Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR LIAM
BYRNE MP, MR
NEIL CLOWES
AND MS
PAULA HIGSON
6 DECEMBER 2006
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon and welcome,
Minister. We are very pleased that you could manage to come along.
Mr Byrne: It is a pleasure.
Q2 Chairman: You might first want
to introduce your team to us.
Mr Byrne: On my left is Paula
Higson, who is a Director at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate
and she oversees biometric residence permits and runs the managed
migration business at IND. On my right is Neil Clowes who has
got a particular specialism in matters European.
Q3 Chairman: You know, Minister,
this issue has been with us for some time.
Mr Byrne: Yes.
Q4 Chairman: It is a portfolio that
needs to be moved on. Your predecessor did in fact correspond
with us in the past. We are looking for an explanation in, I stress,
plain words because I think people are beginning to find the technocrat
language used in a lot of the replies not easy to understand or
assess. So we are looking for language that people who may be
interested in the work of this Committee will understand, without
having a degree in computer science. In your letter of 5 July
you will recall you distinguished between the "minimum"
biometric residence permit and the "incremental" version
which was the Government's preferred option, which did seem to
put the costs up significantly. Would you explain the difference
between the two, particularly in terms of their benefits?
Mr Byrne: Yes, the key difference
between the two is that the minimum was a secure document which
we planned, I understand, to issue in the form of a vignette,
so a traditional sticker that is plastered in a passport. It has
got a couple of important security features. Probably most obvious
is the scanned picture of the face. The incremental version has
got a couple of important differences, one of which is the embedding
of a chip. The embedding of the chip plus the record in our own
biometric databases allows you to deliver checks which are important
in, I think, two regards. The first regard is that it allows businesses
who have got readers with the ability to basically decode the
data on the chip to do a local cross-check, a sort of technical
interrogation of the card, which provides a level of authenticity
over and above a merely visual check of the picture. In order
to counterfeit that you would need the ability to unlock the chip,
using a pretty standard technical scheme called PKI, and then
recode different data onto the chip. I think perhaps more importantly
for us is that the second level of checks allows, for example,
officers from the Immigration Service, when they find individuals,
to use mobile quick scanners to take somebody's biometric, such
as a finger print, and then check that against a central database
record. It is conceivable in the future that organised crime may
find the ability to unlock and counterfeit chips on a document.
It is far less conceivable that they will be able to interfere
with centrally held database records on a central database. What
we are trying to do is really increase the levels of security
which are attached to the document. I apologise, I do not have
a degree in computer science but I did spend most of my career
in the IT industry, so you will have to pull me up when I start
wandering into jargon territory.
Chairman: Nia Griffith?
Q5 Nia Griffith: I would like to
explore this business of costs further. You have said the estimated
set-up cost of the biometric residence permit has gone up from
£24 million to £60 million and the estimated running
cost from £15 million to £56 million. These seem to
be extraordinarily large increases. Perhaps you could explain
why those increases in the estimates have occurred? What has changed
since the first estimate you made?
Mr Byrne: Let me preface this
answer with an important caveat, which is that I am glad to have
been able to come along today to answer some of the questions
that are in the documentation, but since before the summer I have
been undertaking a review of our identity management plans at
the Home Office on behalf of the Home Secretary. What struck me
very clearly is that we need to be bringing together our plans
for biometric residence permits, which have developed over the
last couple of years since the European regulations have moved
on, with our plans for ID cards for British citizens. Both ideas
are really designed to tackle the same kinds of problem. What
the Prime Minister and Home Secretary have asked for is a strategic
action plan on ID cards and a specific supplement before Christmas
to that plan on how we use identity management to tackle illegal
immigration. What I can say is to a degree limited before that
report is published and it is also fair to say that I anticipate
that some of the cost estimates that we have been able to provide
to the Committee, although they were an accurate reflection of
what the Home Office thought at the time, I do not think are to
be a final word because until we have that action plan in place,
we cannot then go on to undertake a revised series of costings
and a revised cost-benefit analysis. We do need to do that and
we will present back to the House in the six monthly ID card cost
report our final estimate. I apologise to the Committee that is
a slightly longwinded preface. Of course as a former member of
the Committee I would be delighted to come back and talk a bit
further when those plans are produced. To answer your question
directly, the key reasons that the costs have changed are that
you are having to issue a different product. Issuing a vignette
in a passport is something that we do already and we have got
quite a well-established infrastructure for issuing that kind
of technology, if I can call it that. By issuing biometric residence
permits in the form of cards and with embedded chips which are
effectively microprocessors, you are automatically putting up
the volume cost of the secure document that you are actually issuing,
but you are also incurring some technical setup costs. In order
to change business processes in order to issue different kinds
of things we would need to put in place different issuing systems,
different technology, and different infrastructure as well. That
is why both the set-up costs and running costs have changed in
that way.
