Port Examination Codes of Practice and National Security Determinations Guidance Regulations 2020

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Friday 10th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the clear and comprehensive manner in which she introduced the regulations, as is always her style; she has a great knack of making the complex comprehensible. Like other noble Lords, I will comment on the retention of biometrics. Can my noble friend say how much of a compromise position the five-year mark was, and how strong the evidence and arguments were for having a longer period—potentially, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, suggested, 15 years?

Secondly, on the question of ports and the UK border, I think it would be fair to say that, in many ways, we do not have a porous border but a partial border. Can the Minister tell us what number of ports of all types are currently, to all intents and purposes, unpersonned in this respect? What percentage of the overall number of ports is this, and how many different levels of coverage are there from, say, an unpersonned port all the way through to what one might expect at the highest level at, say, London’s Heathrow Airport?

As a number of noble Lords have commented, if the Minister’s department were to make the case for greater coverage at all ports, I think that would get a good deal of support from all parties across Parliament.