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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

The noble Lord has hit on a very important area, which is of great concern at times. I always say that we could expend our entire national wealth on counterterrorism, but obviously it has to be based on risk. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right: there are a lot of small ports—small airports and small coastal ports—where very often there is no one to do a check. This will give us more flexibility and allow us, with intelligence-based information as well, to cover more of those ports than we have been able to do. However, I would be wrong if I said that we will cover them all, because we will not and cannot do that, and realistically we should not try to, because it is just so difficult. What we do has to be done on the basis of intelligence; it has to be done with irregularity so as to catch people out; and we need to use other methods to ensure that we ensnare people who are criminal or wish to do us harm in other ways. However, this measure will definitely make us more capable, and is already making us more capable, than we were before.