FINGERPRINTING

HC Deb 11 January 1993 vol 216 cc677-95

Mr. Mike Watson (Glasgow, Central)

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 1, line 20, leave out from line 20 to line 47 on page 2.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: Government amendments Nos. 29 and 30.

No. 5, in page 2. line 3, at end insert '; except that no claimant or dependant under the age of 16 years shall be fingerprinted.'. No. 6, in page 2, line 3, at end insert '; except that the claimant of dependant under the age of 18 shall not be fingerprinted unless in the presence of their parent or guardian or social worker.'. Government amendments Nos. 31 and 32.

No. 28, in page 2, line 47, at end insert— `(11) Where a child under 16 years of age is an asylum seeker or is the dependent of an asylum seeker, an appropriate adult shall be present during the fingerprinting procedure; and an "appropriate adult" is a parent or guardian, advocate, social worker aged 18 or over and who is not employed by the police or immigration services'.'

Mr. Watson

Of all the clauses in the Bill, clause 3 is seen by Opposition Members and many outside as the most offensive. That is one reason why it was vigorously opposed and resisted in Committee. Despite some minor concessions squeezed from the Minister, which appear in the form of four Government amendments, the Opposition are no more convinced than they were when the Bill was first published that fingerprinting of asylum seekers and their relatives is anything other than a denial of basic civil liberties.

Amendment No. 4 offers the Government an honourable escape from the opprobrium that has been heaped upon them by the simple device of deleting the whole clause from the Bill. That would be the easy way out, although we do not anticipate that the Government will accept it, and it would go some way to easing the fears of a wide range of organisations and concerned individuals who have expressed their disgust at the relish with which the Home Secretary and his colleagues appear to wish to criminalise every man, woman and child who arrives on our shores seeking sanctuary.

It is no use the Home Secretary doing what his Minister did in Committee and consoling himself with the thought that fingerprinting is not a humiliating process or, as the Minister said, an unpleasant one. People associate fingerprinting with criminality in this country because hitherto only those charged with, or convicted of, a criminal offence have been forced to submit to it. When this odious Bill becomes law, the situation will be dramatically changed and, on a wide-ranging basis, fingerprinting will be carried out on every asylum seeker.

Opposition Members stressed consistently, both on Second Reading and in Committee, that the provision is not even necessary because the powers that it will bestow already exist. Under the Immigration Act 1971 and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, fingerprinting is carried out when an offence has been committed or, in some circumstances, when a person is charged with an offence.

I see that I have the honour of facing the Home Secretary this evening. I do not know whether he believes that all asylum seekers would be criminalised by the introduction of fingerprinting, but that is not of much significance. What is important is that those facing the fingerprinting process will feel that they have been criminalised, will feel guilty, and will feel that they have to prove themselves innocent when they arrive here. Perhaps even more importantly, the people of Britain will view such people as criminals because that is the way in which we customarily view those who are subjected to fingerprinting. Only rarely have people been fingerprinted and then not been charged with a fairly serious offence. That is undoubtedly how it will be perceived by the British people.

It may be that that latter point serves the Government's overall strategy which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said in the opening debate, has been aimed at characterising all applicants as frauds, scroungers or impostors. It is assumed that their applications are bogus. Only on rare occasions are people treated at face value when they arrive here. The situation will worsen dramatically once the Bill becomes law.

Any country that claims to be a democracy should be able to offer asylum seekers more than that assumption when they arrive at its shores. Neither I nor my colleagues have ever argued, either here or in Committee, that there are not some instances of people applying for asylum in a less-than-honest manner. Sometimes there are multiple claims. That has always happened. What we are talking about here is the scale of the problem. Our argument has always been that the scale fails to justify the knee-jerk reaction embodied by the Bill.

Furthermore, it comes nowhere near justifying the universal assumption of guilt being applied to each and every asylum seeker. I do not believe for a moment that much of this will make any impression on the Home Secretary or his colleagues. They have set out their stall clearly. Many of them were involved with the Asylum Bill that was debated last year. Their aim has been clear, and in Committee they have wavered only slightly.

This is a modest amendment in the face of widespread opposition both inside and outside the House. The latest event in that process is what we are seeing this afternoon, with the effective lobby organised by the anti-racist alliance, as a result of which many people were here lobbying their Members of Parliament. I am sure that Conservative Members felt the sharp end of the tongues of many who feel themselves and their families threatened by the Bill.

That process has gone on for several months and doubtless will continue even after the Bill is on the statute book. It is unfortunate that the Government have failed to take account of the widespread views of people, but once they have set their course, they sit back rigidly to fight rather than listening to the arguments put by others.

One of the minor concessions made by the Minister in Committee was his promise of what he called a "tighter form" of words in terms of who will be permitted to fingerprint asylum seekers. The wording is rather loose, with its references to other persons, apart from policemen, immigration officers and prison officers, being permitted by the Home Secretary to take fingerprints. We pressed the Minister strongly on that and, although Government amendment No. 29 clarifies the procedure and goes some way towards restricting those who can become involved, it is not clear what it meant. The amendment states that persons other than those to whom I referred—policemen, immigration officers and prison officers—are officers of the Secretary of State. However, all those people are already officers of the Secretary of State, and it is not clear why the other category is needed. I do not understand why it has to be left so vague. The Minister said in Commitee that he did not imagine that the practice would be applied widely. If that is so, why not restrict it to the three categories which, reasonably, have been included in some detail?

