. It is hoped that through triangulating those three bits of important information the possibility of a mistake can be eliminated.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee asked what changes we are making as a result of this order. Effectively, the changes that we are making in relation to that area are that, in the past, it was for inbound flights. The information on people coming into the UK had to be submitted in advance, cleared and checked against the no-fly list. We are now saying that, where inbound journeys are taking place through certain ports or rail terminals and where UK citizens are travelling abroad for obvious reasons—for instance, if there are flights from London to Istanbul or via Barcelona with an end point in Istanbul—that would raise certain questions. Therefore, we are now asking for that additional information to be provided.
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The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, raised a point on which he and I have an ongoing discussion: that is, passport checks. Specific passport checks are not covered in these regulations—they were covered in the Immigration Act 2014. However, I take his general point about the need to have strong checks on all people who come into this country and leave it—and those exit checks will be in place, thanks to the Immigration Act 2014, by the end of this Parliament, or certainly by next month.
Concern was raised by several noble Lords, but particularly by my noble friend Lady Humphreys, on the issue of children. I am grateful to my noble friend for having raised this on a number of occasions. She and I have had correspondence on it. Some of that correspondence might be helpful to the House—I am thinking in particular of the letter that I sent her on 18 March—so, with her permission, I would be willing
to share that with other noble Lords. The issue of children is critically important. My noble friend rightly highlighted what will happen under paragraph 31 of the code of practice, but there is also paragraph 27, which states:
“Special care must be taken when considering exercising the power where it is evident that the person is a child”.
Paragraph 28 states:
“Border Force has a duty … under Section 55 … to safeguard and promote the welfare of … children”.
Paragraph 29 states:
“Therefore, when dealing with cases involving children (whether in family groups or unaccompanied), police constables, or designated Border Force officers, must be aware of the necessity to safeguard a child’s safety and welfare”.
Paragraph 31 then makes the point to which my noble friend referred. Essentially, we are trying to avoid saying in the code that the search cannot happen in any circumstances: that is, if two officers of the same sex as the child are not available to undertake it. That is for particular reasons. There may be circumstances in which there is a real fear that the child may be at risk, and we would not want that to be an excuse for not being able to act in those extreme circumstances. However, we set out in paragraph 31.ii that,
“the reasons for taking that decision must be recorded in writing … two officers of the same sex as the child should, where reasonably practicable, be present during the search”,
for all the reasons that noble Lords have mentioned. In particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said that it would be in officers’ self-interest to make sure that another officer was there.
I know that I cannot go perhaps as far as my noble friend Lady Humphreys would want on this occasion, but I am happy to continue the dialogue. I am sure that it will continue into the time of the next Government, so that when we get more feedback on how the scheme is operating and where there have been specific issues, we can ensure that searches of vulnerable children are done in an appropriate way, wherever possible by two officers of the same sex.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee asked about a redress process for individuals who may be mistaken for individuals on the no-fly list. Unfortunately, it is not possible to identify such individuals until the misidentification happens. When it does, action is taken to make sure that it does not happen again. If we have the right information, particularly where we have a passport number, a date of birth and a name, those instances should be extraordinarily rare.
My noble friend also asked about the representative of a temporary exclusion order subject. The temporary exclusion notice regulations are not before the House today and are subject to correspondence between the chair of the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and my honourable friend James Brokenshire in the other place. I was struggling for the correct terminology for the other place, but I think we can now refer to it as the House of Commons, thanks to the liberation given to us by the Procedure Committee. I am grateful to her for highlighting this point during today’s debate. In the same context, my noble friend
asked about the communications consultation with the Lord Chief Justice. I will write to her on that point.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked about the consultation exercise and whether there was one consultation or 28. In fact, it was one consultation; 28 carriers responded to it.