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Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for government Amendment No. 7 because it certainly addresses one of the issues that I raised earlier and I am content with the way in which it is now left. I want to make two short comments. One is in relation to Amendment No. 8 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay of St Johns and
 
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Lady Seccombe. I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, said about six years being too short a period in some circumstances. On the other hand, it seems to me to be highly desirable to have some limit on how far back one can search for information to go on the register. A number of outside commentators have made critical remarks about the open-ended time in terms of the history of each individual who is to be on the register, and I think that that needs further thought by the Government.

My other point is in respect of Amendment No. 10, also in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, and I declare an interest as Chancellor of Essex University. Again, I am happy that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, will think more about this matter—in conjunction, I hope, with the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland—because we have to do something about the constant movement of students from one accommodation to another. In the course of a four-year degree, one can easily have four separate addresses and that is a burden, particularly at a university such as Essex, which has a huge proportion of foreign students. It may sound trivial but I believe that it is an altogether unnecessary extra burden that everyone, including the poor old registrar, can do without. I hope very much that some formula might be arrived at in time for the final stage of the Bill.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I want to make one general point and ask one specific question. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her elaboration today of the explanation that she gave in Committee on 16 November and for the improvements that she has introduced in these amendments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, I am not entirely happy that we do not have a time limit of six years or some period because, even with the limited usage that the noble Baroness has described, I think that it will be difficult for people always to produce evidence of where they have lived, even without dates, for periods of more than six years. That will particularly be the case if they are asked to reinforce the story that they have told in order to provide what the noble Baroness described on a previous occasion as the "gold standard". I can see that some people living abroad might find it quite difficult to give satisfactory evidence or even to be certain themselves that they were being accurate, and they could then find their whole position prejudiced when in fact they were utterly honest and straightforward. So I am concerned and I am not entirely sure that we have the right answer.

My specific question comes from rereading the Official Report of the debate on 16 November. The noble Baroness is quoted as saying:

"We will prescribe the period for which we will ask for information on previous addresses as provided at paragraph 1(h) of Schedule 1".—[Official Report, 16/11/05; col. 1167.]

But there is no paragraph 1(h) of Schedule 1. I am not sure how this has arisen and to what the noble Baroness is referring. As she said a few moments ago, the regulations will come under Clause 12, and presumably any details that she sets out will come in
 
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those regulations. So I am not sure how paragraph 1(h) of Schedule 1, existing or not, has crept into the whole matter, and I should be grateful for clarification.

Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for the effort that she has made because I was going through a soul-searching exercise and thinking that I would like to know the names and addresses of all the places where I have lived. Those of us who have worked in international organisations and have been brought up internationally forget addresses very quickly. The noble Baroness has addressed the issue but I have certain concerns regarding the terminology. The word "resident" is used but it can sometimes be misinterpreted as "being resident" or "ordinarily resident" and it may get confused with one's original status in life. That causes concerns for people who have dual passports and international people.

Those who have worked in multinational or international organisations will often have been on secondments for a maximum period of two years. In some cases in my former group, the secondment was to the cruise liners, where effectively you lived for a period of time, often with no separate residence. The same would often apply to bachelors in the Navy, who would regard the ship as their home and would have no separate residence. I am not saying that there is any confusion but I should have preferred it if we had stuck to the phrase "where they have lived for a reasonable period of time" rather than using the word "resident".

This is a difficult issue because we will still have all the terrible problems that we read about from time to time in newspapers of a married man cohabiting in another house with someone else and denying that that is his permanent residence. I think that the problem of where people are came up when we originally looked at the poll tax. I am not suggesting that the amendment moved by the noble Baroness is not acceptable because she has really tried, but I think that all sorts of problems may emerge later which could cause individuals harm.

Therefore, I wonder whether it might be possible to define the word "residence" more accurately and change it to, say, "where someone has lived for a reasonable period of time". Whether it is six or five years does not matter. This also applies to multinational students—not those from some of the countries nearer to home but those from the third world and others, who often will not have a full address.

Once, in Cairo, I tried to produce a street map with addresses because there were no addresses. It was a case of turn right at wherever it might be—there were no traffic lights. That happens in many areas. The latest reports produced by the immigration people on a number of residents of the United Kingdom or those born abroad in some of the African countries show that they do not have addresses. I am not trying to
 
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make difficulties; I just want to point out that some issues which may appear relatively simple are not as simple as we would like to believe.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I found myself looking at Amendment No. 7 from the point of view of the person who was registering. Are the Government intending to have a fairly precise instruction regarding previous addresses? From conversations that I have had with people about the Bill, I have discovered that what worries them most is the requirement to give all their previous addresses. They say that they cannot remember what they were and they mention various other things, such as my noble friend has just mentioned. Do the Government intend to have a form with fairly precise instructions so that if people have to give much earlier addresses than others, they will know who they are and what they have to do? I think that that is important.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, I do not mean to cause difficulties; I am trying to be helpful to the noble Baroness—the listening Minister. Following what the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, said, I am looking at Amendment No. 17 which is in the same group. It is a definition in the general interpretation clause, Clause 43. It defines "place of residence" and "resides" and there is an amendment to that which says "and cognate expressions". Of course, it does not define the word "resident" itself, so that may need to be put in. I was not sure what a "cognate expression" was and I wondered whether it included "stayed" or "lived" but not "domiciled". I hope that it does not include "domiciled", or I can see problems with the tax authorities and much difficulty in getting people to register things, which is the whole intention.

However, my attention was drawn to the fact that all this is subject to regulations under subsection (10) of the same Clause 43, regulations defining what an address is. That has been worrying me slightly because under Clause 12 that would presumably apply from the moment the first person is added forcibly, when they are issued with a new passport, to the national identity register. That is the requirement to notify any changes. It will be an offence attracting a £10,000 civil penalty should one not notify any changes. Presumably that will affect people about two years after the start; otherwise the register will be out of date before the last people are put on it.

What is a valid address for the regulations? This needs to be looked at because at the moment the effort to bring together the Royal Mail postal address database, the Ordnance Survey address point database and the land and property gazetteers—there is the LLPG and the NLPG—has foundered under copyright problems. Suddenly people realise that there is value in the property rights and, with things being hived off to agencies, they cannot afford to lose value under company law. Equally, local authorities are always starved of cash. So, if they are sitting on something that might be valuable, such as the LLPG, they will want money for it. All that will have to be gone through and dealt with. Otherwise, how will one
 
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define a valid address? If someone does not know what is a valid address or it is made very difficult to define a valid address, some people will attract fines of £1,000 from day one. The first people on the register will probably be those with good addresses, so one may have two or three years in which to sort it out, but it is the wrong basis on which to proceed.

One also has to decide how one will define valid overseas addresses. I am just pointing out that in the regulations made under Clause 43(10), although they are not actually dealt with, one needs to start thinking about what will replace the national spatial address infrastructure. Otherwise, we will have complicated regulations and we really will not know how to register a Gypsy in a lay-by or a tramp in a barn or all sorts of other people who one would eventually want to register.

7.15 pm

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