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Those who framed the 1991 Bill, when the previous Conservative Government were in office, did not seek to drag into the net of fingerprinting the relatives of asylum seekers. Yet this Bill seeks to cast the net considerably wider to ensnare the dependants of asylum seekers.

In Committee, my hon. Friends and I left the Minister in no doubt about the consequences of clause 3. Indeed, we highlighted in considerable detail the effect that it would have on children. I do not propose to go into that detail again because it would seem that we advanced our arguments to little avail. Some sympathy was forthcoming, however, from some Conservative Members in Committee. It is fair to say that some of them participated in debates on the clause. None the less, I regard the Government's concession to be of little value.

My hon. Friends and I argued in Committee that children should be excluded from fingerprinting, and we talked about children of certain ages. The Government's amendment does not represent an attempt to meet our arguments and it is clear that they remain resolute in their aim to exclude no children.

I find little solace in the Minister saying, in effect, that it is not the Government's intention routinely to fingerprint children. Under the Bill, any child who arrives at our shores can be fingerprinted if those who receive the child feel that that is necessary. The door that faces those who arrive in the United Kingdom is open far too wide. Unfortunately, the Minister's undertaking to produce an amendment to meet our fears has not been fulfilled. Government amendment No. 30 provides that children under the age of 16 years who are fingerprinted should be accompanied by someone who is termed to be a person of full age who is not an authorised person. That is a welcome concession, but it does not go far enough. It means that all children will or can be fingerprinted. It goes only part of the way to allaying our fears. Further, it goes only part of the way to meeting the commitment that my colleagues and I believe that the Minister entered into when he responded to the debates on fingerprinting in Committee.

The Government's amendment does not define who the accompanying adult should be. My hon. Friends and I and the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) introduced amendments in Committee which were considerably more detailed and referred exactly to who the accompanying adult should be. Under the Government's definition of who an "authorised person" should be in amendment No. 29, it follows that any adult apart from those referred to who happened to be passing at the time could, in theory, be asked by the officers of the immigration authorities to witness the fingerprinting of a child under the age of 16. The only people excluded are the officers of the Secretary of State. In theory, anyone else could be brought in as a witness.

Surely that is unsatisfactory. That is leaving aside Muslim girls and women who, due to their religion, could become most distressed on being faced with fingerprinting by a man or by being accompanied by a male person. If a child is to be accompanied, and if the provision is to have any meaning, the accompanying adult should be the parent or guardian. It should be a person who the child knows. At the very least, it should be someone who has experience of asylum legislation, of some aspects of social work care and of the feelings of children in what will be inevitably a distressing situation, quite apart from the actual fingerprinting.

We are disappointed with the Government's response. There must be some assurance that the person accompanying the child will provide some reassurance to the child. It should be someone in whom the child can have some confidence and feel able to turn to in what will be a difficult situation.

In contrast to Government amendment No. 30 there is amendment No. 28, which offers a much more useful definition of the sort of person who should be permitted to accompany a child in these circumstances. It should be made clear that the accompanying person should have some knowledge of child welfare and of asylum procedures. It is made clear in amendment No. 28 who the accompanying adult should be. The amendment is consistent with the views that were expressed by many Opposition Members in Committee. To provide that someone should be an authorised person and not to go any further fails to secure what we regard as the safeguards that are necessary to build confidence in a child. The Home Secretary must make clear why he feels that Government amendment No. 30 is adequate in that context. It would have been far better if children below the age of 16 had been excluded. That has not happened, and that is regrettable.

The impression that has been gained by my colleagues and I is that the Government failed to appreciate the situation that will face children who are fingerprinted. There has been no adequate explanation of why the Bill requires children to be fingerprinted when the previous Bill did not. The Government have failed to give serious thought to the awkward position in which they are placing children.

The Government are over-reacting in believing that it is necessary to go to such lengths. The provisions in clause 3 are distasteful. Our relations with other European countries may lead to certain obligations—in other words, we are seeing an alarming drift. I was not assured by the responses of the Minister in Committee about the exchange of computerised information that may take place on asylum seekers. It will become increasingly difficult for people outwith the European Community to enter any of the EC countries, and that is a matter of great regret. The clause cuts across what has been seen in some senses as a commitment by the United Kingdom to many parts of the developing world, not least those which were part of the Commonwealth.

The amendments highlight the Government's insensitivity to the needs of asylum seekers when they come to the United Kingdom and the Government's failure to grasp their obligations under international conventions. We debated at length in Committee the 1951 convention, which should be taken into account, and the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which would outlaw the taking of fingerprints if the Government were prepared to be bound by it in relation to the inhumane and cruel treatment that the convention seeks to circumscribe. It is not surprising that the Government have decided not to be so bound, but it is regrettable. We oppose most vigorously the Government's fundamental approach to fingerprinting.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley)

Much was said in Committee—the argument has been advanced again this evening—to the effect that fingerprinting is associated with criminality. But I was fingerprinted when my car was broken into. That was done to ensure that my prints were excluded from any others on the car. When my grandparents' home was the scene of a robbery, they were fingerprinted to exclude them from any possibility of being associated with the prints of those who broke into the house. There are, therefore, aspects of fingerprinting that are good, to which no credence is given by Opposition Members.

