§ Mr. Tony Banksasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will detail in the Official Report the names of persons appointed to the Board of the Port of London Authority (a) the organisation represented by each member, (b) the category of experience and capacity required by each member, (c) the respective dates of appointment or re-appointment, and (d) the respective dates of expiry of appointment; and if he will list the powers in each case under which he made the appointment.
§ Mr. David MitchellMy right hon. Friend appoints members to the Port of London Authority to serve the interests of the Authority and not to represent particular organisations or interests. The appointments are made under the Port of London Authority (Constitution) Revision Order 1975.
Those appointed must have had wide experience of, and shown capacity in, one or more of certain fields of experience specified in the Order, and at least one member must be a person with wide experience of navigation. The current members appointed by my right hon. Friend and his predecessors are as attached:
passport or a British visitors passport. The British Government very much regret the end of a scheme which has operated smoothly for nearly 30 years to enable British travellers to make short excursions to France without the need of a passport. In negotiations over the last nine months we have put several suggestions forward. If adopted, these would have involved the Government assuming reponsibility for printing excursion cards, which would then have been issued by carriers (or alternatively by post offices) against proof of identity. Excursionists themselves would have been subject to spot checks as to both identity and nationality by our immigration service. The French, however, have remained firm that beneficiaries must in future carry a form of identification in which both the identity and the nationality of the traveller is certified by the Government. Such a document cannot be issued quickly and with minimal formality, as is the no-passport excursions identity card. I am arranging for a statement of 5 May by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office to be placed in the Library of the House.