My Lords, I strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. In fact, I am amazed to hear that this loophole exists. We are now under considerable threat from terrorism. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that people of wealth are not necessarily any less likely to be objects of suspicion than others, but he rather implied that only people of wealth would have access to these means of arriving in Britain. That is simply not true. Let us get away from the idea that terrorism needs a lot of money. Noble Lords will remember that the post mortem on 9/11 worked out that the total cost of doing the whole of 9/11 was lightly less than $250,000. The idea that money is any constraint on people who wish to get into this country by a means that does not involve a check is not valid. I have been arguing for years in your Lordships’ House that there should be proper entry and exit checks. We have been immensely dilatory about them. It is very late in the day because now we are under real threat and it is essential that the Government give a positive answer to this.
The details are very easy to work out. The law states that anybody landing has to land somewhere where there is a place to check them and, if that adds to the cost, so be it. If it is an emergency landing of some sort, they have to signal it, which they would have to do anyway—and all aircraft have radios—and would be required to remain there until the police were alerted and went to meet the aircraft. It is an essential matter to stop this loophole, and I hope the Government will immediately say that they will draft the necessary regulations to support the implementation of the noble Lord’s amendment.
5.15 pm