Passports

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

I thank the noble Baroness for her questions, in which she made a number of points. There will be jobs created in this country under the new contract. Under the present contract, 20% of the blank passports are already manufactured overseas. As far as the security issue is concerned, under the new contract all passports will continue to be personalised with the passport holder’s personal details, such as name and photograph, in the United Kingdom. This will ensure that no personal data will leave the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the farce of the blue passports continues. The Minister has confirmed that the Government could have created a state company to produce these passports and they seem to have been remarkably unprepared for the furore that was bound to welcome this application of EU public procurement rules. Will he also confirm that we could have had whatever colour of passport we wanted, since burgundy was always optional? We could have had pink, for example. Can the Minister also remind the House of the Prime Minister’s Mansion House speech, when she said she wanted a reciprocal binding commitment to fair and open competition with the EU? Presumably that covers not only state-aided competition but public procurement, so we will essentially continue to apply EU competition rules. Finally, will the Minister remind us whether Brexiteers are protectionists or global free traders? Surely they cannot be both.