Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2023

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2023.

My Lords, the order, laid before the House on 7 December 2022, is required to enact one very minor change to the legislation which sets out the form and manner by which leave to enter the United Kingdom is granted and refused. It will amend the eligibility criteria for people seeking to enter the United Kingdom via an automated e-passport gate, or e-gate, so that eligible, accompanied children as young as 10 may do so. The lower age limit in the present instrument is 12.

This statutory change is needed to enable a limited trial to take place in the February half term, which will examine whether the lower age limit for entry via an e-gate should be 10 years, rather than 12, moving forward. We hope that this will have the effect of accelerating the passage through the airport of families with children aged 10 and 11. In order to carry out the limited exercise—the pilot—it is necessary in law to first pass this order.

The proposed proof of concept exercise will take place, as I said, in the February half term. It will be limited to three airports: Stansted, Heathrow terminal 5 and Gatwick’s north terminal. Once completed, the Home Office will make an assessment of whether the lower age limit of 10 should be more widely adopted.

The Government’s ambition for our future border involves making maximum use of automation. The majority of passengers will routinely cross the UK border using automation as their only point of contact. Indeed, this ambition was set out in last year’s New Plan for Immigration strategy, in which the proposed proof of concept involving younger passengers was made public. Increasing, in a controlled manner, the number of passengers eligible to use an e-gate is a logical next step.

Noble Lords will be aware that some form of automation is already used by large numbers of people passing through the UK border. Indeed, there has been significant widening of the pool of nationals eligible for e-gate entry in recent years. The e-gates started in 2008 and there has been progressive expansion. A previous amendment to the 2000 order in May 2019 extended e-gate eligibility to visitors from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States of America.

My Lords, I recognise that this is a very small change to the legislation but I am of course tempted to stray into other immigration and right-to-remain areas. However, temptation is not necessarily the best way of approaching this order so I will stick to the instrument before us.

The first thing I want to say is that I have just returned from a parliamentary delegation. My delay was such that I was not able to find any transport whatever from Heathrow Airport; I would have had to sleep on the floor had I not been able to take a taxi. The reason for that was the snaking queues. If you extend the eligibility, which is a reasonable thing to do, you must have a sufficiency of e-gates. Clearly, there are insufficient numbers at Heathrow. This happened late at night but it could have been early in the morning, or whenever; I have experienced the queue being quite extensive probably three or four times in the past five months. Extending the queue by giving more people this opportunity does not solve the real problem, which lies in an insufficiency of e-gates.

There are a number of related questions about children. I have observed them queueing with their families to get through on a separate basis. I have also observed people who are elderly or need support being helped by a family member to make sure that they put their passport in the slot and withdraw it in the right way. It is not easy to do that. The main support that was given was having an official standing by who could tell people exactly what to do. I wonder whether there are sufficient staff to handle an increased number, given the difficulties already being experienced.

It is likely that, when people put their hand on their passport and put it on to the reader, it will not work the first time. I have never had a reader work with mine the first time—well, perhaps once. It has always been after two, sometimes three, attempts. That is nothing to do with me because my hand is in the same place and it is the same passport. I have never understood why it fails each time then, on a subsequent occasion, putting it through works. That may be the technology; it has worked on the first occasion in other countries but not here in the UK. I have no idea why that is.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful introduction to this order. Like the noble Lord, Lord German, I think there are a number of questions of detail that we need to ask and put on the record to ensure that, when the order goes forward, we are all clear about what it means and how the pilot will operate. Although it is a small change to the rules, it is a significant and important one. The pilot, if agreed, will require very careful monitoring.

At the heart of this is safeguarding children. That is everything, particularly when we are talking of very young children at the age of 10. Children aged 12 are obviously young, but we are entering the realms of quite young children who will be able to pass through e-gates at borders, so I was pleased that the Minister talked about the pilot testing whether that age is appropriate.

