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Immigration (Biometric Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2009

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument; I recognise, at the outset, that this is becoming an annual event and will, I guess, continue to be so. The implementation of the full-scale identity card system is, obviously, gathering pace. The Government’s experience in issuing ID cards to migrants to this country, in increasing numbers and categories, is surely not unconnected to their desire to see them carried, ultimately, by every citizen. As the Minister will know, we are against such use, we are against the ID system, which we believe to be quite unnecessary, and we are not particularly impressed by the back-door implementation through the excuse of border control. However, it is with us, so we have to deal with it. The biometrics on the identity cards that are to be supplied are limited, as I understand it, to two fingerprints with a facial image. Is the facial image a full face photograph or a digital eyeprint? At present, the information is also said to include biographical details such as—I quote the Minister in the other place—name, status, nationality, date and place of birth. Is that the entirety of the information held on the vignette, as I think it is called, or is any other additional information put in? If so, what is it? Is the intention to add additional information in due course? The Minister has outlined the categories included in the regulations today, and they seem to fall into what we would call the soft-touch areas. They are existing marriage and partnership applications to extend leave, updated student categories and a number of small categories, such as postgraduate doctors and dentists—that is clearly limited—academic visitors, visitors for private medical treatment who need to extend their treatment, domestic workers, our long-suffering Commonwealth colleagues and, almost unbelievably, retired persons of independent means, who will ultimately no longer be entitled to come here. We have had that discussion before, but it does no harm to say again that this seems to be a very strange decision. Most of those groups are hardly the most likely to breach immigration laws or requirements. The fact that they are among the first to have identity cards seems to suggest that the more difficult categories, and those which will require more work, are being left to the last. I have one or two questions about that for the Minister. I am at a loss as to how the system will work to ensure that someone who is here receiving private treatment, perhaps confined to hospital or having to attend each day, is going to get to a centre to have their biometric details taken. If they are going to be here only for a week or 10 days, are they still going to have to have an ID card? Or is there an expectation that people on private treatment are going to be here for much longer than a short-term visit? It is clearly not sensible or practical to suggest that someone who will be here for a limited period is going to have an ID card. Perhaps we can know some more about that. As a former chairman of an NHS trust, I recognise that people who come here for private treatment, or who end up having it while they are visitors here, are not always the most scrupulous about paying either the NHS or the private facility. I am not sure that an ID card will make much difference there. Having to obtain an ID card seems to be somewhat excessive. Perhaps the Minister would enlighten us on the process of how they would go about doing that. I am glad that visas for doctors and dentists are now being extended to the full extent of their training; that is a very practical and sensible decision. When will those who are already here need to obtain an identity card if they wish to further extend their stay? Or would they have to do that during their limited visa time? I am concerned about the cards being provided to domestic workers. Many of these people, as the introduction to the regulations suggested, are extremely vulnerable. What would be the penalty or the result of their employers taking their cards and refusing to give them back? We already know that often their passports are taken away as soon as they get into the country, which potentially leaves them subject to trafficking and abuse. There have been enough cases for us to know that. I wonder whether that has been taken into account and whether there is some criminal penalty for not returning someone’s card. I was going to ask the Minister how long it takes to obtain an ID card, but I believe he said a week. There are centres across the country. The Minister nods, so I have my answer to both points. Finally, is an ID card supposed to work with a passport as a travel document, or can it operate on its own? I know that if you obtain a passport you probably have to obtain an ID card at the same time. I wondered whether you had to show both when required to at a border. I would be grateful for a reply to my questions, but I have no more observations on the regulations.