---

UK Borders Bill

The point that we were discussing, to which the noble Lord has just replied, is whether the employer would feel obliged by the legislation to demand documentation of this sort from anybody who belonged to an ethnic minority, simply to safeguard his own position now that we have created a criminal offence which the employer might commit if he failed to take sufficient precautions against hiring somebody who was not legally empowered to take a job in this country. The two effects combined—the existence of these documents, plus the criminal penalties that may be levied against an employer—would be a standing temptation to any employer to safeguard himself by routinely asking for the production of this document, even when a national insurance certificate was already in existence. One would be belt-and-braces assured that the BID would always be asked for whenever someone with the appearance of belonging to an ethnic minority walked in to apply for a job with an employer.