I thought that I would short-circuit the process. The noble Lord said that Covid had sent immigration into a tailspin. Certainly it has distorted the immigration figures and, although refugee numbers were high in 2021, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said, that is because they were much lower in the previous two years because of Covid.
The International Passenger Survey is not the vehicle by which accurate immigration figures should be counted, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, said. The IPS conducts between 700,000 and 800,000 interviews in a normal year, of which over 250,000 are used to produce estimates of overseas travel and tourism, so I do not even think that it is intended to be an accurate measure of people coming here to live, as such. As the noble Lord said, the people who conduct these surveys come up to you with an iPad and ask you a series of questions, none of which is verified, and participation is voluntary. This is hardly a basis for accurate migration figures.
Can the Minister please tell the House how the Home Office keeps track of those entering and leaving the UK, particularly those entering visa-free from the EU/EEA and the 10 other countries whose nationals can now use the e-passport gates? In particular, how do the Government keep track of how many of those leave at the end of the maximum six-month period? Can the Minister also explain why citizens of the United States, say, can enter visa-free and use the e-passport gates but UK citizens cannot do the same when entering the United States? I thought that we were taking back control of our borders.
Amendment 81, as drafted, would include those crossing the channel by ferry and by Eurostar legitimately, which is not quite what the noble Baroness was seeking to achieve.