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Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am pleased that at least on this occasion I have given a modicum of satisfaction. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that the power to make regulations about addresses to be regarded as "places of residence" and "principal place of residence" is provided under Clause 43(10), as the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has just indicated. I hope I have made it clear that students will have the option of keeping on the register their home address or a term-time address or both. That will give them some security. Some students, as the noble Baroness knows, are fortunate enough to stay at one address for their three or four years of study, but some have to change all the time as the rent goes up and down and according to what they can or cannot afford. Therefore, there is some mix and match. These provisions have been cast in a way that responds to the reality of people's lives. We hope that it will meet that.
The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, is right to say that I made reference to paragraph 1(h). That referred to the paragraph on previous addresses under the old draft. It was paragraph 1(h). The Bill was changed to remove the previous addresses which will be recorded in historic information in paragraph 5(a). I believe that that is how the confusion occurred. If I did that at the wrong stage, I certainly apologise. I think that the Bill was actually changed in the Commons and not here, but I am unsure about that. That is the reason for the difference, though, if I may respectfully say so, it is a difference without a difference.
The noble Earl suggested that the penalty was £10,000. It is not—it is £1,000. I hope that the noble Earl will remember that on the last occasion when we debated this, I spoke about the ease with which we hoped addresses could be changed—the facilities of trying to do it online and making it swift and easy—so that it will not be too cumbersome or burdensome.
The noble Earl also raised the issue of "cognate expression", which means a variant of "reside", including "resident". It does not really affect "domicile". We think that we have alighted on the correct phrase.
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On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, we shall do everything we can to bring clarity, just as we do with passports. The noble Baroness will know that there are guidance notes to help one through that. Another advantage that we shall have is that there will be an interview to try to ensure that the information that goes on to the register is correct. People will be helped. The whole import of this is not to trick or confuse people; it is to try to get from them the just information that they will need to be able to identify themselves accurately in the future. We hope that that will be done sympathetically and that it will take into account the reality of the way in which people live their lives, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has described in the past. If one has a peripatetic existence, it is not surprising that one does not remember exactly all the addresses where one has lived. The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, gave us a graphic example of why that is the case.
We think that the amendments meet the situation. I understand the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. We think that the combination of the regulations, the guidance notes that will go out and the interview will enable us to achieve the correct balance. The amendments that I have tabled today will help us to do that. I absolutely agree with the concerns that were raised by noble Lords in the debates on these issues and that is why we have responded to them in a practical and pragmatic way through these amendments.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I shall certainly think further on what she has said about students. As she said, there is a choice. The only reason why I do not hold up my hands and concede at this stage is that I want to go back to the university and further education sector to check that they are happy. I suspect that they will be content.
I was interested in what my noble friend Lord Selsdon said about those from overseas not being able to give what we consider to be an address. I think we have referred to this before in Committee. One can come from deepest Darfur and not be able to give what is an accepted address here. I recognise that the Home Office has to deal with this with regard to those who seek asylum in this country. The information that the noble Baroness has given in Committee and on Report is such that, through the interview system, there should be a way of eliciting sufficient information to acquire the kind of corroboration that will stand up. We shall see if this works only when it is operational and we shall have to look at the reporting system then.
It may help the House if at this stage I state that after the dinner break I shall not move Amendment No. 31. It does not achieve what I had hoped it would achieve and I will not take the time of the House. That is a polite way of saying I have got it wrong.
I have also indicated to the Bill team that in the dinner break I will look to see if there is another group of amendments that I may not need to move, if I can
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get assurances on that. If that is the case, I will ensure that the Front Benches know before we resume. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment No. 8, as an amendment to Amendment No. 7, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment No. 7 agreed to.
Baroness Seccombe moved Amendment No. 9:
"( ) the number of any identity card with which he has been issued by another nation, together with the date and place of its issue;"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment inserts a paragraph into subsection (5), which lists what will constitute a registrable fact under this clause. This will include the number of any ID card with which an individual has been issued by another nation, together with the date and place of its issue.
The question of what information overseas visitors should be required to supply, and when, is central not only to the functioning of the scheme but also to the public consent in the scheme. I have no doubt that most British people think that the main purpose of the scheme is to control the activities of potential terrorists coming from abroad to settle here, and do not understand that short-term settlers are to be among the very few people not to be included. Indeed, Clause 2—which we will come to—is explicitly drafted to exclude these people. It seems an odd idea to spend billions of pounds—we should not forget that £10 billion would build 430 new secondary schools—to run a surveillance system of UK citizens while excluding short-term foreign visitors.
The schedule to the Bill implies that the register may record the number of a passport or identity card issued abroad, but should it necessarily do so? If any UK citizen who does not have a passport wants to leave our country—that will probably involve 600,000 people next year, rising to 4.5 million a year by 2008—is going to be made to attend an interview centre, be questioned for at least 10 minutes and be fingerprinted and photographed before being allowed to get out of Britain, then surely those seeking to enter our country must—not may—provide this basic information.
This is not being demanded from the outset. Can the Minister also explain how it will operate in the EU context? Three EU nations—Denmark, Latvia and Ireland—do not have ID cards. Is the Minister saying that Mrs Adams of Wolverhampton will, from next year, under government proposals, have to buy an ID card as a tax on leaving Britain if she wants to visit her daughter in Canada, but that Mrs Adams from Dublin will not be subject to the regime at all if she wants to visit London? I do not quite understand this logic. What exactly will be expected of overseas visitors, and EU visitors in particular, in what circumstances and when? I beg to move.
Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy with my noble friend but do not totally agree with her amendment. She is right, because she has raised an important issue in that nobody should be entitled to
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enter without proof of identity. We are aware of the number of people who have slipped through that net over the years. It is a matter of considerable concern. The question is therefore how that proof of identity, entitling a foreign resident or foreigner to enter the United Kingdom, can be converted into some form of data that may be retained on the national register. With that, depending on the length of stay which he has in the United Kingdom, might have normally gone the requirement that he should carry his national piece of identity, whatever that may be, with him at all times.
Within the EEA, almost all biometric cards that go with a passport will be relatively standardised. However, in other countries, the pieces of identification that I have had to look at when people have asked to open a bank account or withdraw funds run to something that was perhaps run under a hosepipe for month or sat under a camel. Proof of identity usually never has a number that we could relate to it. If we are seeking to collect the numbers of a piece of identification, we should surely have within that the place of origin and the date of issue. Surely, above all, it should have that proof of identity that was issued to an entrant upon the moment he entered the United Kingdom.
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