---

Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Pilot) Regulations 2008

My Lords, as the Minister stated, the pilot will affect anyone who applies for leave to remain in the UK and falls into one of the categories in Regulation 4; namely, students, prospective students, student nurses, people who want to re-sit an examination or to write up a thesis, sabbatical officers, spouses or civil partners and the unmarried or same-sex partner of someone already present and settled in the UK. We on these Benches are concerned about the new immigration regulations, which restrict so many people from outside the EU, particularly those from African states who need to be trained here to learn skills to take back to their native lands. Because of the qualifications required, these people now will not be allowed into the UK. We must look again at that. There are expected to be 10,000 applications in the first three months of this pilot scheme. We had pilot schemes in three areas for asylum and immigration applicants under that Act. If I remember rightly, there were pilots in east London, Greater Manchester and the East Midlands, and they were withdrawn. Pilot areas can be looked at and one can say, ““Gosh, this is not working, so we will withdraw the scheme””. But this pilot is merely the thin end of the wedge. As this is to be applied throughout the UK, it is not a pilot; it is just the first stage. It is also the first stage of the implementation of identity cards, which the Liberal Democrats have opposed from the start. We know exactly what is happening here. The Government have created 69 passport personal interview offices for the 600,000 people a year who apply for a passport for the first time to undergo a personal interview. We are told that 73,000 interviews have been held so far—no doubt the Minister will put me right if I have given the wrong figure—and not one applicant has been refused. So I would ask whether this is really fulfilling the need that was originally envisaged. The 69 personal interview offices took a long time to open, but in some 30 areas there is a remote facility. A council office or other building is taken over and the interview is conducted with a video link. Is this the beginning of setting up a framework for identity cards as well as passports? If so, how will you take someone’s fingerprints or iris scan by video? The time will come when we have to say, ““Gosh, this isn’t working””. The noble Baroness asked about people who apply by post. How will their fingerprints be recorded? We can see many problems here. I do not see how biometrics can possibly stop illegal working because foreign nationals and later on everybody with ID cards will be here legally. People holding passports or identity cards can be admitted legally, so how will that help in the battle against terrorism or against those coming to the UK without good intentions? I do not want to take too much time, but I want to ask about the initial cost of this scheme. About six months ago I asked about the cost of the 69 passport personal interview offices. The answer from the Home Office was that they would cost £69 million to set up, or £1 million per office. It is a very costly scheme. So I ask the Minister how much this particular scheme is going to cost and, as has already been mentioned, how safe and reliable will the information to be gathered be? Will a disk get lost somewhere? Will there be sufficient security to ensure that people’s information remains totally confidential? I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to these questions.