Syria: Refugees

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord Bates

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We give them humanitarian protection, which is broadly the same thing. I know what the noble Baroness will say, but what we have is people in acute need and we want to get them here as quickly as possible. Humanitarian protection is the vehicle by which we can do so. If we first have to go all the way through the route of establishing refugee status for a lot of people who have no identification papers, it means they are at risk for longer. That is why we have chosen to take that particular route, to ensure that we can get people here and give them the help they need as quickly as possible.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, do the Government recognise the regrettable fact that there is no way in which the EU, with or without the UK, can absorb permanently the total number of people who have already arrived as refugees and would-be immigrants, and that the answer must be what two senior members of Mrs Merkel’s cabinet are now exploring? That is to have somewhere else outside Europe—they suggested north Africa—where people can go to be assessed, processed, helped and cherished as far as possible, to resolve the problem. The costs which would be imposed would otherwise be politically wholly unacceptable to the electorates of the countries inside Europe.

[Lord Bates]

As my noble friend will be aware, this was looked at and examined, but it would require a level of international agreement in this sphere which has simply eluded us in the core area of trying to reach a solution in Syria. We remain absolutely of the opinion that the best way to deal with movement and migration is to get a political settlement. That is why we are hopeful and supportive of the UN Security Council resolution which brought about the current ceasefire, but we believe it needs to work beyond that to provide a lasting peace under the Geneva communiqué.

Brussels Terrorist Attacks

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord Bates

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Viscount is right to refer to the Border Force. I can speak only for the people whom I meet, who have the highest professionalism and resolve. It has changed over the past few years. The National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 referred to that, saying that there was a case for better intelligence-led security. That is where we need to strengthen up—on the connections between the National Crime Agency and between the police and Special Branch and the security agencies. Receiving that signal and human intelligence is also very important. We cannot hope to have border posts in every cove and field across the country, as the noble Viscount suggested. Therefore, we have to rely on intelligence and on partnership with the communities as well.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad that the Government are tightening up passport control and are seizing and cancelling British passports under royal prerogative when appropriate. But does the Minister remember that last week in a Written Answer he said to me:

“Records are not held centrally of persons holding both a UK passport and foreign passport”.?

Surely it is now urgent that Border Force officials should be able to scan a British passport and know what other passports that person may hold. Otherwise, they may be able to skip out of the country. Recently, somebody actually on bail for a terrorist offence did exactly that.

[Lord Bates]

Of course, that is also one of the reasons why we have in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act the ability to seize passports, which are the property not of the individual but of the state that issues them. So we can seize those passports. We need more information on identity. On the point that the noble Lord makes about having two passports, we have changed the passport form to make sure that people can declare when that is the case. We have in place exit checks. All that is working in the general direction in which the noble Lord wants us to go.

Identity Documentation

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord Bates

Thursday 14th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

In the wake of the terrorist attacks, we have introduced 100% border checks at scheduled arrival ports in the United Kingdom. I cannot see how that assertion would stack up with the evidence.

[Lord Marlesford]

What matters is the proportion of people who are checked when they arrive and leave. What is the figure in each case now—not what is planned, not what is hoped for, but now?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I gave the answer in another context. We have introduced 100% checks for scheduled arrivals at main UK ports, and in April we introduced exit checks for scheduled departures from UK ports.

[Lord Marlesford]

Is my noble friend saying that 100% refers to exit checks as well?

[Lord Bates]

I am saying that the exit checks apply at scheduled departure ports. That is quite a precise statement. That covers the vast majority of people who come in and out of this country.

[Lord Marlesford]

I am sorry, I must ask my noble friend: are 100% of the people leaving the UK checked or not?

[Lord Bates]

The short answer is no by my noble friend’s definition, but at the principal ports of entry and departure 100% are checked.

Let me cover some of the additional points that have been raised. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, raised some very interesting points about prisoner numbers. I will share them with the Ministry of Justice and look at whether there could be greater use of existing identity numbers for people in prisons to allow better and easier access to different sorts of information.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made the point that better identity information might lead to greater tax revenues. The UK has one of the smallest tax gaps in the world, which is a reflection not only of the effectiveness of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs but of the tax rates that are levied on people.

On the argument that we ought to have more information in fewer places, to the point where we receive all information in one place, as the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, postulated might happen in future, multiple sources of data help reduce some security risks. If all DWP, health, passport, criminal record, DVLA, HMRC, DBS and DNA data were in one place, it would make their cybersecurity extremely vulnerable. My noble friend Lady Shields is Minister for Internet Safety and Security, and I will make sure that the contents of this debate and noble Lords’ contributions to it are drawn to her attention.

It is right to talk about the balance between liberty and security, as the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Oates, said, but it is also correct that without security there can be no liberty. However, their points were made, and I have noted them. An important guarantee of those liberties is the rigorous, independent system for checking where access may have occurred. For example, we have a Biometrics Commissioner, an Information Commissioner and even a Surveillance Camera Commissioner. They are all important guarantees to citizens that their information is handled carefully.

The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, mentioned the Disclosure and Barring Service. I shall write to the noble Viscount about that. There is a service standard on the Disclosure and Barring Service which would be substantially less than the three-month to four-month term that he mentioned. We will therefore need to find out why, in those particular circumstances, that was not being met.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair, challenged me—this is a very important point—to say from a Conservative perspective why Conservatives are so opposed to this. As a number of noble Lords have mentioned, this is not an ideological position; it was a Conservative Government who first introduced and discussed the idea of having an identity card, so it is not something to which we as a party are ideologically opposed. However, we have hardly been guilty of changing our mind on this at frequent intervals; we set out our position very clearly, from 2005 onwards, that we were opposed to ID cards. I recall taking part in debates from the other side of the House during the passage of that legislation and around that time, so we have been very clear for 10 years that we do not believe that to be the way forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair, is a distinguished former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. As we were preparing for this debate, I asked what representations we had received from the police and security services saying they believed that an ID card as proposed would be essential for them in tackling fraud or crime.

Police: Officer Offences

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord Bates

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We draw the conclusion that that needs to be improved. We recognise that. That is one reason why the College of Policing has introduced a new code about how vetting is undertaken. At the moment, it is done on a constabulary by constabulary basis and there are differences. We want best practice across all constabularies. A new authorised, professional standard of vetting is being issued and is expected to be introduced across all the constabularies in the country.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that conviction in open court for a criminal offence is a matter of public record? Will he therefore take steps to obtain the information which the noble Baroness asked for and publish it in Hansard, with the names of those concerned, the dates of conviction, the offences for which they were convicted and the sentences that they were given, as soon as possible?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is right to say that it is a matter of public record. What we are trying to do here in the wider sense is to have a central role for the College of Policing, which we have established, to raise standards across a whole raft of areas. It has now introduced a “struck off” list. Some 444 police officers have been struck off, and that is a matter of public record. We have also said that disciplinary hearings need in future to be held in public and to be chaired by an independent, legally qualified individual. These are all steps in the same direction that I think the noble Lord wants to go.

Calais: Border Management

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord Bates

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

There is an issue in relation to Italy. We would like to see the Italian authorities recognise that they have a major crisis on their hands and take care to ensure that, when people arrive in Italy, they are fingerprinted, registered and recorded as the Dublin regulations require. Her Majesty’s Government’s position is that, if that were to happen in Italy, it would reduce the flows heading north beyond that area.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that, if non-EU citizens enter the UK from France, they are not entitled to claim asylum in Britain, because the rules require non-EU citizens who arrive in the EU to claim asylum in the first country that they arrive in?