Q6 Nia Griffith: You do not seem
to have made any reference to the actual numbers that you are
thinking that you are going to need of these. You talk about apportioning
out the costs over 10 years, but is there any accurate estimate
of the amount of these you are actually hoping to issue?
Mr Byrne: At this stage before
we publish the action plan on ID cards and its supplement I would
be constrained in what I can answer. We would welcome the Committee's
views on where they saw the priority for issuing these cards.
The broad strategic intent that the Home Office has set out, and
which the Prime Minister repeated in his press conference recently,
is that we want to create a much more difficult environment in
this country if you are here illegally. We said in the IND review
a bit before the summer that we wanted to systematically close
down the privileges of being in Britain if you are here illegally,
such as the privilege to work and the privilege to access benefits.
I think biometric identification helps to do that. It gives employers
a much greater ability to check whether someone is who they say
they are because we can back them up on that with visa application
services. The DWP are obviously interested in shutting down benefits
for those who have no right to be here or shutting down benefits
for those who have left the country. It could well be that the
banking industry are interested in how they access this kind of
technology because, after all, if you are here illegally and you
are working then wages are technically the proceeds of a crime.
Banks are under all sorts of obligations to report through suspicious
activity reports if proceeds of a crime are being channelled through
their organisation, either remitted home or recycled in the banking
industry. So I think there is still a debate to be had about exactly
how widely and how quickly we should be rolling out biometric
identity to third country nationals. We will express some first
thoughts when we publish the action plan on ID cards before Christmas.
It is a subject we should have a debate on and on which we welcome
the Committee's views.
Q7 Nia Griffith: Can I just pursue
this a minute Chairman, please. You are saying that these figures
do not bear any relation to the number of residence permits that
you think you will be actually issuing.
Mr Byrne: As I say in my caveat,
I think these numbers are not the final numbers. I think they
will be updated.
Q8 Chairman: Uprated?
Mr Byrne: Updated.
Q9 Chairman: You mean they may come
down?
Mr Byrne: I would not hazard a
comment on that at this stage, but the process we have got to
go through now is set out the plan—what is it that we want
biometric identification to do, what do we think the priorities
are. A lot of people have said we seem to be deploying ID cards
as a solution to everything but what do you want them to do? I
think that is a fair critique. We do need to set out what the
priorities are. Our first priority must be to do that. The second
priority is then to revise our business cases. And then the third
priority is to present an updated cost report to Parliament in
line with the ID Cards Act. So I think those are questions that
will be clarified over the next three or four months. I just wanted
to be upfront with the Committee about that.
Q10 Mr Borrow: In your letter to
the Chairman of 5 July you attached a table to it which broke
down in three headings the benefits of biometric residence permits
and those headings were: contribution to the wider national identity
scheme; improvement to immigration control; and compliance with
EU legislation. I would be interested in hearing a little bit
more detail on that. In view of the fact that your Department
is reviewing the whole ID card project including what you want
from it, does that have any impact on the benefits you claimed
in July as against the benefits you anticipate when this review
has been completed?
Mr Byrne: Let me go through those
objectives in reverse order. It is worth, I think, just noting
that the EU is still to finalise the precise specification of
biometric residence permits. They set out in the Regulations (which
I think are the precise subject of the Committee's scrutiny) their
direction of travel; a direction of travel we are happy with,
but it may well be something the Committee wants to return to
when that precise investigation is locked down. The subject of
immigration control is an important one because I see the national
identity system as basically allowing us to do three things. First,
it will allow us to introduce much more sophisticated vetting
and storing of storing biometric details for those nationals from
108 different countries that we currently require visas from.
