Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-26)
MR LIAM
BYRNE MP, MR
NEIL CLOWES
AND MS
PAULA HIGSON
6 DECEMBER 2006
Q20 Mr Hood: Minister, welcome. It
is always nice to see someone who is part of the Committee, a
colleague, to go on to better things and come back in a different
guise. You know from your association with former colleagues how
cooperative and how pleasant we are. We welcome you with open
arms.
Angus Robertson: You are in trouble now!
Mr Hood: Having said that, your letter
of 5 July contained a section headed "Benefits realisation".
I could not understand it. It says, for example, "We are
also employing a coordinated approach to benefits management with
the IAKS+ and UKvisas Biometrics projects". The letter also
referred to "business partners" but did not say who
they are; and so on. Please would you explain what the arrangements
will be to ensure that the Government actually achieves the expected
benefits as a result of this EU Regulation on Biometric Residence
Permits?
Mr Byrne: I must apologise to
the Committee for that. I learned many lessons on this Committee
under the chairmanship of Mr Hood but I do not think I remembered
all of them when I was signing this letter, particularly the emphasis
on lucidity. This means, in practice, that when the business case
is done in the first quarter of next year, we will set out the
key benefits that we are looking to achieve out of the scheme
and where we can quantify them we will. Obviously some of the
benefits will be things to which we can attach monetary values;
some of them will be more quantitative. It is important that there
are named individuals within IND, the Home Office and IPS who
are responsible for delivering those benefits. The benefits realisation
plan is the internal jargon for the plan which actually assigns
the names and steps and actions to delivering those benefits.
They are not benefits that the Home Office will achieve alone;
there will be partners we need to help us. When we refer to "business
partners" specifically in the letter, we are talking about
DWP.
Q21 Ms Clark: There is a concern
amongst the Committee that perhaps what we are seeing is an example
of gold-plating by the United Kingdom, that perhaps the way that
the Government has gone about implementing this policy is a very
sophisticated way of doing it which will lead to exorbitant costs.
Have you given consideration to how other Member States are looking
at this issue and in what kinds of ways are they dealing with
that, but, in particular, what the levels of costings are in other
countries and how they compare with what you expect the financial
implications to be for Britain.
Mr Byrne: That is a very good
question. If I may, I will drop the Committee a line with examples
of different schemes across the EU.[1]
One of the slight complications and one of the reasons why the
Committee might want to come back to this question is, as I said
to Mr Borrow, that the precise technical definition has not been
pinned down by the EU yet. The technical specification that we
are envisaging for Biometric Resident Permits is very much the
specification that we envisage rolling out for ID cards for British
citizens. That is a combination of things. It includes chips on
the card but it also includes database access because we think
issuing two different kinds of identity card will be confusing.
It will be confusing for the people who want to check the card,
so there is a virtue in adopting a single specification as quickly
as you can. I do not think it is platinum plating; it is more
a concern to adopt a single specification in Britain rather than
have a couple of different specifications running around and that
specification has been drawn up with a number of concerns. Some
of the concerns are about the security features that Parliament
insisted on during the passage of the Identity Cards Act. But
we are also concerned about making sure that those who will be
interested in checking the card in the future, whether that is
employers or banks or others, do not have to invest in lots of
different systems and different ways of working in order to check
these cards but are able to adopt just one system.
Q22 Ms Clark: I look forward to receiving
the letter but are you able to give us any information today in
terms of how other countries are looking at this issue? Are you
aware of the kinds of costings that we are seeing in other Member
States?
Mr Byrne: I am advised that no
other EU countries have yet developed specific plans. In a way
they may be held up by the fact that the EU has still to specify
the final technical specification. I know they have taken some
time over it. It is rather late.
Ms Clark: I will look forward to hearing
from you further. Thank you.
Q23 Angus Robertson: Minister, there
about 100,000 people who are issued with what is called a "British
subject passport". Those are people who were born on the
island of Ireland before 1949 but do not hold British citizenship.
Those people are finding, increasingly, that they are being turned
back from European Union Member States. Most recently Bulgaria
changed its immigration rules and people turning up with a British
subject passport are being turned straight back. This is a very
technical area, so if you were to say it is something you would
like to go off and look at, I would understand that completely.
On the basis that people will have to have ID cards and with the
issue we are looking at here today, I would strongly urge you
and your colleagues to look very closely at how people who fall
into this area are treated. A lot of them are unaware of the fact
that they are just UK subject passport holders because the difference
in the passports is almost negligible and it would seem to me
that in a changeover period like this it would be opportune for
those people to be offered something that would end the discrimination
that they are beginning to find.
