Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Sixth sitting)

Tom Hayes Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 6th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Clauses 30 and 31 concern the sharing of trailer registration information. Clause 30 creates a clear discretionary power for the Transport Secretary and, in practice, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to share some or all of the trailer registration information they hold with the Home Office, for specified purposes related to border security and law enforcement; the National Crime Agency and HMRC, for use in connection with their statutory functions; policing bodies, for purposes of policing law enforcement and safeguarding national security; and specified persons in the Crown dependencies and Gibraltar for purposes equivalent to their UK counterparts.

The measure is designed in recognition of the limited timeframes that law enforcement bodies have to review information and take decisions when risk-assessing thousands of lorry movements into the UK each day to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute crime, and to conduct checks at the roadside. Border Force intends to use this information, alongside customs information and other information it holds, to develop a richer picture of vehicle movements and enable timely interventions. For the police, the National Crime Agency, HMRC and recipients in the Crown dependencies and Gibraltar, the value of the information will be realised via the law enforcement data service, which will provide it on demand at the point of need.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

I am sure that if we cast our minds back to 2019, we will all remember the awful case where 39 Vietnamese migrants died in the back of a trailer in Essex. Reading reports of what people found when they opened the lorry, and hearing about people dying in excruciatingly painful ways, makes us all realise that everything we are doing is about trying to stop harm to vulnerable people and save lives. Does my hon. Friend agree that this group of clauses will make it easier for data held by DVLA on UK-registered trailers to be shared with our law enforcement and police, and that as a consequence we might be able to avoid more misery and loss of life in such excruciating circumstances?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. That is at the higher end of the harms that one would hope could be prevented by more timely access to this kind of information. These clauses will ensure that those charged with securing the border and beyond can use the information in line with the range of threat types enabled by cross-border lorry movements such as the one my hon. Friend just mentioned, to ensure that the law enforcement community engaged in tackling organised immigration crime, and wider serious and organised crime, are able to tackle it at pace.

Clause 31 complements clause 30 by setting out how information received by the Home Office and the police may be disclosed onwards, with whom and for what purposes. Robust inter-agency and international co-operation is crucial to smashing the criminal gangs. Border Force routinely works with the National Crime Agency and the police for the purposes of criminal investigations connected with the smuggling of people and illicit goods, and with HMRC for customs purposes.

The police, in turn, need to be able to alert law enforcement partners to identify specific trailers of interest. Border Force and the police also need to be able to alert European law enforcement partners to intercept trailers where there might be a threat to life and in support of cross-border co-operation against illicit goods. This clause, subject to safeguards contained in clause 32, enables just such an outcome to be achieved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Working out the potential for electronic borders and a more sophisticated approach to the hundreds of millions of journeys that cross our borders every year is an important part of the day job of my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston. This is a more limited clause, but we are certainly investigating the potential, costs and benefits of a much more digitalised border. We are not about to introduce that through this Bill, but there will be more to be said when that work has been done in due course.

We understand the potential for making border crossings much more convenient for everybody while having more robust information about who has crossed borders, and when and where they were crossed. Some of this is about goods, trailers and a range of other things crossing borders, and ensuring that we have information on when people smugglers and clandestines cross borders, too.

[Tom Hayes]

I note that clause 34(3) sets out the requirement for an authorised person only to take biometric information from a child under the age of 16

“in the presence of a person aged 18 or over who is—

(a) the child’s parent or guardian, or

(b) a person who for the time being takes responsibility for the child.”

Does the Minister agree that we ought not to disapply the requirement for consent on such tests for children who are under the age of 16?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is important that we uphold standards and have those requirements, which is why the clauses we are debating do that. These clauses deal with the need, in an emergency situation, to evacuate people who are British citizens and/or people who live in families that include British citizens. It is about being able to get them to safety but, at the same time, to collect biometric information so that we can check who they are. It is much more effective for us to do that at the earliest opportunity rather than getting them to the UK or on UK territory and having to do it then. That is why the clauses will put us in a much better situation from the point of view of identity and security checks, if there is an emergency evacuation of British nationals from a particular place in the future, which we hope will not happen.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 34 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 36

Provision of biometric information at ports in Scotland

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.