It will allow our consulates abroad to actually check fingerprints
that they receive from visa applicants with the government databases
here. Interestingly, in tests that we have already done in nine
posts abroad, we have already found something like 1,400 people
who we have deported for one reason or another trying to sneak
back into the country lying about their identity. It allows us
to create that first ring of defence which is quite well away
from our shores. The second security which it allows us to strengthen
is the security controls on the primary line here in the UK. I
was at Heathrow Airport this morning looking at a pilot called
miSense, which is a system which takes biometric identity and
actually accelerates people through automated travel gates once
a number of background checks have been done on them. So, if you
like, they have a record which is enriched through a different
kind of vetting. Because we have locked that individual down to
a single identity we are able to trust them with the ability to
speed through immigration gates. It allows us then to redeploy
immigration officers to less robust parts of the border. It allows
us to strengthen the primary line. It also allows us to strengthen
IND's ability to enforce immigration rules in country because
it allows us to biometrically check people that we find on illegal
working operations, for example, in country and check they are
who they say they are. Once people are then in the criminal justice
system it allows agencies to share records much more effectively.
One of the eight priority actions that the Home Secretary set
out after the foreign national prison incident not long after
he took office was the need for a single identifier which the
Police, Prison Service, Immigration Service and others can share.
Locking down an individual to a single identity is critical to
our ability to deport people because what typically slows down
deportations are arguments with foreign countries about whether
a national is indeed one of theirs. If we go back to the start
and if we have already captured people's identities when they
have applied for a visa, it is much easier for us to say, "This
individual came from your country; they applied for a visa."
Biometric residence permits are an important part of the need
to develop this national identity system which allows us to strengthen
the immigration system overall. The first point is the contribution
to the identity scheme as a whole. We have said that we want to
introduce biometric residence permits for foreign country nationals
in 2008 and we have said that we want to introduce identity cards
for British citizens in 2009, so the way in which this system
helps is that it allows us to get into the rhythm and routine
of issuing cards to a smaller population and it allows us to test
different ways of issuing cards effectively. There is a lot we
will learn from this which will then be of benefit to the rest
of the country when the ID card is brought online the following
year.
Q11 Mr Hoyle: The biggest problem
is they are not going to come via Heathrow. The majority will
come through other routes and that is half the problem. You can
have all the biometric tests in the world; if people do not come
through a route that has got security posts on it, the whole thing
is flawed from start to finish. Of course, the other thing is
if people are coming from China, China refuses to take them back.
What do you do then?
Mr Byrne: This is a subject very
close to my heart. There are two points here. The first is that
when we issue biometric visas abroad, that is the first stage
of a two-part security process that we envisage before people
actually land here in the UK. Once people have been issued with
a biometric visa they will then check in, and we support that
process of check-in through a global network of airline liaison
officers who have been enormously successful in, for example,
helping deny authority to travel to about 30,000 people last year.
Once people have checked in though, whether they have a biometric
visa or a document held by a government which we trust that we
do not ask for visas from, there are then a range of electronic
name checks which are conducted against watch lists here in the
UK; not just Immigration Service watch lists but also watch lists
from other countries as well. That allows us to do a couple of
things which are important. The first when we start using advance
passenger information we can do that name-based vetting before
people take off. So it allows us to deny authority to carry the
people that we are concerned about before they take off. Once
people are in the air, it allows us to risk-profile the flight
before arrival and then redeploy Immigration Service officers
to meet that flight if we are concerned about it. Between now
and 2010-11 there is judgment involved but it is judgment based
on risk-profiling passengers, if you like, on a particular vehicle
heading our way. It sounds like your concern is that people might
not be coming to Heathrow, they might be coming to a minor port.
Have I caught that exactly.
Mr Hoyle: For somebody to get on a plane
they have to have a passport or an identity, so all we have to
do is photocopy the identity. You do not even have to spend these
huge amounts of money to achieve what you are trying to achieve.
