Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I shall begin by speaking to my Amendment 188. I appreciate the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and my noble friend Lord Harper. This amendment inserts a new clause to exclude illegal migrants and foreign criminals from GDPR provisions in relation to personal data processing by authorities carrying out immigration enforcement functions.

We need to be clear about the principles at stake here: security, accuracy and the rule of law. If we are serious about defending the integrity of our borders and our domestic security, we must ensure that those on the front line, our law enforcement agencies, have the full set of legal tools they need to do their jobs effectively. That is a thread that has run through many of our remarks from these Benches in Committee, for the important reason that we expect these organisations to protect us and to uphold the rule of law. We must do all we can to help them do that.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. At present, we are not minded to support Amendments 97 and 98. I entirely understand the rationale behind them and many noble Lords have spoken powerfully in support of them. The concern we have is simply an operational one, which was hinted at by my noble friend Lord Harper.

The operational implications of these amendments may be very broad and far reaching. It seems to me that they would create a practical obligation for the UK Government to deploy biometric collection facilities or personnel across multiple jurisdictions, regardless of cost or feasibility.

Clause 34 applies specifically to authorised persons, who are, in the definition of the clause,

“a person authorised by the Secretary of State”.

That could come at an unknown and potentially significant cost. Are we to set up biometric processing hubs in every conflict-adjacent state? The noble Lord, Lord German, stated that that could easily be done, but I remain to be convinced. My noble friend Lord Harper was very pertinent about this. If the Government are to support this, I look forward to hearing from the Minister what the logistical burden on government would be?

Amendment 99, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, is a probing amendment designed to understand which organisations will have access to biometric information for the purposes of exercising a function relating to law enforcement. It brings with it the noble Lord’s customary focus and expertise in this area. It is very welcome, and I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to set out which agencies will have access to this information to fulfil the demands set out in Clause 35.

I once again reiterate that we need to make sure that, in the technical solutions we are discussing on this fundamental issue, we are firm and robust in taking steps to mitigate and ultimately end the crisis of illegal migration, not exacerbate it.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions and echo the point that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, has just made. There is a common interest between His Majesty’s Opposition and us on that issue.

The important point about Clause 34 is that biometrics are required as part of an immigration or nationality application to conduct checks on the person’s identity and suitability before they come to the UK. That is a perfectly legitimate government objective and the purpose of the clause is to establish it in relation to the powers in the Bill, which aim to strengthen the Government’s ability to respond flexibly in crisis situations in particular, as noble Lords across the Committee have mentioned. The Bill provides the power to take biometrics—fingerprints or facial images of the applicant—without the need for an application to be submitted. That has had a generally positive welcome from a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the signatories of the amendments, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord German. It is important to recognise that.

The proposals in the Bill will enable the Secretary of State to determine whether the person poses a security threat—this goes to the point from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, which I will come back to in a moment—before facilitating their exit from another country. The Bill will ensure that the power to collect biometrics outside of a visa application process will take place only in tightly defined circumstances where individuals are seeking to leave a particular country due to a crisis or any other situation where this Government facilitate their exit.

Before I move on to the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord German, I hope I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, on the matter that he raised. Where biometrics are collected in connection with immigration or nationality applications, the police will be able to conduct their own checks against the biometrics captured under the clauses in this Bill. For example, the police currently have access to this data when the biometrics are enrolled into the immigration and asylum biometric system. They can then be washed against a series of police fingerprint databases, which include unified collection captured at police stations and other sets of images, including from scenes of crime and special collections, used to identify high-risk individuals. The noble Lord made this very point. This could be particularly important with individuals who have been involved in terrorism activity and appear on counterterrorism databases. The police make checks against the Home Office fingerprint database to help identify a person they have arrested and assess whether they might also be a foreign national offender. I hope the fact that those checks are undertaken will enable him to withdraw his amendment, based on that assurance. I look forward to hearing what he has to say in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, raised important issues and tabled amendments which aim to defer or excuse the request for biometrics from overseas applicants. As I have said, biometrics are normally required to be taken as part of an application to conduct checks on the person’s identity. As the noble Lords, Lord Harper and Lord Cameron, said, that is important for security.

In all cases, it is the responsibility of the applicant to satisfy the decision-maker about their identity. A decision-maker may decide it is appropriate for an application to be made at a visa application centre, or to enrol the biometrics to be deferred or waived.