When I was in the United States last year I saw many children—they were accompanied by mums or other members of the family—who were lining up voluntarily to have their fingerprintes taken because of the rising problem [Interruption.] Perhaps hon. Members will agree to listen the second time around. They may learn something this time. Children were being fingerprinted because of the rising incidence of child abduction. The fingerprint records mean that such children can be traced at a later date. People thought such fingerprinting to be a good idea. In the culture of the United States—indeed; in our culture too—if someone has his fingerprints taken it does not necessarily mean that he has committed a criminal act, or even that people might think that he had done so.

Mrs. Roche

I have listened to the hon. Gentleman with great interest. Does he think that there is a difference between parents in the United States accompanying their children during fingerprinting as part of a voluntary exercise, and the horror felt by children who are fleeing persecution, civil war or torture and are confronted by figures in authority—however kind or benevolent—who insist on taking their fingerprints?

Mr. Evans

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her remarks. I have tried to show that the act of fingerprinting does not necessarily mean that the person has committed a criminal act. I recognise the trauma of refugees coming to this country, but surely having their fingerprints taken would be one of the least worrying acts that they will have faced during the past four, five or 10 years. People flee from their own countries because of persecution, so having their fingerprints taken in this country would be the least of their concerns.

I believe that the Government's amendment will he beneficial. In Committee many of my hon. Friends made known their concern that someone in uniform might, in certain circumstances, worry some refugees. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has dealt with that specific point and we are grateful to him for that. We have no qualms about his amendment. Opposition Members have blown the fingerprinting issue out of all proportion. Refugees coming to this country will have no cause for concern at having their fingerprints taken.

Mr. Maclennan

It would be ungracious of me not to acknowledge that the Government have moved some way towards fulfilling their undertaking in Committee to introduce an amendment to deal with the problem of children being fingerprinted. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) well described the limits of the Government's concession and properly drew attention to the doubt whether it goes far enough.

In answer to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), may I say that one reason why people have focused on the fingerprinting issue is that there is a much more widespread concern about the treatment of children in general under the Bill. During the Committee stage of this Bill and its predecessor, that concern was manifestly shown on all sides of the House, not least by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley and other Conservative Members. I confess that I had hoped that the Government would recognise the advantage of supporting young children seeking asylum and that they would move some way towards the appointment of an advocate or social worker to look after them during consideration of their asylum applications. I still hope that that matter will be considered in another place.

These amendments inevitably are confined to the issue of fingerprinting. I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central that the way that the Government have drafted their amendment would open the door to inviting almost anyone—perhaps a secretary in the next office who is not technically an officer of the Secretary of State—to witness what was being done. That is not what lay behind the original proposition. We did not want to ensure that the circumstances were regular in a purely legal sense; we wanted to ensure that a young person, who might well be fleeing from the circumstances described by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central, did not view the act of fingerprinting as a sign of hostility by those handling the case.

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A number of questions arise about the fingerprinting of children. The Minister said in Committee that he would consider specifying the locations where fingerprinting could take place. He said: It is easier for all concerned if prints can be taken in a variety of suitable locations by trained personnel."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 19 November 1992; c.194.] There is no amendment on the Order Paper to put that statement into practice. It would be helpful if the Minister said again that that is the intention and that fingerprinting will be done only at a number of properly supervised locations—presumably, ports of entry, the immigration and nationality department, perhaps Home Office public inquiry offices—and that they will be taken only in connection with asylum applications. None of that has been spelt out in the primary legislation. Perhaps it is not important that it is, but it should certainly be clear beyond argument that that is the firm intention and policy of the Home Office.

I prefer the wording of amendment No. 28, which was tabled by myself and hon. Members from both sides of the House, to that of the Government amendment. However, I do not intend to press my amendment over the Government's amendment—at least, not until the Minister has explained why he has chosen such extraordinarily wide language to meet the concerns expressed in Committee and why he did not think it appropriate to ensure that the person who is to accompany a child is supportive in some way, and not merely a witness to the event.

Mr. Corbyn

I endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) and the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). There are serious concerns about the fingerprinting of asylum seekers. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) portrayed a picture of lines of happy children in United States' supermarkets queueing up to be fingerprinted, having had the position fully explained to them. That may be true. However, in this country even when children are fingerprinted simply to eliminate them from inquiries—to protect them—they are worried about it. It has to be carefully explained to them why they must be fingerprinted. People allow themselves to be fingerprinted only with the greatest reluctance, even when it is in their own interests. The hon. Gentleman's example is not suitable as support for the case for fingerprinting children seeking political asylum. Most of them do not have English as their first language and they may not even speak it at all. Their only experience of fingerprinting will have been in extremely hostile and dangerous circumstances.

There is also the question why fingerprinting is being done in the first place. In Committee on both this and the original Bill, much concern was expressed about the effects of fingerprinting on children and why it need be done. The Minister's predecessor, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), said: Fingerprinting will maintain our system's integrity and help check cases where there is evidence of multiple social security claims … that is what it is intended to do."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 28 November 1991; c. 61.] Those remarks related to the original Bill, which fell because of the onset of the general election.