Mr Byrne: If I may, I will drop
the Committee a line on that too.[2]
I do plan to go to Ireland in the not too distant future and perhaps
that is also an issue I can raise there.
Q24 Chairman: Thank you for that. Perhaps
I could ask you one final question. We wrote originally to your
predecessor and then to you because we were interested in the
development specifically of the European-wide Biometric Residence
Permit. We have a note from our clerk, apart from the letter you
sent, about the technicalities that slowed down the Brussels process
which is going for the incremental passport. We are told by our
officials that you are going to publish a document called The
Immigration and Identity Card Action Plan and the question
asked by Katy Clark is very pertinent. It appears that what we
are doing and what you are going to be publishing is not really
about something that you wish to see Europe-wide but something
that is focusing on a different agenda. Our inquiry has come out
of the inquiry about what is happening in Europe and your involvement
in that. Is it fair to say that what you are publishing is something
that has a lot more to do with a link in with the identity cards
process, regardless of what people think about having one or not
having one, and may not in fact be something that will then be
compatible with the system set up in Europe if they just set up
an incremental identity card system? We will have gold plating
to the extent that it will not be transferable across Europe.
Mr Byrne: The Biometric Residence
Permit is of course for third country nationals but we have always
been concerned to make sure that any solution we develop is very
much in line with the EU regulations, which is why the regulations
as they exist at the moment, even though the precise technical
specifications have not been nailed down, provide, if you like,
the envelope for the specification that we have looked at for
the ID Cards Act. You are right to say that we will be taking
forward our plans for Biometric Residence Permits in line with
our plans to introduce ID cards. Regardless of what people think
about that, I just think it makes a lot more sense. If the specific
concern is a concern about interoperability with European citizens,
then I think I can set the Committee's mind at rest because we
have worked very closely with EU colleagues on this question.
At the same time, I think it is right that our plans for Biometric
Residence Permits are developed absolutely in line with plans
for ID cards. I do not think we should be introducing different
identity documentation for British citizens from that for foreign
nationals. I think there are good business reasons and there are
good political reasons and good financial reasons for running
the system off the same structure.
Q25 Chairman: It started with £24
million and it rose by an additional 140% to £60 million
in the last estimate that we received just for the production.
The running costs went up by over 200% from £15 million to
£56 million. You hinted that these would be re-estimated
and may in fact go upwards.
Mr Byrne: Revised, I said.
Q26 Chairman: May go upwards. I wonder
whether we then turn in a scheme, the costs of which do not reflect
any actual benefits across Europe if you are then asking other
countries to produce systems at similar exponentially increasing
costs. It is certainly of use to us if we bring in an identity
card system but it may not necessarily be affordable across Europe
if they are going to have the same standards. If that is the kind
of increase in costs we are talking about, that does seem to be
a frightening cost-benefit scenario.
Mr Byrne: There are a couple of
points about the standards. The regulations obviously changed
between 2003 and 2006. That was, for example, why we were required
to look at options like putting chips on a card and that kind
of thing, which obviously when you are embedding microprocessors
on bits of plastic as opposed to issuing vignettes as part of
the passport there are obviously going to be quite significant
cost differences, particularly if you already have an infrastructure
that is set up to issue vignettes. You would need to acquire new
infrastructure for issuing cards and embedding microprocessors
in them at volume. That will be something that I think is an issue
across the EU. There are benefits that come with it. The cards
and chips need to be produced to what is called ICAO standards,
which are international travel organisation standards. I do not
think there are big issues about interoperability or costs in
this country being out of line with the rest of the EU. We may
end up going slightly further than the EU regulations—although
we cannot know that until they have written them with the precision
that has been asked for—by making sure that we have a biometric
record of the individual on our own database. We just think that
in today's economy that is important because it allows us to check
an individual's identity not merely against a card but a centrally
held record on a Government database. Our view is that that gives
us a level of authenticity and certainty that is worth the price.
But your fundamental point about the need of the Government to
demonstrate the cost-benefit analysis is absolutely right. That
is why my concern has been to get a plan in place first, on which
a business case can be developed and a report then submitted to
Parliament.
Chairman: Thank you, Minister, for a
very thorough session. We, I am sure, are all looking forward
to having a copy of the Immigration and Identity Card Action
Plan in our Christmas stocking!
1 See Ev 7 Back
2
See Ev 7 Back
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