Lord Davies of Gower (Con)

My Lords, the Minister will be delighted to hear that His Majesty’s Official Opposition do not oppose this order, and I am grateful to the Minister for bringing it before the Committee. Families travelling through our major ports during the school holidays will know only too well the frustrations of lengthy queues. As the Minister outlined, this order extends e-gate eligibility to eight and nine year-olds who hold biometric passports for eligible nationalities. The Government anticipate that an additional 1.5 million children per year will be able to pass through automatically as a result of this change. That is very welcome. It will ease pressure at peak times and, crucially, it will free up our Border Force officers to focus where they are most needed: on complex cases and genuine security risks. This is a sensible rebalancing of resources. I would like to make a few points and press the Minister on the safeguards that have been put in place. What measures will the Government adopt to ensure that the new lower age limits will not be open to abuse? Will the Government maintain a strong presence of Border Force staff at all points of entry? It is also very important that the implications for child safeguarding are carefully considered. That matter has already been alluded to, and I know that the Minister mentioned it in his opening speech. Can the Minister guarantee that unaccompanied under-18s will still be directed to Border Force officers? I note that, at certain peak times, the e-gates in airports can be very busy. Obviously, where this is the case, lowering the age limit for e-gate use will not help speed up the arrivals process, so are the Government giving any thought to other measures that could help ease passenger congestion at particularly busy times? Finally, it is important that this policy be reviewed at regular intervals and that the Home Office is rigorous in its annual monitoring of these safeguards as the policy beds in.