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Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (Violent Offender Orders) (Notification Requirements) Regulations 2009

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this order, which is not very contentious but gives rise to a couple of questions that will probably be relevant to the next order, too. As I understand it, people who are of no fixed abode or who have no address are one category of people who will have to give notification every week of their current whereabouts. That is presumably if they intend to travel at some stage. I do not quite understand that. Are they going to have to give information about their whereabouts weekly to the police whether or not they are going to travel? That was not quite clear in the Minister’s statement. Arising from that, who is going to keep track of this? One of the conditions in court that one can put on people who are on bail is that they should report to the police on a regular basis. However, the police do not always know whether they have reported or not, and it is not a very reliable handcuff, as it were. I just want to be sure where that information is going, who is going to deal with it and who is going to be running around keeping track of it if the information is not given. Secondly, why three days’ travel? You can leave the country for one day or 30 days or whatever. I do not understand why this is limited to kick in for somebody who wants to go away for three days and over. You can say you are going away for any length of time. My own view is that it would be better if it kicked in at any time they wanted to go abroad for any length of time. That would make this a much tighter system. Is the assumption that the intention of these people is to return? Or is there an assumption that they may intend to come back but it does not matter if do not come back because the information will still be passed on? I only ask that because under the heading, "Additional information to be disclosed", it says firmly: ""That the information is—""(d) where the offender proposes to return to the United Kingdom on a particular date, that date; and""(e) where the offender proposes to return to the United Kingdom at a particular point of arrival"." They may never propose to come back at all so what is the lock on that? One bit of information does not seem to be there. They are asked to give their national insurance number but there is no mention of passports. Presumably at the moment you still cannot leave the country or get back in without some indication of identity or a passport. I would have thought that one of the most valuable bits of information for the police to have would be the passport number, but that is not mentioned. I have no objection to the order but I think it might be helpful if we could have an explanation.