The new Bill has brought the return of the whole fingerprinting issue. We were told repeatedly in Committee that the purpose of fingerprinting was nothing more than to check against multiple applications for political asylum, yet when introducing the Bill the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) spent a great deal of time explaining that multiple social security applications were the real reason for it. He could not provide details, state their total volume, or confirm the level of fraud. Happily, that individual has gone on to do nothing and is no longer a Government Minister—for which we are all grateful.

When the hon. Member for Fareham made his statement in Committee, I believe that he let the cat out of the bag. While the real purpose of introducing fingerprinting is to check against multiple applications, with the very existence of that fingerprinting bank in the Home Office, what is there to stop the Home Secretary's friend, the Secretary of State for Social Security—after reading exaggerated stories in the Daily Mail and other newspapers—deciding that it is necessary to check on social security fraud and to introduce a little Bill giving social security inspectors the right to fingerprint people during the course of their investigations, to eliminate them from inquiries?

The public take their civil liberties and the fingerprinting issue very seriously. I doubt that they accept that the Government amendments go anywhere near meeting the wide range of concerns and opinions expressed on Second Reading and in Committee.

All that has been said in answer to criticisms from the children's legal centre and a number of other organisations concerned with child welfare is that a suitable adult must be present during fingerprinting. Obviously, that is better than no adult or independent person being present—but it would be even better if there were no fingerprinting of children at all.

At no stage has the Home Secretary or his Ministers said what will be the minimum age for the fingerprinting of children. We asked whether it would be 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, or 12 years of age—right down to children aged two or one, or even babies—but the Government were not prepared to state the lower age limit. Are we to permit the indignity of frightened children arriving in this country as asylum seekers being fingerprinted? That is on the cards.

I remind the House—perhaps the Minister will confirm this—that the fingerprinting provisions are retrospective. Some current asylum applicants arrived in this country three years ago or longer. I know of some applications that remain under consideration after five years. I do not complain about the length of time involved, because some applications require detailed examination and the collection of evidence. However, because of the retrospective nature of the Bill, those applicants—who arrived in this country long before the right hon. and learned Gentleman became Home Secretary will also have to be fingerprinted.

I hope that the Minister appreciates that we are unhappy about the fingerprinting provision and do not accept that the Government's amendments go anywhere near meeting our objections. First, children should not be fingerprinted. It is wholly inappropriate, disturbing for the children, and unnecessary. The Government have not convinced me or anyone else of the need for fingerprinting other than as part of the process of curtailing individual rights by the creation of a central fingerprinting bank that can be used for other purposes.

Even if we cannot defeat this part of the Bill, I hope that it will be radically amended or defeated when it reaches another place, or will subsequently be ruled inadmissible because the Government are a signatory to other conventions—such as the United Nations convention on the rights of the child—which prohibit them from implementing this particularly nasty undertaking.

Mrs. Roche

My hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) and for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) graphically described why the Opposition object so strongly to the Bill's fingerprinting provision. The idea of fingerprinting children is the most abhorrent of all.

I listened with interest to the description by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) of children being fingerprinted in the United States and of his experience of being fingerprinted in this country so that he could be eliminated from inquiries into a car crime. That was a perfectly natural and understandable use of fingerprinting of a kind that arises every day. There is, however, no way in which the hon. Member for Ribble Valley can equate those harmless instances with the taking of fingerprints of children arriving in this country in a traumatised state.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North said, the Government have not imposed any minimum age on the fingerprinting of children. If the Government win the day and the fingerprinting of children is done in our name, that will bring shame on us all. That is the reason for our series of amendments. I would like no fingerprinting at all, but if that cannot be done, there should be no fingerprinting of children.

Amendment No. 28 has cross-party support, including support from the hon. Members for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and for Chingford (Mr. Duncan-Smith). It seeks to ensure that if fingerprinting is to be undertaken, an appropriate adult—a parent, guardian, advocate or social worker—will be present. In Committee, the difficuties affecting unaccompanied children arriving in the United Kingdom were described. The numbers are relatively small. In 1991, 128 children aged 16 or below applied for asylum on arrival—when they are often traumatised by conflict in their home countries. They may have suffered torture or bereavement.

Local authorities face many difficulties in catering for their needs—not least because it is impossible to predict their arrival, or their linguistic or cultural background. My own borough of Haringey experienced a number of cases of unaccompanied refugee children and I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) and for Islington, North have had similar experiences of these cases.

Such considerations led to a certain amount of cross-party support for a panel of advocates with statutory responsibilities for befriending children who have been through horrific traumas and for ensuring that they receive appropriate and co-ordinated services. That would apply to children living in the community as well as to those in local authority care and would extend to representing a child's interests in the determination of the process.

Right hon. and hon. Members may have read in the The Guardian today a persuasive letter signed by a wide range of children's organisations, including Save the Children Fund, Refugee Council, children's legal centre, Barnardo's and the Association of Directors of Social Services. Many other organisations concerned with children and with refugees also support the proposals.

That letter points out that,

at the moment, asylum law in the UK makes no distinction between adults and children … A small change to the current Asylum Bill would remedy that … and would be of great benefit to an extremely vulnerable group of children. In Committee, amendments were withdrawn because the Government promised to discuss the matter with the Department of Health. Since then, we have heard nothing about the progress of those discussions. I should be grateful if the Home Secretary would tell us how they are progressing; as I am sure he will appreciate, there is a great deal of interest in and support for the proposal on both sides of the House.