The Minister does not need the Committee to remind him of the risks of children being trafficked, smuggled, victims of forced marriage or moved illegally in any way. We must not do anything, even inadvertently, that helps or increases the risk of that. With that, I have a number of questions for the Minister.

Why has the age of 10 been chosen? Why not 11 or nine? It sounds like a silly question but, somewhere along the line, somebody has to decide the appropriate age. Can the Minister say why 10 was chosen? As the noble Lord, Lord German, asked, was it to do with height or some sort of assessment of the cognitive ability of a child at a particular age?

What is important, and what I do not totally understand from the Minister’s remarks or from reading the Explanatory Memorandum, is whether we are talking of accompanied children only. We need to be reassured that we are not talking of unaccompanied children in any sense, only children with families, because we should not expect a pilot in which any child who is not accompanied is able to pass through. It may be that this requires a simple yes, as this is for accompanied children only, but it is important to put that on the record.

Presumably this is aside from school trips, on which children are accompanied differently. I am not trying to be flippant, but has any thought been given to what accompanied means for school trips? Many of us know, from parents or teacher friends, that significant ratios are used. It would be helpful to know that. Again without being flippant, if the ratio were 1:100 for a child to be regarded as accompanied, that probably would not be appropriate. Somewhere along the line, some thought must be given to what an acceptable ratio is. That should be thought about.

Can the Minister confirm how long the pilot will last and whether there will be an interim assessment? If it lasts for a year, two years or three years, but it is obvious after six months that serious risks are emerging and the Border Force is informing the Home Office of them, the pilot clearly needs to stop before then. We would not want to get to the end of two years when we had realised that there was a real problem within a few months. Can the Minister reassure us on that?

The Minister said this would be trialled at three airports. How were they chosen? I share my ignorance, if this is ignorance, but I am not sure about the use of e-gates at seaports and whether any of them have e-gates. Information seems to be coming to light that there are no e-gates at ports, but looking forward there may be. This is for airports, but thought needs to be given to how this will work for seaports. Will there be any difference? This is quite helpful, because I did not know that there were no e-gates at seaports. I do not know whether I am the only ignorant person here, but it would be interesting to know how the three airports were chosen.

Given the open land border between the EU and Northern Ireland, are there any arrangements to be made for accompanied children arriving from Northern Ireland into any of those three airports? Have any special thoughts been given to monitoring that?

The Minister has talked about—we also see it in the guidance—the importance given to the training of border staff. That is very welcome. Can he reassure us that this is well under way—indeed, almost finished—given that I read in the Explanatory Memorandum that it comes into force seven days after the passing of the order? I think this is being discussed in the other place next week so, in two weeks, this could be in place in the three airports that the Minister mentioned. Are we certain that each of these three airports will be ready in two weeks’ time, or whenever it starts, and will have had all the training to operate the new system? Although it comes into force in two weeks’ time, can the Minister reassure us that, if the assessment is made that it is not ready, we will wait a few weeks to make sure that all the appropriate guidance has been given?

When the pilot ends in a couple of years—it is two years, I think—will this order give the Government the ability to take the decision then to extend the pilot and roll it out nationally, or will the Minister have to come back to Parliament to get it approved? In other words, will there need to be a further order to extend the rollout nationally, or will the order we are passing today give the Government the power to do that upon their assessment that there has been a successful completion of the pilot?

The Government say that, to use an e-gate at the border, you currently need to be not only the required age—that is, 10 years old—but “of an eligible nationality”. Again, this may be an obvious question to those who follow all this, as I try to, but can the Minister say something about what the eligible nationalities are? Is anybody excluded from this because they are not an eligible national? It would be quite helpful to know what “eligible nationality” means.

There are a number of questions there; I am sure a number of others may well arise when the other place considers this. We must remind ourselves that we are being asked to allow children as young as 10 to pass through e-gates without the direct authorisation of an immigration official. Although there will not be direct supervision of the children passing through the e-gate, does the Minister expect there to be an increase in overall supervision in these three airports?

In the Explanatory Memorandum, the Government say that we need to