Authority to Carry Scheme and Civil Penalties Regulations 2021

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining these regulations. As other noble Lords have said, the 2015 scheme that they replace had a sunset clause, meaning that it would cease to have effect in April 2022, but these regulations have been introduced early because of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. That means that certain high-harm individuals who would have fallen outside the scope of the 2015 scheme can now be included in the 2021 scheme, including those who are subject to travel-related sanctions under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, and the questions that she asked about Shamima Begum. However, the Minister said, if I heard her correctly, that no one had been prevented from leaving the UK under the 2015 regulations, even though that is possible, and that police at the UK border would be used to prevent people departing in the circumstances that the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, outlined. Although the noble Baroness asked very important questions, I am not sure that they are related to these regulations.

As far as the operation of the scheme is concerned, I have a few questions that I hope the Minister may be able to answer. If she cannot today, perhaps she could write to me. I understand that a visa may be cancelled or revoked, and that the carrier may not be aware this has happened, but an increasing number of travellers are able to visit the UK without a visa. The Government did not take the opportunity of leaving the European Union to require visas for entry into the UK from EU, EEA and Swiss nationals but instead extended visa-free entry using the e-passport gates to citizens of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States of America. Rather than taking back control of our borders, this Government threw them open to citizens of seven new countries and kept them open for EU, EEA and Swiss nationals.

The Minister talked about the importance of the scheme and how people could be denied authority to travel, rather than being turned away at the UK border. But the question has to be: how can they be turned away at the UK border if they do not require a visa and can use the e-passport gates? As a result of all these additional people being able to enter the UK without a visa, the authority to carry scheme becomes even more important as checks carried out when someone applies for a visa, which could prevent those who should be prevented from entering the UK, have been ditched in relation to millions of potential visitors to the UK. Indeed, visa checks could reveal that someone previously unknown to the authorities should not be allowed to enter the UK—something the authority to carry scheme is unlikely to pick up.

The Minister talked about the carriers having to provide information on passengers and crew prior to departure. How long before departure do these details have to be provided, and therefore what timescale do UK officials have to respond to that information to prevent people boarding aircraft, for example? On the general question, why did the Government not take the opportunity of leaving the European Union to require more people visiting the UK to have visas, so increasing the security at the border, but instead threw the borders open to nationals from even more countries?

The authority to carry scheme applies only to carriers which have been required to submit details comprising passenger and crew information and, in some cases, according to the draft scheme, in respect of some routes only. Why not all carriers and routes? What are the chances of someone who wishes to enter the UK but should be prevented from doing so from entering it using carriers or routes where no requirement is made to submit such information or, as the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, has just said, evading the authority to carry scheme altogether by entering the UK through Ireland and the common travel area?

Carriers can provide passenger and crew information voluntarily and it is then treated as a request for authority to carry. What happens if the information is not volunteered and there is no opportunity to refuse such authority?

Persons in respect of whom authority to carry may be refused include individuals who are the subject of an exclusion order under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016. I refer again to the draft scheme. These regulations give effect to certain judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union—CJEU—and address issues concerning the practical application of directive 2004/38/EC within the United Kingdom. Is the UK still bound by these EU directives and judgments of the CJEU?

Finally, to what extent has the existing authority to carry scheme relied on the Schengen Information System —SIS II—to identify those who should be barred from entering the UK? Specifically, of the 8,000 individuals the Home Office has refused carriers authority to carry, how many were refused entry on the basis of information provided by SIS II—a database that we no longer have access to?