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Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

My Lords, I think that I am right that Clauses 32 and 33 implement an EU directive under which carriers will have to notify the authorities of passenger details of all flights ending on EU territory, which is similar to the arrangements in place in the US. These powers are being extended to domestic flights starting and ending in the UK under Clause 9 of the Police and Justice Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister could say whether this procedure of amending one Bill in another when both are going through Parliament at the same time has ever been adopted before, and why it was necessary to do that in this case. It could not be that the Government decided that it was necessary to have information about domestic flights only when this House had already considered this Bill on Report, because the Police and Justice Bill was published on 25 January. Whatever the explanation, if the carriers have to provide PNR information in advance, any failure on the part of the operator to comply with Clause 32(2) or Clause 33(2) would be inadvertent, and the operator would have a reasonable excuse. The data might not have been entered, or there might have been a fault in the software, and the penalties would not bite. On Report, we referred to my noble friend Lord Carlile’s strictures on lax security at small airports, as reported at col. 565, and the Minister slid out of answering that question directly by saying that there were resource implications of using these powers to monitor all flights at all airports. She then wrote to my noble friend Lord Dholakia on 23 February to say that under the e-borders programme, the request for PNR information would be made for all scheduled and charter flights and all cargo services arriving in or departing from the UK. I presume that, under the Police and Justice Bill, that is now to be extended to domestic flights. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether the operators have been consulted on that, and whether they have agreed to these new requirements. On Report, my noble friend Lord Dholakia also raised the question of rendition, which took the Minister by surprise. She did not appear to grasp the relevance of what he was saying to the question of how passenger information might be used to prevent or deter serious crime. Since then we have learnt from Adam Ingram’s reply to my right honourable friend the leader of the Liberal Democrats that at least 14 CIA flights landed at Northolt and Brize Norton, although the Foreign Secretary said previously that he was unaware—