To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 17 December 2007, Official Report, column 1165W, on airports: security, whether photographic security procedures applied to people travelling to Belfast from UK airports are applied to passengers travelling to other UK destinations in an identical manner. (178581)

[holding answer 14 January 2008]: As the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), stated in his answer on 17 December 2007, the aviation security measures in place in the UK apply equally to all airports within the National Aviation Security programme.

Separately, the police require airlines to present passengers in a manner that would prevent any attempt to evade police scrutiny. To meet this requirement a number of airports across the United Kingdom have deployed digital imaging to ensure that the passenger who actually boards the aircraft is the same passenger that checked in. Digital imaging has been determined as the least intrusive method of meeting the police requirement, but there may be some variation in practice between airports.