What happens is by the time they get here they have lost their
documents or destroyed them and the idea is they say, "I
am not from that particular country, I am here as an asylum seeker."
If you had photocopied the passport before they got here and they
came with them on the plane you could say, "I am sorry but
when you got on the plane this was your passport; you are going
back." That seems a very quick, easy way to do it and it
will save you billions. The point I am trying to get to is great,
if you are going to come through the orthodox route. The reality
is that people who are desperate do not come through the orthodox
route. They will come through on the back of wagons jumping out
in Kent. They will come through ports and container units all
over. The problem is you could have as much wonderful new identity
kit as you want but it just does not work.
Chairman: A fantastic scenario but unfortunately
it is not within this remit.
Mr Hoyle: Do you not think you are wasting
money? That is the truth of the matter on the kit you have got.
Chairman: Can I bring Angus Robertson
in.
Q12 Angus Robertson: Sticking with
this area of inquiry, Minister, you have talked about risk-profiling,
you have talked about tests and you have talked about pilots.
I think this Committee would be quite interested in the quantification
of the benefits. You have some initial testing that shows that
it would be of benefit in a number of scenarios but hard, quantifiable
benefits would be useful.
Mr Byrne: Absolutely, and this
is where I am afraid I have to go back to an earlier answer and
say that I think our first step is to set out our priorities with
greater clarity than has been done so far for how we see identity
management—
Q13 Angus Robertson: Feel free to.
Mr Byrne: —supporting the
fight against illegal immigration, and that is the plan that we
have been asked to publish before Christmas. On the back of that
we then have to undertake the business case analysis in order
to quantify the benefits and set them against the costs which
we believe are involved. Those business cases then go through
a number of government checks, so they have to go through the
Home Office Investment Board for a start, then they will need
to be cleared by the Treasury, and they will need to be cleared
by the Office of Government Commerce as well. At that stage we
get the green light to go ahead and my goal is to report back
early to Parliament on the outcome of that analysis in the next
six monthly report that we present on the national identity scheme
as required by the Act. I completely agree that the quantification
needs to be set out. What I am saying is that following the review
that I am undertaking with the Home Secretary that is one of but
three steps over the months to come.
Q14 Angus Robertson: We will have
to wait to find out what the quantifiable benefits are.
Mr Byrne: I will come back to
the Committee to talk that through with you.
Q15 Angus Robertson: Just a slight
follow-up question in terms of quantifiable benefits or the intra-governmental
discussions on the subject you have just alluded to. The use of
such documentation also impinges on devolved institutions, and
you are probably aware that the Scottish Executive has already
said that ID cards will not be used within Scotland's National
Health Service, unlike plans that are being rolled out in England.
Could you tell the Committee what discussions you have had with
Scottish Executive ministers about how these plans impinge on
devolved areas?
Mr Byrne: During the development
of the strategic action plan I understand that there has been
engagement at an official level. I obviously speak to the First
Minister about immigration matters pretty frequently. As you know,
I was in Scotland not too long ago to talk about a whole range
of immigration matters, and before we finalise these plans we
will talk through some of those issues again with the First Minister.
The real opportunity though for the discussions is actually in
the months ahead because what the Prime Minister said in his press
conference is that once we publish the strategic action plan on
identity cards we then have to go through a process of understanding
in much greater detail how identity cards will be used in particular
parts of public services but also the private sector. You will
know that the Chancellor has got Sir James Crosby working for
him on how the private sector can exploit identity cards. I think
it is at that level when we get down to the detail of how the
applications of identity cards are going to be used that we really
need to be getting down to the levels of detail with colleagues
in devolved administrations.
Mr Hamilton: Minister, notwithstanding
the point you are making, I am getting kind of confused. You are
able to give a calculation on the increase in the costs that are
expected, both the running costs and indeed the costs coming through,
but you are not able to talk about what the quantitative measures
are and what the benefits are going to be. You never answered
the first question and that was how many people are expected to
come in? It was asked three times and you are still not able to
tell us how many people are coming in. What I am getting mixed
up with here is how can you get a calculation of a figure when
you have no other facts to back that up?
