Electronic Travel Authorisation: Dual Nationals

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, any suggestion that there have been insufficient transitional arrangements for the ETA system is surely for the sky. The scheme was introduced three years ago but was not made mandatory, to allow for people to adjust. It is absolutely right that the Government are now making this system mandatory and that dual nationals should have to enter using British passports—I am with the Minister on that. My question is: now that we have this system in place, how will the Government utilise the information for stronger immigration enforcement?

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support. As he knows, this position was introduced by the previous Government, and I am very pleased that we have been able to see it through. He asked how we will use this information for important border control. The whole purpose of the system is to have border control. As he probably knows, today we have had some new figures on immigration positions. They show that asylum hotels are at the lowest level for 18 months, which coincides with the UK Labour Government; the asylum backlog has fallen for the fourth quarter in a row to 64,426; and small boat arrivals are 9% lower than the peak in 2022. This is part of a government strategy to control our borders and ensure that they are firm. I welcome his support not just for this measure but for the wider government agenda.