The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)

I am grateful to noble Lords for commencing this afternoon’s consideration and for the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Before addressing the points made by noble Lords on their own amendments, I just want to point out government Amendment 96 to Clause 33 in this group, which I will come back to in a moment. I will begin by addressing the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, which have been reflected elsewhere. He may know that during the passage of what is now the Modern Slavery Act, we as the Official Opposition and I as the then shadow Immigration Minister moved amendments. I do not need to see—with due respect now—a 10-year-old photograph of us to reflect on that, but if he wishes to pass it to me, I may have to. In the immigration White Paper, we have made specific reference to Kalayaan and domestic workers, and I will reflect on those points as we go through. We want to look at the visa rules to ensure that they are operating fairly and properly. It is not related directly to the amendments before us today, but I just wanted to place that on the record again for the noble Lord. Government Amendment 96 in my name does indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord German, said, amend the consultation requirements in relation to the Secretary of State’s powers to make regulations about the purposes related to policing in connection with the trailer registration data that may be used by the police and onwards shared by the police and the Home Office in accordance with the provisions of Clauses 30 and 31 of the Bill. Clause 33(8) creates a power to make police regulations to specify the purposes related to policing and, as currently drafted, the clause creates a duty to “consult such of the following persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”, and lists Scottish Ministers, the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland and police representatives.