Q16 Chairman: You might also answer
the question which is contained in Mr Hoyle's scenario about would
it in fact obviate the scenario that people keep repeating that
people come in, destroy their passport or other documents, and
then claim they do not come from the country from which you know
they originated?
Mr Byrne: There is some virtue
in Mr Hoyle's thoughts. That is something that we are going to
look at early in the new year, specifically the issue of the copying
of documents. The issue it does not solve of course is that a
very large number of those for example who claim asylum, and whose
claims are then found to be unsubstantiated, are people who arrive
at an asylum screening unit in Liverpool or Croydon, and sometimes
they may have been in the country for some time, they will often
come without documents and it will be impossible to track them
back to any specific flight. They will often not tell the truth
about their identity or how they got in. What we have to do is
assess what kind of impact a solution like Mr Hoyle's would have
on a problem like that. It is something that we are exploring.
The issue with deportations though is typically not simply that
people will not take them back—and you could name a number
of countries—but those countries are asking for much greater
levels of proof that a national did indeed originate from that
country. That is why biometric visas are so important because
they allow us to biometrically document people when they started
leaving a country. The issue that that still leaves is the issue
of clandestine entry. Indeed, clandestine entry will always be
a challenge for an island. The work that we have done on exporting
controls to Calais has been extraordinary so the number of clandestine
entries in Kent, for example, has fallen very dramatically over
the last few years as things like heartbeat scanners and CO2 scanners
have been deployed out to Calais. The kind of systems we are talking
about are no substitute for those physical controls to track down
clandestine entry. On the issue that Mr Hamilton raised though—and
I make no apology for being upfront with the Committee—until
the strategic action plan clarifies priorities, I think it would
be inappropriate to undertake a business case which set out the
quantification of the different costs and benefits, and that is
why I want to be open with the Committee this afternoon and say
I do not think that these costs will be the final costs; I suspect
that they will move. Let me give you a simple example of why they
might. I do not think, for example, that the costs that were in
this letter have yet been fully tested in a scenario where we
bring together the work of the Identity Card Agency and IND, for
example. There could well be infrastructure costs over the lifetime
of this project which begin to fall. Again, I do not want to overstate
where I think the Government is in its plans—
Q17 Mr Hamilton: You are okay, you
are not overstating it!
Mr Byrne: —on costs, but
what I think is important is to sketch out the process that we
will undertake over the next two or three months.
Q18 Jim Dobbin: This question is
about departmental decision making and the delegated powers of
Ministers of State. In the letter which you wrote on 5 July to
Mr Hood, the then Chairman, you said that the benefits of the
Biometric Residence Permit project "are still subject to
departmental approval". That has confused the Committee.
I am just a mere back-bench MP and I am always in awe of the powers
of Ministers of State. I am in admiration of the powers you have.
The question is: whose approval were you waiting for?
Mr Byrne: There are three key
approvals. One is that the Home Office Joint Investment Board
has to approve the final business case. Either in parallel or
sequentially we will seek Treasury approval and OGC approval as
well. Where it says that the costs have not been subject to departmental
approval, I should have explained that more clearly by saying
that these are initial estimates of the cost of the project as
it was conceived back in late spring/early summer, but, until
the full business case is established, there will not be an investment
decision submitted to the Home Office board. When the Home Secretary
started, there were a number of issues that he wanted flushed
out on the ID card scheme and this was one of them. That is why
he asked for a fundamental review of the way the project is going
to be undertaken. That will be documented in the plan we publish
before Christmas, then it is the business case. At the business
case stage, we will get departmental approval—the different
approvals from Treasury and others in parallel—and then
we will report on the costs as transparently as we can to Parliament.
Q19 Jim Dobbin: Do we have a time
scale or approximate time scale?
Mr Byrne: My goal is for the plans
to be published before Christmas, for the business cases to be
completed and approved in the first quarter of next year or by
spring, and then I will need to double-check when our next six-monthly
cost report is due to Parliament. I think it is May but it may
be April. That is the time scale.
Jim Dobbin: Six months.
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