It is often said, in the Chamber and elsewhere, that a civilised society should be judged according to the way in which it treats children—not only children who are British citizens, but children who come to this country traumatised, frightened and threatened by what they have seen and experienced elsewhere. That is why our proposal is so important; and that is why it is so invidious even to contemplate fingerprinting children.

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Mr. Kenneth Clarke

At least the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) made it clear at the outset that the main purpose of amendment No. 4—the principal amendment in the group—was to remove the requirement for fingerprinting from the Bill altogether. The hon. Gentleman rightly anticipated that we would resist that proposal: we believe that it would largely destroy the measures that we have put together to combat misuse of the asylum system.

Let me begin by addressing the main question: why we have decided that we must take this power to fingerprint applicants. Our straightforward aim is to establish a system whereby we can identify individual applicants. We need to establish the exact identity of people who present themselves—as people frequently do—with no documents at all, or with forged documents, to guard against multiple applications. Such applications may involve the same person applying in several different identities for the purpose of social security fraud—there is a substantial history of that and we have recently been tackling it—or the same person trying repeatedly, with a different story and in a different guise, to obtain entry.

If we are to establish the fair and proper system of assessing each asylum claim that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and I have described, we must first establish the identity of the applicant. Currently, nearly two thirds of asylum seekers at ports arrive either with no documents or with forged documents. In the second quarter of 1992—the latest period for which I have figures—46 per cent. of applicants had no documents at all, 14 per cent. had forged documents and 1 per cent. had mutilated documents. That represents nearly 300 asylum seekers a month arriving in the United Kingdom whose identities could not be satisfactorily established in any objective way.

The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) gave examples of why that might be. In our debates on the Bill, he has frequently given dramatic examples of escapes by persecuted people who felt the need to destroy their documents on the way. I acknowledge—as has my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State—that such cases can occur. I feel, however, that it is naive in the extreme to believe that nearly half the people who arrive at our ports seeking asylum have arrived there in the circumstances described by the hon. Gentleman. The fact is that the vast majority do not turn up in a particularly distressed condition, having either destroyed the documents in the course of their journey or handed them back to the agent who arranged their provision so that they can be used by another applicant. Given that, for one reason or another, those people have arrived with no documents, it is surely not unreasonable to provide a straightforward, foolproof way of establishing their identity once they are here.

Let me also remind the hon. Gentleman that a majority of applicants for asylum are already living here. They have entered the country on some other basis and, after they have been here for a while, have applied for asylum. Between one third and 50 per cent. of such applicants now present themselves without documents. The hon. Members for Islington, North and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) have described traumatised people fleeing persecution. Many more people who come here claiming asylum have destroyed their documents—frequently on advice—simply to throw confusion into the system, believing that that will somehow help them to extend their stay here. We need a method of distinguishing the traumatised people seeking asylum from those who have destroyed their documents as a device to extend the time that dealing with their claim will take, and fingerprinting is the most straightforward method.

Mr. Corbyn

Does not the Home Secretary accept that people destroy documents, or try to hide their identities, because if it is known to the authorities that they have sought asylum in certain countries, their families are liable to be taken into custody and may be imprisoned or badly treated?

Will the Home Secretary also concede that the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1987, which he supported, encouraged the use of agents and the spiv culture because of the fines that it imposed on airlines? Is not that Act the main cause of the problem—although it recognised the need for people to use forged documents in the first place?

Mr. Clarke

We never disclose to the country from which an applicant has come that the applicant has made an asylum application, precisely to avoid reprisals in that country. It may be that a small proportion of those who destroy documents—for some reason best known to themselves—fear that somehow the news of their applications will get back to their own country, although I do not know why they should believe that.

Although we cannot specify the exact figures, I think that the cases cited by the hon. Gentleman represent a small minority. We all know that people who come here in the knowledge that they have no grounds for entry according to the rules are frequently advised to destroy their documents on the journey and to leave the aeroplane or port saying that they are asylum seekers in order to cause confusion and delay in this country. We also have considerable experience of multiple applications—by which I mean either the same person seeking asylum in several different identities to substantiate several social security claims, or the same applicant presenting himself with a variety of identities and a variety of stories.

At present, 1,600 cases of multiple application are under investigation. So far, 11 convictions have been obtained for fraud against the Department of Social Security. In one investigation, 15 individuals were found to have used 76 identities and to have obtained overpayment of £80,000 in benefits. The main defendant pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. In another investigation, five individuals were found to have used 19 identities and to have obtained overpayment of £50,000. One individual, with his wife and two children, has been identified as the subject of no fewer than 54 separate files in various identities. I think that that establishes sufficient reason—even on the ground of social security abuse alone —for wanting to establish specific identities.

The Opposition propose no measures to protect against multiple applications. They propose to allow people to present themselves with no identity checks of any validity. Internationalism has become important. Under the Dublin convention, we have agreed that asylum applications will be dealt with by the country to which the first application is made. There is plenty of experience of people presenting themselves to different countries with different identities trying to establish different claims. Our partner countries in the European Community, all of which have the same civilised values as ourselves towards asylum applications under the Geneva convention, are moving towards fingerprinting.

