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Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

I have not been much involved in this Bill, but I take a great interest in freedom of movement, within Europe and the common travel area, and this provision quite astounded me. Many British citizens take the common travel area for granted, in some ways—when they go to Dublin, perhaps, or when British citizens within Northern Ireland travel within the island of Ireland—but it does not generally receive a great profile. The common travel area is, however, extremely precious. It has a long historic base and reflects a close relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The group of amendments following this one might go more profoundly into Clause 46, but when starting to read about this I took out the Immigration Act 1971 from the Printed Paper Office, to try and understand what this clause does in relation to it. I found great difficulty in following it through, but although I could not understand this entirely from the legislation, I noted that the Explanatory Notes produced for the Bill say, in referring to Clause 46(1), that: ""This amendment will enable the routine control of all persons arriving in or departing from the UK via the CTA by aircraft or ship"." Perhaps this amendment is not necessary, because if the notes are true it is somehow suggested that the new provision does not include travel over land, but only "by aircraft or ship". That seems entirely illogical if it is true, so I will be interested in the Minister’s explanation of the Explanatory Notes. Clearly, it makes no sense at all to control access to the United Kingdom by aircraft or ship if we do not control it by the land border as well. Anybody wanting to enter Great Britain who we would not want here but who is already in, say, the Republic of Ireland—although I understand that this would also include the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man—will clearly just travel by land to Northern Ireland, and thereafter by air or ship on an intra-United Kingdom journey. I do not understand this to be giving any extra security or control to us as British citizens, let alone to those of other jurisdictions within the CTA. I will be interested to understand from the Minister exactly what benefit this provision has, at the expense of starting to erode strongly something that we should view as precious: the right of all citizens within the CTA to travel freely and without hindrance. As my noble friend Lord Shutt said, that was never seen as something that should be restricted during the Troubles, and I see no reason why it should be the case now.