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Mr. Malins: On a point of order, Ms Anderson. It is a minor point of order, which relates to the Official Report of our debates on Tuesday afternoon. I am quoted as referring to the issue of clarity of purpose. The Official Report goes on to state that I referred to
''words used by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin)''.—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 18 January 2005; c 59.]
I am pretty certain that I said my right hon. Friend the Shadow Home Secretary, by which I mean my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden. It is probably not a genuine point of order and I apologise, but, if nothing else, it may enable Hansard to take a note of what I said.
The Chairman: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point of order. I am sure that Hansard will have taken note of it.
3.15 pm
Mr. Malins: I beg to move amendment No. 32, in clause 5, page 5, line 15, after 'may', insert 'reasonably'.
I am simply proposing to the Committee that the Secretary of State should have a requirement imposed on him that any requirements he makes are reasonable. It is wrong for anyone to suggest that they would be unreasonable. I hope I do not get punished later for saying that I do not think that the Home Secretary of this or any other Government would ask us to do something unreasonable.
There is a strict requirement on an individual under that clause. Under later clauses, failure to attend at a specified place and time for fingerprints and photographs to be taken and recorded is punishable. It is a little wide simply to use the words
''otherwise to provide such information as may be required by the Secretary of State.''
The Secretary of State should have a test of reasonableness imposed on him—a minor matter, but one that I hope the Government will take on board.
Mr. Browne: I am happy to reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Government will take that point on board. As a matter of fact, public law requires that of the Government. I will explain.
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The amendment is not necessary. Subsection (4) already provides that the power can be used only for the purposes of verifying information that is to be or is already entered into the register, ensuring that it is up to date and accurate. It cannot be used for requiring information for other purposes. The Secretary of State in exercising this power must already act reasonably in applying the requirement. If he does not, normal public law remedies will apply. Under normal public law, that is implied by granting the power itself. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will accept that reassurance and, under those circumstances, withdraw his amendment.
Mr. Malins: I am grateful to the Minister, who has reassured us that the Secretary of State is required under public law to act reasonably. On reflection, that is right. He would be open to judicial challenge if he did not. I felt it might be more helpful to have the word ''reasonably'' in the Bill, but I can see why it is not necessary. We have had a short but useful debate and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Allan: I beg to move amendment No. 81, in clause 5, page 5, line 19, at end add—
'(7) The Secretary of State shall make provision for local facilities to satisfy the attendance requirements of subsection (5)(a).
(8) The Secretary of State shall make provision for home visits to people unfit to travel to satisfy the requirements of subsection (5)(a).'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 154, in clause 6, page 5, line 29, at end insert—
'(c) the assistance available with transportation arrangements and costs to vulnerable or disabled individuals required to make an application.'.
No. 99, in clause 12, page 11, line 11, at end add—
'(7) The Secretary of State shall make provision for local facilities to satisfy the attendance requirements of subsection (5)(a).
(8) The Secretary of State shall make provision for home visits to people unfit to travel to satisfy the requirements of subsection (5)(a).'.
Mr. Allan: These are important amendments. Amendment No. 81 would add to clause 5, which is about the initial requirement to register for the national identity register or, as discussed, the initial requirement to attend a place to give biometric data—now for passport applications. That will have a speedy effect on ordinary citizens in the United Kingdom, even before discussion of any compulsion for the ID register as a whole.
Amendment No. 99 would do the same to clause 12, which deals with the alteration of any data on the database. There are various points at which the citizen may now be required to attend and, in particular, hand over biometric data in person. The Minister has made a case for why that must happen in person. We are, therefore, now considering a process that is quite different from the existing process for a passport application, in which everything can be done remotely. That will impact directly on the citizens of the United
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Kingdom, and in considerable numbers. Estimates from the National Physical Laboratory of what we will have to deal with are of between 10,000 and 50,000 applicants per working day.
Subsequent to the passing of the legislation—if that should happen—in the ordinary process of reapplying for United Kingdom passports, we are talking about tens of thousands of people per working day who will have to attend these centres in person. We must get more detail from the Minister about the circumstances under which that will take place.
We are trying to deal with two groups of people with whom we are particularly concerned. Please note that my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) has put his name to the amendments. One concerns the locality of the places where one might have to register. That is a very significant concern for someone who lives in Orkney and Shetland, and for people in many other areas of the country. Potentially, the costs of applying first for a passport and then for an identity card—which we are requiring by compulsion under threat of a fine—will vary dramatically depending on where someone lives. The Government say the flat fee cost will be £85, though we shall bid them up to some other figure when all the true costs come out. The flat fee cost is also only the start. As I said earlier, a critical question is what time these offices will be open. If they open during working hours, there will be a significant opportunity cost if people have to take time off work to make the journey to the place, remain there—perhaps sitting in a queue—and then come back again. There are also the physical travel costs.
It is important that we tease out whether the Government intend to have a sufficient network so that if somebody in Orkney and Shetland—or elsewhere, such as the Yorkshire dales—applies for a new passport in two or three years' time, they will not be told that the only way to get it is to go to a place that is so distant that it will cost them a lot of time and money.
The Minister referred to the problems of the Passport Agency a few years ago, when the Government's requirement to register babies coincided with the introduction of a new system that caused all kinds of delay. I am sure that all Committee members are aware of the stress that constituents experienced when they were told to go to passport offices as that was the only way to get an emergency passport. People do not like having to travel to get passports; they would much rather go through the normal applications process.
Mr. Curry: There is an important analogy here. The hon. Gentleman will recall that last year, when the Government intended that there should be voting by postal ballot only, as indeed took place, they were going to say that in each electoral district just one polling station would remain open so that people could deliver their ballot paper if they wished to do so or the ballot had been posted too late. I, among others, pointed out that there are 900 square miles of Pennines in my constituency and that only one polling station remaining open would be wholly inadequate. The
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Government sensibly agreed that far more places to vote should remain open to account for those differences. Passport offices are much rarer than even polling stations, and getting to the passport office in my constituency costs almost as much as buying the passport.
Mr. Allan: The right hon. Gentleman gives a helpful analogy. I enjoy travelling around his constituency on holiday, but I would not were I one of his constituents having to drive across it simply to secure a passport for a planned foreign holiday in a couple of weeks' time, or in a shorter time scale, as there are cases of people needing passports more urgently. Moving everyone to something similar to the emergency passport procedure, with physical attendance being required, will cause great resentment. Locality is a very significant point that the Government need to assure themselves on. My amendments would ensure that the Government had a duty to do so and would make that duty explicit in the Bill.
Another aspect is home visits for people who are unfit to travel so that they can satisfy the requirements to provide their biometric data. Again, we are considering an important category of people, as will be remembered with Ryanair, which was found against when it said at one airport that it did not have to provide wheelchairs for disabled passengers. Those people have a right to access Government services, but they will be told that the only way to gain that access is to provide their biometric data, even though they might not find it either easy or cost-effective to get to the centre. It is entirely appropriate in the circumstances to impose on the Government a requirement to offer a home visit service. The two amendments would do that. It may well be that, under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the Government will have to make special provision. These are not filleting amendments, but ones that would add to the substance of the Bill.
In probing the Government, we need to spend a little time discussing these two groups—people in remote areas and people who, in normal circumstances, are physically incapable of reaching the stations to which they must go in the first instance—in view of the penalty of not having a passport and being unable to go about their ordinary business. Post-2008, those people will face the full threat of legal sanctions and fines if they do not get to that place and offer their data.
Those are the reasons behind the proposals. I am sure that the Minister picked them up as soon as he read the amendments and I hope he can offer us assurances on both points.
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