All Community countries, except Ireland, have the power to take fingerprints. France introduced a system of fingerprinting all asylum applicants in January 1990. When France introduced its system it found initially that almost a fifth of the applications involved false identities. When the Dutch introduced a fingerprinting system they found that 10 per cent. of the applications were multiple applications. The Opposition ignore all that. All that they talk about are traumatised people arriving at our ports, terrified of the country from which they come.

We have already established that 19 out of 20 applications in this country turn out not to be well founded when investigations are made. I have now revealed that a fifth of French applications for asylum are made under a false identity and that 10 per cent. of the Dutch applications are multiple applications. What protection do the Opposition urge against that? None whatsoever. They argue that we should not have this protection because the very fact of taking fingerprints is, somehow, criminalising, an argument with which my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) dealt very adequately.

Mr. Allen

Oh, dear. We have just heard the press release that has been drafted for The Sun and other newspapers tomorrow. The minuscule percentage of people whom the Secretary of State quoted as defrauding social security have been discovered under a system that does not use fingerprints. The question that I have for the Secretary of State, who is a reasonable man, is this: let him imagine that he is being politically persecuted and is fleeing for his life with his family and that to get out of the country he must obtain forged documents, perhaps from dubious sources, and that other members of his family have perhaps acquired dubious documents. What would the Secretary of State then do on the aeroplane?

Mr. Clarke

In such a case, I believe that under our proposed system we would grant that person political asylum.

Mr. Allen

Would the Secretary of State destroy the documents?

Mr. Clarke

No, I would not. I know that to destroy the documents would be of no earthly assistance in obtaining asylum and would add nothing to my story. I believe that our system identifies those people and that they would be given political asylum. I am sure that occasionally we make mistakes, but the circumstances in which such people are returned to a country where they face persecution are few and far between. I have not encountered one such case during my comparatively brief period as Home Secretary. They are not typical cases. I know that there are campaigns when such cases arise. I well remember the Sri Lankan who was holed up in a Manchester church. Although he was passionately believed in by those who campaigned on his behalf, his case turned out to be total nonsense.

The fact is that 19 out of 20 applications turn out not to fall within the description just given by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North. We have had cases of multiple applications. There have been spectacular frauds of the kind that I have just described. Other countries with the same values as ourselves which have introduced fingerprinting have discovered almost straight away that there have been large numbers of false and multiple applications.

What defence do the Opposition offer against that? None whatsoever. They continue to produce arguments as though 100 per cent. of those arriving here are fleeing from dictatorships and that they are in a traumatised state when they arrive. I remind the hon. Gentleman that three quarters of them have not arrived from anywhere. They are living here when they make the application.

8.45 pm

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster)

The person to whom my right hon. and learned Friend referred was holed up in a Manchester church with the full authority of the bishop of Manchester and the curate. The curate went back to Sri Lanka with that person and found that there was no problem whatsoever. When he arrived in Sri Lanka the only people who met that person were members of the press—nobody else. He had no difficulties whatsoever.

Mr. Clarke

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am sure that, like me, she does not traduce the sincerely held views of those who supported that man at the time. I encountered some of them. They all believed profoundly that they were protecting this man against persecution. What they proved guilty of was naivety in the extreme, a naivety that is frequently repeated by Opposition Members. They have conjured up for themselves this picture of men, women and children arriving here after torture in a traumatised and shocked state. They refuse to take the slightest notice of what we say: that three quarters of those people are already living here and that they said that they were visitors or students before they even made their application. They take not the slightest notice of the evidence we have of multiple applications and fraud, although they concede that there are unpleasant agents who batten on to these people and tell them that they can get them here, if they take advice about how to make an asylum application. They take not the slightest notice of experience in other countries where fingerprinting has been introduced and has exposed multiple applications. They offer no defence against abuse. They present a naive and emotional picture of the applicants and then resist the procedures that we put forward to protect this country against fraud.

It is said that fingerprinting is wrong because it means that people are accused of having committed a criminal offence. It does not mean that, unless that is what they are told. Children in particular will not think that, unless someone has told them so, which encourages them to believe it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley rightly said, there can be few people in this House who have not given fingerprints at some stage in their lives. I have; my hon. Friend has. It depends for what purposes the fingerprints are asked. In this case it is perfectly clear to almost all the applicants that they are not being asked for fingerprints because they are being accused of a criminal offence but that it is in order to establish their identity when they—as the hon. Member for Nottingham, North says, for good reasons—have destroyed every other proof that they might have of who they are and where they come from. A system without any identity check has been proved to be porous in the extreme and not valid.

It is just possible that people will believe that they are being accused of a criminal offence. Therefore, we propose to present each applicant with a written notice explaining that they are not being singled out and that this is a routine fingerprinting test to establish identity and does not involve any allegation of crime. Without there being any serious suggestion as to how else to identify individual applicants and stop them turning up again using another name, or to stop them applying to every other country in Europe for asylum, using a different story, or to stop them making 10 claims so that they can have the benefit of 10 social security benefit entitlements, I believe that our system is the right one to adopt. The Opposition will not face up to the fact that there are such people who bedevil the system for genuine asylum seekers who will benefit, if we get rid of all this nonsense and have a practical system that identifies who they are.

