2. Memorandum submitted by the Home Secretary
I wrote on 29 April, following a question which
Peter Viggers asked during my evidence session in March. He asked
about how the police establish the nationality and status of people
arrested.
There is considerable co-operation between the
police and the Immigration Service in this area. Although nationality
and immigration status are not routinely recorded on the Police
National Computer (PNC), the police do routinely record an arrestee's
ethnicity and the police can access Immigration Service staff
and IT systems when they have any reason to doubt a person's nationality
or immigration status, or where they are uncertain.
I am ensuring that the police have access to
Immigration Service local enforcement officers 24 hours a day,
seven days a week. This is relevant to ensuring that under new
intelligence-based systems, all relevant information can be drawn
down on. Local enforcement officers are not only able to assist
with status enquiries but also to send out officers to interview
individuals who appear to be of interest to the Immigration Service
and, if necessary, to detain them under Immigration Act powers.
During the week, the police also have routine access to the Evidence
and Enquiry Unit of the Immigration Service to obtain details
of the status of any individual with whom they come into contact
and to obtain witness statements regarding an individual's status
for use as evidence in court. In some major police stations—for
example, West End Central police station in London—Immigration
Officers are attached to the station to provide on-site assistance.
Although any police station can send fingerprints
to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) to be checked,
police stations using the new Livescan fingerprint technology
can electronically access the IND fingerprint database directly.
Checking or verifying a person's nationality
in the case of every arrestee with whom the police deal is neither
necessary nor proportionate in terms of the time, resources and
bureaucracy that would be involved for individual police officers
to do this. For this reason, statistics are not routinely compiled
on the nationality and status of arrestees. Where someone withholds
details of their nationality, or where there is some doubt, then
the police can check with IND or the Immigration Service, as well
as checking with the PNC and with force intelligence systems to
seek to verify a person's identity and nationality. Developments
in terms of moves towards a national police intelligence database
as well as in terms of the introduction of identity cards will
clearly assist and speed up these checks.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)
are also currently working with the Immigration Service to improve
training and awareness for police custody officers to ensure that
they ask the right questions when an individual is brought into
custody and that officers understand how and where to access further
information where a person's nationality or status causes concern.
David Blunkett
29 June 2004
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