Immigration Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The former shadow Immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), has been leaping up and down, so I will allow him to intervene, but then I will have to make some progress.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the Home Secretary. I want to raise the issue of EU identity cards. She is suggesting that landlords will be required to understand all the EU ID cards that guarantee somebody’s right to be in this country. One of the difficulties is that in Italy, for instance, it is not the national state that provides the ID card but the local authority, which can be tiny. How on earth can a commercial landlord be expected to understand all 444 different EU ID cards?

[Mrs May]

The problem with the argument that the hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members have been advancing in relation to landlords is that we already have an example of a system where people check the status of individuals: employers do that, and they are provided with support by the Home Office. Exactly the same will happen with landlords. The idea that this is something entirely new is completely wrong. Many landlords already ask exactly these sorts of questions of the people to whom they are renting properties.

Establishing the identity of illegal migrants is a further difficulty in the removal process. Visa applicants are required to give their fingerprints to an entry clearance officer before they enter the UK. Following my border reforms last year, the fingerprints of arriving passengers are checked to ensure that the person who has travelled to the UK is the rightful holder of the visa, but there are gaps in our powers to take fingerprints, and the Bill closes them. When the police encounter a suspect, they have the power to check fingerprints, but when an immigration officer encounters a suspected illegal migrant, they may check fingerprints only where consent is given unless they arrest them. Not surprisingly, not everyone consents. Officers need powers equivalent to those of the police so that when they find an illegal migrant they can check their fingerprints to confirm their suspicion and start enforcement action.