Mr. Madden

What puzzles me and a number of other hon. Members is why the Home Secretary wishes to extend the identification to fingerprinting when his Administration introduced what are called standard acknowledgment letters that include photographs and details of each asylum applicant, including their dependants. That is an adequate safeguard against social security fraud and multiple applications for political asylum. Why is the Home Secretary so enthusiastic about going down the fingerprinting route? I suspect that he gave the game away when he said that this had already been agreed as a general policy throughout the European Community. That I think is the truth. Why on earth does he not admit it?

Mr. Clarke

We are under no Community obligation, if that is what the hon. Gentleman thinks. We are following a practice that other European countries have followed, bar one. It is the only foolproof way of establishing identity. Photographs are not so foolproof. I have just returned from a visit to our entry clearance officers in the Indian subcontinent. I have seen at first hand the way in which applications for entry clearance or visitors' visas are being handled. It is a pity that more people cannot see the process. The criticisms and fears that have been expressed about the way in which applications are handled would be considerably allayed if people could see the professionalism and care with which they are entertained.

I saw cases of multiple applications. I saw a case of a man who undoubtedly was applying under the second identity that he had used in the past two to three years to find a fresh basis for settlement in the United Kingdom. One of the bases with which he was confronted was his photograph. The man in the photograph certainly looked like the same man to me and it looked like the same man to the clearance officer. The man said that it was his brother, thereby seeking to disclaim the close resemblance between the man in the photograph and himself. Subsequent questioning about his relationship with his brother and everything else rapidly revealed that he was talking a lot of nonsense. He was not able to answer the questions in a way which correlated with the answers that his so-called brother had given about the family.

Such cases do occur. A photograph is not an adequate defence. Fingerprints are straightforward and foolproof. It is not the case that the very act of taking fingerprints in all circumstances implies an accusation of crime. That argument is used by Opposition Members, but they do not do themselves credit when they use it.

Mr. Nigel Evans

Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that most people, certainly my constituents who have read about these matters in the newspapers, would be appalled by cases such as those listed by my right hon. and learned Friend of people who have made multiple applications so that they can defraud social security, which costs the country thousands of pounds? Most people would wholeheartedly welcome the measures being taken by the Government to prevent such fraud from taking place in the future. The Government's measures will have the wholehearted support of the country.

Mr. Clarke

I do. I do not think that the support is confined, as the hon. Member for Nottingham, North always tries to make out, to the redneck reactionaries in the United Kingdom.

Opposition Members pay lip service to the view. Of course, they are against bogus and multiple applications. I doubt whether any Opposition Member would defend somebody who enters the United Kingdom with 15 different identities and makes 15 different social security claims. Opposition Members say all the right things about such applications because they know that the view is held not just by shell-back reactionaries. All sensible members of the public know that we should take steps against multiple applications and social security fraud.

Every time the Government table a proposition to deal with the matter, Opposition Members are against it. They retreat into a Mickey Mouse, make-believe world in which everybody who applies for asylum in the United Kingdom is a traumatised victim of torture who arrives trembling on our shores. In so far as traumatised victims of torture arrive on our shores, we give them political asylum. Opposition Members should face up to the common sense of having a system which protects us against other people.

Mr. Corbyn

Will the Home Secretary give way?

Mr. Clarke

Before I give way I shall emphasise, the extent to which the Government have tabled amendments to meet some of the fears expressed, although we think that those fears are exaggerated.

Amendment No. 29 clarifies the classes of person who will be authorised to take the fingerprints of asylum seekers and their dependants. The powers will normally be exercised by civil servants in the asylum division of the Home Office or by immigration officers at ports. In some circumstances it may be necessary for the fingerprints to be taken by a police officer or prison officer. The wording in the amendment, officer of the Secretary of State authorised for the purposes of this section makes it clear that only Home Office civil servants will be so authorised, occasionally together with police or prison officers.

We do not anticipate having to fingerprint routinely every child. However, there is no particular reason why a child of 16 or younger should not be involved in somebody else's fraud plan. Indeed, children are frequently involved in such plans. It is just as important to establish the identity of children who may otherwise be presented under a variety of different identities. If we simply excluded the fingerprinting of all people under the age of 16, as amendment No. 5 suggests, there would be the danger of deciding the exact age of a child, which could create difficulties in some cases in which there is no documentation. In some cases children will be presented in multiple identities with different fraudulent claims.

We are persuaded that it should normally be necessary for somebody to be present to protect the child if he or she becomes frightened or to give some independent oversight of what is occurring. Hence, we have tabled amendment No. 30 to meet some of the concerns expressed in Committee.

In Committee, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department undertook to consider including in the Bill a requirement for an independent person to be present when a child is fingerprinted. Amendment No. 30 incorporates such a requirement. The amendment is drawn in wider terms than the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland would like and an alternative amendment specifies rather more tightly the adult who should be present when a child is fingerprinted.

I accept that normally the child should be accompanied by the parents or guardian or, when a child is unaccompanied, a local authority social worker or a person from the refugee legal centre or some other suitable voluntary body. If such a requirement is prescribed tightly in the legislation, as the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland would wish, the effect could be that on occasions it will be difficult to give effect to the requirement or it will cause more delay while someone in that category was obtained. A suitable independent volunteer may be required on occasions, outside any tight definition that we could devise. Therefore, we prefer the wording set out in amendment No. 30.

