Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2012

Lord Henley Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Henley]

That the Grand Committee do Report to the House that it has considered the Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2012.

Relevant documents: 36th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, on 25 November 2008, the UK Border Agency issued the first biometric residence permits, through regulations made under the previous Government’s UK Borders Act 2007, to foreign nationals granted further leave under student, marriage and partnership categories. Since then, the UK Border Agency has made significant progress by incrementally rolling out these highly secure immigration status documents, known in legislation as biometric immigration documents.

Identity-swapping threatens the integrity of immigration control and helps abusers to make multiple fraudulent immigration applications, to work illegally, and to access public funds and services to which they are not entitled. By recording fingerprints and digital facial images, we can check a person against our existing immigration database records and the police fingerprint database before deciding whether to allow someone to stay in the UK. We can then establish a reliable link between the holder and the document by linking the biographical details they give us to their unique biometric identifiers. Further rollouts since 2008 have incorporated points-based system applicants extending their stay in the UK for more than six months and a number of other immigration categories, and more than 600,000 biometric residence permits have been issued to date.

Approval of the Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 will mean the UK Border Agency can complete the in-country rollout of biometric residence permits to all foreign nationals from outside the European Economic Area given permission to stay here for more than six months. The planned date for rollout to new applicants in the new categories, which include those applying for settlement or indefinite leave and asylum or protection, is 29 February 2012. All non-EEA nationals will need to enrol their fingerprints and facial image if applying to stay here for more than six months from this date and they will be issued with a biometric residence permit if successful.

The provision in the regulations for any migrant granted permission to stay for more than six months from 1 December 2012 to apply for a biometric residence permit if they have not done so already is intended to incorporate those who made an application to stay in the UK before a biometric requirement in their immigration category. This ensures that from this date the agency will only issue one format of document to non-EEA nationals permitted to stay here for more than six months.

Rolling out secure biometric residence permits to more foreign nationals helps the UK Border Agency to upgrade and streamline the documents it issues. Volumes of biometric residence permits in circulation will be significantly boosted by this phase of the rollout, which in turn helps employers and others who are becoming increasingly familiar with them. Feedback from employers, businesses and other government departments supports this. The documents provide the opportunity for fast and simple checking and lend themselves to a one-stop check of immigration status, identity and right to work or access public benefits.

As increased numbers of migrants will hold biometric residence permits, these regulations widen the circumstances when they must be presented, to include all immigration applications and also nationality or related applications. The regulations ensure that when presenting these biometric documents, foreign nationals may be compelled to provide their fingerprints for comparison against those in the document, and this is extended for employment purposes. We will trial technology to achieve this with a select number of external organisations during 2012.

In addition to streamlining the immigration documents issued in the UK, biometric permits meet the standardised format of documents set out in European legislation that the UK opted into: Regulation EC 1030/2002, as amended by EC 380/2008, with which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will be very familiar. Aligning with other member states ensures we are not a weak link in Europe for immigration abuse.

Rollout to overseas applicants coming to the United Kingdom for more than six months will require significant infrastructure and system changes, and we will return to Parliament with our plans, including policy proposals, for that final stage. This will be after the accreditation period for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, to ensure that the integrity and robustness of business-critical systems are maintained.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for explaining the background to these regulations. To date, the UK has partially complied with the EU regulation by undertaking the rollout of the permit incrementally by immigration application category. We support the general thrust of the regulations, but it would be helpful if the noble Lord would give the Committee an outline of what further stages need to be gone through before the work is complete.

In his speech today, the noble Lord referred to the Written Statement of 6 December in which he said that, on the overseas rollout of biometric permits, the Government will return to Parliament with plans, including policy proposals, for the final stage. This will be after the accreditation period of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Will the noble Lord give a little more information about that, and about when he intends to return to Parliament with his plans? Will he also say what will be the nature of the legislation that he will bring to Parliament—is it primary or secondary legislation?

Perhaps I might also ask him about public consultation on the regulations. Page 5 of the impact assessment sets out the process of consultation in some detail, and also refers to two surveys launched by the UK Border Agency in 2011. The impact assessment says that these various consultations,

“have informed the high level policy”.

That is always reassuring to know. However, it is silent on the actual results of the consultation. It would be helpful to know what the main thrust of the results was and how that informed high-level policy.

I would be grateful if the Minister would answer three further questions. First, will he give me an idea of how many permits he expects will be issued under these provisions? The second follows what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said in relation to the UK Border Agency’s staff resource issues over the past 18 months. The Minister and his esteemed predecessors brought to your Lordships’ House a number of proposals and changes in policy that added to the responsibilities of the UK Border Agency. We know that the agency has had to bear its share of the cuts in funding to the Home Office. I echo the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that the UKBA has been given additional responsibilities and fewer resources. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Henley, will talk about efficiencies that he hopes to drive through the system—which is a very fair point—but my experience is that when you do that, in the end the thing falls over. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has given examples of the impact on the time taken to process applications, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, will come back to us on that.

Thirdly, on IT, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, suggested that this might be a routine application. My experience in government is that nothing in IT should ever be described as routine. One has to accept that these are very complex issues, but it would none the less be helpful to the Committee if the Minister would say something about the IT challenges that are being faced. Will the Minister also talk about the cost of implementation overseas? How does he anticipate that cost being met out of his budget?

However, in general, the Opposition support these proposals, which of course flow from the UK Borders Act introduced by the previous Government.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for finally getting to that crucial bit at the end and saying—as did his right honourable friend in the Commons—that the Opposition welcome these orders. After all, they simply follow from what his Government started as part of a continuous process of gradual rollout. The noble Lord asked what further stages were necessary for dealing with this. He will be more than happy that I can give him an assurance that—as I understand it; I will write to him if I am wrong—no further primary legislation will be necessary, although there will be a need to return to Parliament with some secondary legislation in due course.

For the overseas rollout of biometric permits, we are completing a very comprehensive analysis of our options to identify the most cost-effective solution that will have the least impact on our customers and will take account of our commitments under EU legislation. A number of factors are relevant, including the timing of the 2012 Olympic Games and the rollout of other new technology for the agency, and we will return to Parliament with this as soon as possible after the Games. For that reason, at this stage I cannot say anything more about what I think the noble Lord described as his third question—although there seemed to be more than three—on the cost of implementation overseas. If I have any further information, I will let the noble Lord know in due course.

The noble Lord also asked how many permits in total we would issue each year. Based on 2010’s published figures, we could expect around 550,000 permits a year to be issued. However, a reduction in this figure to around 400,000 could be expected given the significant number of grants made on a discretionary basis in 2010, mainly under measures aimed at clearing a backlog of outstanding unresolved cases and because of the impact of policy changes to the points-based system. I hope that that assists the noble Lord.