In this debate hon. Members have expressed concern about multiple applications and possible abuse of the system, but those who oppose the Government have not tabled any serious proposals of their own. Fingerprinting is a straightforward way of ensuring that we know the identity of each applicant. The applicant can then have the case fairly and properly considered. No one has any reason to fear adverse consequences as a result of being fingerprinted by our officials in the United Kingdom when they seek asylum. I ask the House to support the amendments that the Government have tabled and to resist amendment No. 4 and the other amendments tabled by Opposition Members.

Mr. Corbyn

With the leave of the House, I would like to say that the Home Secretary has failed to answer two questions. He has failed to say whether the Bill is likely to lead to the extension of the use of fingerprinting to, in his words, deal with social security frauds. All the cases of multiple applications and so on which the Home Secretary has quoted at length have all been discovered without the use of fingerprints. They have been discovered only by the use of photographic evidence which is available at present on the standard acknowledgement form, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) said.

Secondly, the Home Secretary referred in a jocular fashion along with several of his hon. Friends to the case of Viraj Mendis. Many Opposition Members strongly supported his case at the time. He sought asylum in the Church of the Ascension in Manchester.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman

You were wrong.

Mr. Corbyn

We were not wrong, with respect to the hon. Lady. We were correct and honest at the time and we remain so.

Mr. Mendis spent 16 years in this country. He was eventually bundled out by the most enormous police phalanx I have ever seen in my life. He was dragged out of a church in the process. He spent a year in Sri Lanka. During that time he had to change his identity every several days. He had to go from hiding place to hiding place. His mother's house was surrounded by— [Interruption.] I do not know why the Under-Secretary finds this so amusing. Mr. Mendis' mother's house was surrounded by jeeploads of armed police asking for him and looking for him. He managed to escape and change his identity yet again. He sought another place of safety and sanctuary in another part of Sri Lanka.

Mr. Mendis spent a year of absolute nightmare. The reason why he survived the death squads in Sri Lanka was that he had international support and friends in Sri Lanka. Six people went from Britain specifically to look after him in Sri Lanka during that year. If he was not in any danger whatever, why were so many people and organisations in Britain and in Europe so prepared to support his case? He has now been given permission to live in Germany. Yet he was refused asylum by the British Government.

The Minister should be ashamed of himself. If he thinks that it was correct to deport Viraj Mendis from Britain, perhaps he will have the courtesy to read the information that Viraj Mendis has provided of his experiences during that year in Sri Lanka.

9 pm

Mr. Bernie Grant

The Home Secretary has not answered the points that have been raised by Opposition Members. He stated that in any event three quarters of applications for asylum are from people who are already in Britain as either visitors or students. If that is the case, presumably their identities have been established because they are living in Britain and attending colleges and so on. They are here legally. I do not understand how the Home Secretary can give that reason to support his case.

If the Home Secretary now believes that photographic evidence is not enough to support a case, whether for asylum or anything else, is he saying that people who provide photographic evidence to entry clearance officers to enter Britain as visitors or to settle will be required to be fingerprinted? That is obviously the import of what he says. I wish that the Home Secretary would answer that point. If photographic or other evidence is not sufficient to support the case of an asylum seeker, why should it he sufficient to support a case for settlement or to visit Britain?

Mr. Clarke

Photographic evidence in itself is not always conclusive. I am not sure what photographic evidence we are talking about. Obviously, a photograph is one proof of identity, but if one has a database, it is extremely difficult to check every photograph to discover multiple applications. The entry clearance officers in Delhi whom I visited had turned up this chap's previous application. However, it is not always easy to do so. If one is lucky, sometimes it is possible to do so.

It is the intention that eventually all applicants for asylum will have given their fingerprints so that we have a quick and foolproof way of establishing their identity. Any future applications by that individual will be dealt with in the light of the previous application. I see nothing wrong with that. As we all know, fingerprints are a foolproof way of establishing identity. It merely means that every applicant will apply only once. Whatever name applicants choose to give, we shall have some previous record of the basis on which they applied before.

A tremendous amount of froth has been worked up about fingerprinting by Opposition Members, but they are silent about how we should protect against multiple applications, which plainly take place on quite a scale. In the absence of any explanation of what the Opposition would do, I invite the House to reject their various proposals.

Amendment negatived.

Amendments made: No. 29, in page 1, line 21, leave out from beginning to 'may' in line 22 and insert an 'authorised person', that is to say, an immigration officer, constable, prison officer or officer of the Secretary of State authorised for the purposes of this section".

No. 30, in page 2, line 3, at end insert but in the exercise of the power conferred by paragraph (a) of that subsection, fingerprints shall not be taken from a person under the age of sixteen except in the presence of a person of full age who is not an authorised person".

No. 31, in page 2, line 44, after 'section', insert `(a)'.

No. 32, in page 2, line 45, at end add 'and (b) "dependant", in relation to the claimant, means a person—

1. (i) who is his spouse or a child of his under the age of eighteen; and
2. (ii) who has neither a right of abode in the United Kingdom nor indefinite leave under the 1971 Act to enter or remain in the United Kingdom'.—[Mr. Kenneth Clarke.]